BootsnAll Travel Community

Any suggestions out here for a good novel to take to Central America? Or something non fiction-not a giant tome?
thanks!

'The Full Montezuma' by Peter Moore was an entertaining read about travels in Central America. Some people find his writing to be trite and obvious -- but I enjoyed his style.

'Green Dreams' by Stephen Benz was engaging.

'In Search of Captain Zero' by Allan Weisbecker is great stuff.

You might really like 'Hummingbird House', by Patricia Henley. About a midwife that goes to Central America to try to help provide health care to impoverished women -- though technically fiction, it reads like a diary.

Several years ago I read a great book that may be hard to find at the moment -- 'La Mujer Habitada' by Gioconda Belli. (It may also be called 'The Inhabited Woman.') It has a magical realism quality to it -- not unlike Laura Esquivel's 'Like Water for Chocolate.'

Belli has written several other books, including a memoir called 'The Country Under My Skin,' about living in Nicaragua and joining the Sandinistas. This book offers a great counter point to the fiction of her other works and a real life understanding of the goings-on of Central America that is not particularly well understood by the average American.

I found one of the books by Belli-thanks. It's perfect.
I don't suppose you have suggestions for any books by authors from Panama?(Going there too...)
gigirtw
http://blogs.bootsnall.com/gigirtw

I really liked 'The Sack of Panama' by Peter Earle...but I am a little obsessed with stories of pirates, and this is more about Captain Morgan and his, ahem, zeal, than it is about coming to a better feel for the country. Though one would certainly have a better appreciation for the delicate nature of colonialism in South and Central America at that time -- Morgan being only one of many to artfully exploit those efforts.

I flipped through an interesting book about the Kuna Indians of Panama recently -- it collects songs, stories and myths combined with really lovely drawings.... 'Stories, Myths, Chants and Songs of the Kuna Indians' by Joel Sherzer. Check it out if only to read 'The Turtle Story' as told by the Chief of the tribe. Really fantastic stuff.

Found the one by J. Sherzer. Fantastic! Thanks Amazing, you really are...amazing!gigirtw

Any thing by Tom Robbins. He will get you thinking out of the box and laughing the whole way.

My fav is "Fierce Invalids Home from Hot Climates"

quote:

Any thing by Tom Robbins.

Indeed! 'Fierce Invalids' is a perfect book for Central/South America. Excellent suggestion. Especially since the main character of the book hates the CIA - quite relevant to that part of the world.

If you have any interest in the period of Spanish Conquest then read 'The Conquest of New Spain' by Bernal Diaz. This is an account was written by a soldier who was actually there and it reads like a novel. All modern history books quote from his work, so why not go straight to the source?

For Guatemala try 'Unfinished Conquest' by Victor Perera. This covers life in Guatemala during the recent civil war period.

Don Quixote. I read the Edith Grossman translation when I was in Brazil. It's a lot of fun and thick.