Ines of My Soul, by Isabel Allende
Set in the 16th century, this story follows Inés, a woman born into a poor family in Spain who works as a seamstress with little returned compensation for a bright future. When her husband disappears to the New World during the Spanish conquest of the Americas, Inés goes to search for him with hopes to escape her unrewarding life. While on her search, she finds that her husband has died and ends up in a love affair with Pedro de Valdivia – a man who changes her life forever.
Saving the World, by Julia Alvarez
In this novel within a novel are stories of two women: Latina novelist Alma Huebner, who is suffering from writer’s block and cannot accompany her husband on a humanitarian trip to the Dominican Republic, and Isabel Sendales y Gomez who accompanied orphan boys carrying live smallpox vaccine to Spain’s American colonies in 1803.
Bless Me, Ultima, by Rudolfo Anaya
This classic novel and winner of the Premio Quinto Sol national Chicano literary award is a coming of age story of a young boy in New Mexico in the 1940s who tries to bring together the beliefs of his parents two very different families, as well as Native American religion, with Roman Catholicism.
Caramelo, by Sandra Cisneros
During the Reyes family annual trip from Chicago to Mexico City, Lala listens to all the family stories, some true and some not so true, including some about her grandmother whose striped caramelo, or shawl, now belongs to Lala. A good read for book groups from this popular Hispanic author.
The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, by Junot Diaz
Diaz was awarded the National Book Critics Award prize for fiction for this novel of a young and obese Dominican immigrant searching for love and acceptance as the Dominican Tolkien.
Gonzalez and Daughter Trucking Co.: A Road Novel with Literary License, by Maria Amparo Escandon
Serving a sentence in a prison in Mexico, Libertad Gonzalez passes the time by forming a weekly Library Club where she reads to her fellow inmates from the prison library‘s book. The story she supposedly is reading to them has nothing to do with the books she reads from. A good read for book groups interested in reading Hispanic authors.
A Handbook to Luck (Vintage Contemporaries), by Cristina García
The lives of three people from different places around the globe, Cuba, San Salvador, and Tehran, intersect over a twenty year period.
Love in the Time of Cholera, by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Florentino Ariza is finally able to marry Fermina Daza when her husband, Dr. Urbino, dies. This love triangle goes continues after 50 years of longing, An Oprah pick.
When I Was Puerto Rican, by Esmeralda Santiago
This autobiography tells of a young girl who leaves rural Puerto Rico for New York's tenements and hopes for success is told with both humor and drama.
The Shadow of the Wind, by Carlos Ruiz Zafon
In Barcelona, a boys widowed father takes him to the Cemetery of Forgotten Books, a library tended by Barcelona's guild of rare-book dealers as a repository for books forgotten by the world, to choose a book. Daniel selects a novel by Julian Carax and begins a quest to find his other works only to find someone is destroying every copy of the other books written by this author.
, by Isabel Allende
, by Julia Alvarez
, by Rudolfo Anaya
, by Sandra Cisneros
, by Junot Diaz
, by Maria Amparo Escandon
, by Cristina García
, by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
, by Esmeralda Santiago
, by Carlos Ruiz Zafon
