Spanish Book Club | Spanish language guides, bestsellers, Spanish fiction, and travel books

South America on a shoestring

Lonely Planet

How do you compress a continent as large as South America into a 220-page guidebook? Well, obviously you can’t, so don’t expect Lonely Planet’s South America on a Shoestring to provide you with everything.

As you travel though a backpacker destination like South America it is easy to see the contrast between places listed in the Lonely Planet and places that aren’t. In La Paz, Bolivia, my favorite bar La Luna wasn’t listed. Every night there I met Argentineans, Spaniards, and of course Bolivians. My favorite salsa club, recommended to me by the bartender at La Luna, was packed every night, and the only language I heard in there was Spanish.

In contrast, when I went to one of the bars listed in the Lonely Planet, that’s when I hung out with the backpacker crowd. There’s nothing wrong with that, but it’s certainly a different and undeniably less authentic experience.

The same goes for hotels. If you choose a hostel out of the Lonely Planet, you will meet people from all over the world. You will probably have Internet access, and there might even be activities like movie nights (something I never understood). However, in a place like South America a private room in a small hotel will be cheaper than a bed in your noisy hostel dorm room.

This is something to consider every time you open your guidebook. How much will you rely upon it to guide you through your trip?

The bottom line is that the best bar, cheapest hotel and most interesting restaurant aren’t listed in Lonely Planet’s South America on a Shoestring guidebook. However, if you wander around town and ask directions but still can’t find what you want, it is really nice to have that guidebook handy to give you a nudge in the right direction.

Central America on a Shoestring

Lonely Planet

It’s super easy to criticize Lonely Planet. Anyone who has ever used one of their guidebooks on a long backpacking trip has noticed omissions and mistakes.

Understanding that these problems don’t really matter requires an attitude adjustment. I have met people who used their Lonely Planet for every step of their trip – every hotel, restaurant, and destination. I’ve even seen people argue over price because the price given in the guidebook was different than the real price!

I believe this is not the purpose of a guidebook. It is a supplement to the exploring that you do on your own. For example, I almost never use them for hotels until after I’ve made a few walking passes on my own through the center of town.

That said, I’ve carried a Lonely Planet with me on every long backpacking trip I’ve taken. The main advantage to Lonely Planet, as opposed to other guidebooks, is that they focus on the cheap. I mean, if you have a big budget and are going to stay in expensive places, then you don’t really need a guidebook.

Don’t expect Central America on a Shoestring to tell you everything. Don’t use it to plan every part of your trip. It certainly isn’t a substitute for a little Spanish ability, asking for recommendations from fellow travelers, and an open mind. For example, the section on Mexico is very short, including only Chiapas and Quintana Roo. For the other countries in Central America, the guidebook will get you around the most frequently visited destinations but definitely not off the beaten path, even if it claims to do so. The beaten path ceases to be beaten once hordes of backpackers read about it in Lonely Planet.

Central America is a wonderful place to visit and you can get around fairly easily. So, you don’t really need a guidebook in the first place, but if you want to bring one, then I recommend Lonely Planet’s Central America on a Shoestring.

Eva Luna and The Stories of Eva Luna

By Isabel Allende

A few months back I wrote a review for one of my favorite fiction books of all time, The House of the Spirits by Isabel Allende. Although there are many other great books in Spanish I could review today, including stose by similar and possibly better known author Gabriel Garcia Marquez, who also writes in the style of magic realism, I feel obliged to review two more Allende books.

The Stories of Eva Luna is just that, a collection of stories written by Allende’s fictional alter ego. These stories are glimpses into the lives of ordinary people in extraordinary situations. She deals with murder, rape, desperation, love, loss, and of course magic, all with her masterful (or masterfully translated) style.

She has a very poetic prose that paints a clear, vivid picture without being at all purple or pretentious. With her stories, you find yourself in a superficially prosaic but quite engrossing other world.

Eva Luna was something of a sequel to The Stories of Eva Luna. A novel that follows the life of Eva Luna, it’s not nearly as epic as The House of The Spirits, but the main character struggles though life as much as any of her fictional characters. By the end of the story she has grown up to be the writer who will go on to write The Stories of Eva Luna.

Isabel Allende has written a lot of books, and I’m pretty sure that these are the only three that I have read. Are there any other Isabel Allende fans out there? What would you recommend next?

Aztec

by Gary Jennings

As far as huge historical epics go, to me there are two great standouts: Shogun by James Clavell and Aztec by Gary Jennings. If you haven’t read either, maybe wait for a long beach vacation or camping trip, because each is over a thousand pages long.

Gary Jennings was from the US and wrote Aztec in English, but he lived in Mexico for many years researching the novel. The Spanish translation of Aztec and all the spinoff books are hugely popular in Mexico. You can see them in street side bookstands everywhere in Mexico City.

Aztec is the story of one man’s long, eventful life before and after the conquest of Mexico by Hernan Cortes. Mixtli goes from extreme poverty all the way to the inner circle of the Mexica, the indigenous group who were misnamed Aztecs. Along the way he travels the whole of Mexico, from the deserts in the north to the Mayan jungles of the south, meeting the diverse inhabitants and being smacked in the face by their exotic cultures.

Besides being a trader and traveler, our hero Mixtli (he has many names, depending on with whom he speaks) is a scribe and master of languages. Because of these skills he leans Spanish and helps communicate with the conquistadors.

Like any great epic, the story is full of intrigue, humor, suspense, and tragedy. I have to say that the most tragic part – and you will know what I’m talking about if you ever read Aztec – is one of the most tragic things I’ve ever read anywhere, rivaling the Chinese character’s birth story in Steinbeck’s East of Eden.

So, for the record, I am highly recommending the following epic novels: Aztec, Shogun, East of Eden, and, just for the heck of it, Sometimes a Great Notion by Ken Kesey. What else should be added to this list?

Communicating in Spanish

For Absolute Beginners

There are many approaches to learning a language. You can find a wide range of books - some that focus on grammar, some that focus on vocabulary and phrases, and some that focus on travel.

Communicating in Spanish by Conrad J. Schmitt and Protase E. Woodford focuses on communication. It is for total beginners who want to learn survival Spanish. Here you are given the phrases and vocabulary to start really learning Spanish – well, if not actually learning it, at least practicing enough of it to take a vacation.

It starts from the absolute beginning, teaching you “como estas,” “como te llamas,” and all the numbers. From there you practice Spanish for situations common to travelers and daily life. Topics like food, locations, money, and family give you plenty of vocabulary and plenty of ways to practice it.

The book has 31 chapters, each with a theme relevant to a beginning Spanish speaker. The first 11 are the absolute basics, and the rest are specific contexts, like going to the bank or saying goodbye to a friend. Within each chapter is the presentation of vocabulary, a few dialogues, and some situations given in English for the student to act out. Because of these, the book is appropriate for partner work.

This is a small book with a limited amount of pictures. To me this is a plus. I see a lot of language books and I don’t like it when they are filled with photos, boxes of text, and other unrelated information. I think it’s distracting and almost patronizing. I appreciate the clear and straightforward presentation of Communicating in Spanish.

Practice Makes Perfect: Spanish Verb Tenses

Good Practice

I was forced to buy Practice Makes Perfect: Spanish Verb Tenses by Dorothy Devney Richmond during a basic Spanish class I took in a small community center years ago. We were all beginners and wanted to speak; most of us wanted to travel, some needed Spanish for a job. The class was a disaster and more or less a waste of time, but many years later I still have the book. I’m glad I bought it.

You see, now that I can speak passable Spanish, I have a newly found appreciation for this book. Practice Makes Perfect: Spanish Verb Tenses is not a book for beginners. It’s not a book to get good travel phrases. And it’s definitely not a stand-alone book to learn Spanish on your own. For that, check out Madrigal’s Magic Key.

Rather, this is an excellent way to practice one of the most difficult things about learning the Spanish language: verb conjugations. Each tense, irregular verb type, or sometimes especially important or exceptional verb has its own chapter. It doesn’t try to be easy or minimize memorization (at some point these points have to be memorized), but gives pages of full sentences to translate. Every so often you translate an entire paragraph – a story or description. There is an answer key in the back.

What makes this book different is that it seems very well thought out and executed. Concepts and vocabulary introduced in the beginning of the book is reused and reinforced throughout. It is the careful construction of exercises that makes Practice Makes Perfect: Spanish Verb Tenses stand out from the pack.

Open Veins of Latin America

A history of exploitation

Want to learn the dark side of Latin American history? Have you wondered about the disparity of GDP and incomes on either side of the Rio Grande? Why are the US and Canada rich, but much of Latin America so desperately poor?

As a teacher in Mexico, I have been asked variants on that last question many times. Well, the short story is that while (most) of the original settlers of the US from England and France came to settle, the Spanish came to the Caribbean, Mexico, and Peru to exploit.

It began with gold and continued along with every natural resource available, including silver, sugar, coffee, and fruit. For the full, incriminating story, your best resource is Open Veins of Latin America by Eduardo Galeano. This is the history of exploitation in Latin America, starting with the Spanish, on through the British, and now the US (among others).

It isn’t organized chronologically but according to resource. You will learn incredible facts, like how the Spanish and Portuguese divided the world (much of it still undiscovered, like Brazil) in half at the Treaty of Tordesillas in 1494. Or how time and time again the United Fruit Company toppled governments and caused social unrest in Central America. You will see things from a different perspective, such as how US promoted birth control in poor regions is really just another way of taking away people’s rights, a misguided do-gooder’s nightmare.

Open Veins of Latin America is a sad story that continually repeats itself: foreign governments or their favored corporations move into a region, suck out all the resources, and leave behind a population of unemployed, forgotten people, all with the consent and help of corrupt local governments.

And it continues to this day. This is the book that Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez gave Barack Obama when they first met. Obama dismissed the book, and it may be easy for some to dismiss Chavez, but this brutal history shouldn’t be ignored.

The House of the Spirits by Isabel Allende

A Family Saga and Classic of Magic Realism

The House of the Spirits is a beautiful, epic novel by Isabel Allende. Published in 1982, it was her debut novel and made the Chilean writer famous all over the world. It was even made into a Hollywood movie.

The House of the Spirits follows the lives of three generations of women – grandmother, mother, and daughter, starting with the grandmother as a young child. Clara is psychic and has running dialogues with ghosts. Hence the title, House of the Spirits, where she grew up and her family lives throughout the entire book.

Blanca’s husband is a central character, something of a villain and a hero at the same time. Esteban Trueba wins the reader over early with his tragic work ethic and love for Blanca. For years he works in a mine in the seemingly hopeless attempt to win Blanca’s love. Later he transforms a backwater mountain town into a productive estate, though he is clearly a tyrant. However, his frequent evil deeds don’t quite dispel the reader’s sympathy for this determined, troubled man.

Rich characters fill this family saga, who often just briefly touch each other’s lives, only to return years or even generations later, all before the backdrop of a country experiencing radical change. Chile itself is a turbulent character, but one that always seems to be pushed in the background by the engrossing inner lives of the Trueba family.

The House of the Spirits touches on countless themes: family loyalty, paranormal phenomenon, conservative/liberal values, revolution, violence, corruption, and love. But Allende creates the tale with observant neutrality that doesn’t come off cold, but rather is richly sensitive to detail. A classic of Magic Realism, it describes supernatural happenings alongside everyday occurrences, giving neither more weight or judgment than the other.

By the end of the novel, the sins of her grandfather Esteban come back to haunt Clara’s granddaughter Alba in the aftermath of Pinochet’s coup. And then, like a good Seinfeld episode, the story all comes together, although quite tragically. Isabel Allende’s superbly evocative narration leaves the reader with a great sense of really having a part of the story.

Madrigal’s Magic Key to Spanish

An Excellent Method for All Levels of Spanish

If you are like me and studied Spanish in school, then you probably followed the typical method: present tense, conjugate lists of verbs, past tense, conjugate lists of verbs, and so forth. It was as boring and far removed from actual communication as math.

This isn’t the case with Madrigal’s Magic Key to Spanish, first published in 1951 and in print ever since. Margarita Madrigal throws the conventional organization scheme for Spanish language books right out the window and begins with cognates, words that are the same or similar in both Spanish and English. With sentences like “El actor es popular,” after the first chapter you realize that you already possess a decent vocabulary in Spanish. And if you don’t know what “el” or “es” means, she gives you the quick definition and then plenty of examples.

The book is specifically written for speakers of English and focuses on Mexican Spanish. After the cognates, Margarita Madrigal gets into grammar. She bucks tradition here and starts with past tense, reasoning that it is more common in conversation than the present. Again, she keeps things simple by not having the student write out lists of conjugations, but instead whole sentences. The verbs are always in context and usually limited to the most common uses – I, you, and he or she.

Madrigal’s Magic Key to Spanish is appropriate for the absolute beginner, but takes you all the way through advanced verb tenses and grammar points. So, the book is good for students of all levels: beginners, people who can speak but don’t know grammar, or advanced students looking for revision.

The book is novel size and jammed full of useful exercises. It even includes illustrations by Andy Warhol! Madrigal’s Magic Key to Spanish is a must for any student of the Spanish language tired of conventional methods.

Wicked Spanish for the Traveler

Don't bother with this unhelpful, stereotypical book

When my mother worked at a printing company many years ago, she would bring me home loads of awesome books. Some, however, were not so awesome. One little travel book she brought home for me was entitled Wicked Spanish for the Traveler, by Howard Tomb. I once thought that the tiny pocket book was something helpful that you can tuck in a purse or even one of those gaudy tourist fanny packs, as well as hilarious to read and enjoy. Since growing up, realizing what much of the text means, and traveling to Spain, however, I have discovered that many of the funny sections are stereotypical—some may even be offensive to some readers, including me.

The book is prefaced with a little introduction that basically tells tourists that it will help them not take “manana,” aka tomorrow, for an answer. There are sections on haggling, abdominal cramps, and beach blanket lingo. There are phrases about bus travel, animals, and hat-lending. Overall, you might find it a bit stereotypical—and you might be right. “How to address a donkey,” for example, is not my idea of respecting another culture. That said, some phrases are simply too ridiculous to not snort at, such as “Yours is the prettiest piglet, miss.”

The best thing about this little guide is probably the pronunciations provided on each page. People who’ve never learned Spanish will definitely need them in order to say the words correctly (there’s nothing worse than, say, someone asking for a jalapeno by demanding a jalla peen oh). The very back of the book contains a few helpful phrases—from “I like” to “How much does this cost?” Unfortunately, it is also a very stereotypical page, with phrases such as “Not tomorrow, now,” and “I want everything,” which, to me, make jokes out of both the Latin American culture as well as American.

One page that mocks taking a siesta—which is a tradition I think that all cultures should employ, especially if they don’t want to up the crime and general anger rate—features ridiculous phrases such as “The clerk is taking a vertical siesta,” or “Our maid is on a permanent siesta.” Yeah, that’s really classy. Basically any Spanish-speaking person, from the police to vendors, are mocked, and laziness is often implied. It’s funny how our heart attack chasing, work til you die society mocks such a more relaxed lifestyle when that could be the very thing that would save us from our own destruction.

If you need to learn Spanish before your next trip, take a class. Go online. Just don’t bother with this pocket book, because while it seems to be harmless fun, it’s really only going to push stereotypes into your head, whether they exist already or not.

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