Books set in Latin America

Interested in learning more about the countries we’ve traveled through over the past 3 years?

Read some of the books from my list below!

As part of my efforts to understand each country better as we’re traveling through, I follow local news online, read up on the history and politics, talk to local families, AND read books that are set in each country.

Here’s what I read over the past 3+ years, as we passed through each of the following countries. Enjoy!

• Mexico:
  • The Line Becomes a River – written by US border patrol guard who is grandson of a Mexican immigrant. (See also Honduras section about kids undertaking dangerous journey from latin america to the US)
  • American Dirt / Tierra Americana by Jeanine Cummins – follows story of a Mexican mother and son from Acapulco making the difficult journey to the US, after their whole extended family is murdered by a drug cartel
  • Cómo agua para chocolate Laura Esquivel (read in Spanish but available in English, Like Water for Chocolate) – love story with side line of woman’s love causing near magic in her cooking
  • Tortillas and peanut butter by Linda Sonna – US woman moves to Mexico to raise her kids – funny commentary on expat life, dealing with bureaucracy, smuggling things across the border (written partly by the mother who moved, and partly by the daughter who was raised there)
  • On the Plain of Snakes by Paul Theroux – author travels along the length of the US / Mexico border. Part travel memoir, part history lesson, focused more on the border towns than on Mexican culture. It has interesting passages but is somewhat long winded. I got bored and stopped reading it (a rare thing for me!)
• Belize: Belize, A Novel by Carlos Miller – interesting fictional story about a man and his sons living in Belize in the 1960s
• Guatemala – I, Rigoberta Menchu: An Indian Woman in Guatemala co-authored by Rigoberta and Elizabeth Burgos – Educational and captivating read about indigenous people during civil war in Guatemala, mostly first-hand accounts of her personal experiences
• Honduras:
  • La Travesia de Enrique by Sonia Nazario – woman traces the steps of one of the thousands of kids who try to immigrate to the US from Honduras. Lots of first-hand and second-hand accounts of the circumstances that lead kids to do this, and the dangers of the journey, plus a good amount of research & statistics about the situation. (I read in spanish but also available in english Enrique’s Journey)
  • Lost city of the monkey god by Douglas Preston – author joins a team in discovery of an ancient city in Honduran jungle, in spite of superstitious curse, but when returns home discovers that all of them have contracted a deadly disease which he is still dealing with today
• Costa Rica:
  • Where Tapirs and Jaguars once roamed by Jack Ewing – about author’s experiences saving local wildlife in Costa Rica (and we met him when we were there!)
  • Happier than a Billionaire by Nadine Pisani – she moves from the US to Costa Rica and lives happily ever after – easy & funny read about expat life in CR
  • Costa Rica chica – simple little read about a couple ditching their jobs to move to CR
• Colombia:
  • The girl with no name by Marina Chapman – amazing true story of a kidnapped girl who escapes and lives in the jungle for several years with monkeys, then on the streets. Incredible story!
  • Love in the time of Cholera by Gabriel García Márquez – very long winded & weird love story
• Ecuador:
  • The Queen of Water by Laura Resau – really good read, true story of an indigenous girl taken away from her family to be a servant but eventually going to school and being successful, interesting commentary on the mix of cultures
  • Galapagos by Kurt Vonnegut – interesting, silly fiction story about a future world where humans have evolved into water creatures
  • In the shadow of the volcano by Maureen Klovers – memoir of US woman going to teach kids from slums near Quito
  • That bear ate my pants by Tony James Slater – funny and entertaining memoir of an English guy volunteering at a monkey reserve – he has a heart of gold but is accident-prone
• Peru:
  • The Gold Eaters by Ronald Wright – great historical fiction about a boy growing up through pre-Inca to Inca to the arrival of the Spanish. My favorite read about Peru – educational and entertaining to boot.
  • Life & Death in the Andes by Kim MacQuarrie – great collection of stories about countries throughout the Andes.
  • Turn right at Machu Picchu by Mark Adams – he retraces the original expedition that discovered Machu Picchu, led by Hiram Bingham – interesting but too much detail of the original trip archives from 1911
  • Trail of Feathers by Tahir Shah – guy traveling around Peru searching for the evidence/stories that the Incas could fly.
• Bolivia –
  • Marching powder by Rusty Young & Thomas McFadden – true story about Thomas McFadden, a convicted English drug trafficker who ran tours inside Bolivia’s notorious San Pedro prison.
  • Jungle: A Harrowing true story of survival in the Amazon by Yossi Ghinsberg – true story about a man lost in the Amazon – intense & captivating read! (& now a movie)
  • I was also recommended the following books, but they weren’t available on kindle: Valley of the Spirits: A Journey Into the Lost Realm of the Aymara by Alan L. Kolata, and Mask of the Andes by John Cleary
• Chile –
  • The House of the Spirits by Isabel Allende (tried in Spanish but too hard!) – partly fantasy, partly historical fiction about a country experiencing government & civil unrest, likely Chile but she never mentions a name of a country. Bit too fantastical/magical for me.
  • (I was also recommended Travels in a Thin Country but was so briefly in Chile that haven’t read it yet)
• Argentina – The Little School: Tales of Disappearance and Survival by Alicia Partnoy & Julia Alvarez – very short book about the author’s experience being kidnapped and tortured and barely surviving the military dictatorship in Argentina in the 1970s

And HERE is my list of inspirational books written by people who made significant life changes – dropping out of grad school to go live in Bhutan, sailing around the world after only one lesson, throwing away a fancy job in NY to start a farm, and many more true stories!

Mary & Lilly reading at a wild camp spot on the shore of Mono Lake – just before we started driving South in 2017!

Almost exactly 3 years later – Mary & Lilly reading during Winter at our temporary rental home in Argentina in 2020: