Isabel Allende on Harper Lee, 'Harry Potter,' and the Book That Made Her Miss a Flight
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Welcome to Shelf Life, ELLE.com’s books column, in which authors share their most memorable reads. Whether you’re on the hunt for a book to console you, move you profoundly, or make you laugh, consider a recommendation from the writers in our series, who, like you (since you’re here), love books. Perhaps one of their favorite titles will become one of yours, too.
If it’s the first month of the year, Isabel Allende has started a new book, as she does every January 8, the day she started writing her first novel, The House of the Spirits (1982). Forty years later comes her 26th book, Violeta (Ballantine), about a woman whose 100-year life is bookended by the Spanish flu and coronavirus pandemics, out next week.
Born in Peru to Chilean parents (her father and stepfather were diplomats), Allende has lived in Bolivia, Lebanon, Switzerland, Belgium, Spain, and Venezuela, where she was a political refugee after the military coup that killed her uncle and godfather, Chilean President Salvador Allende.
The California-based author, whose books have sold more than 75 million copies in 42 languages, is the recipient of the PEN Center Lifetime Achievement Award, the Presidential Medal of Freedom, and the Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters from the National Book Foundation, among many distinctions.
She once worked at the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations and co-founded a feminist magazine; was told by interview subject Pablo Neruda to switch to literature as she wasn’t a good journalist; corresponded near daily with her late mother (she kept 24,000 letters); is the subject of HBO docu-series, Isabel; met her third husband on a blind date; has two mutts, Perla and Dulce (short for Dulcinea); carried a flag at the Opening Ceremony of the 2006 Turin Winter Olympics; had a cameo in Jane the Virgin; and turns 80 in August.
The House of the Spirits, which was made into a 1993 film starring Meryl Streep and Winona Ryder, inspired Dior’s 2019 resort collection and is currently in development as a series at Hulu. Likes: Leila Correnti jewelry, Pope John Paul II roses, Antonio Banderas, a good bed. Dislikes: Patriarchy.
The book that …
…made me miss a flight:
The Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett. I was so absorbed that I didn’t hear the call to board the plane. By the time I lifted my eyes from the page, around 11 p.m., the airport was almost empty.
…made me weep uncontrollably:
Uncle Tom’s Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe, which I read in my puberty.
…shaped my worldview:
Open Veins of Latin America by Eduardo Galeano, where I learned about capitalism, colonization and exploitation in Latin America.
…I swear I will finish someday:
Foucault’s Pendulum by Umberto Eco (great author and great reviews but couldn’t get through it).
…I finished in one sitting, it was that good:
To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee (and several other novels)
…currently sits on my nightstand:
Cloud Cuckoo Land by Anthony Doerr (I am halfway through it).
…I last bought:
The Winter Soldier by Daniel Mason.
…features the coolest, most beautiful book jacket:
My own novel Island Beneath the Sea, published by HarperCollins in 2009. It’s bright yellow, impossible to miss it on a bookshelf.
…I brought to a safari in Kenya with my grandchildren:
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone by J.K. Rowling.
…should be on every college syllabus:
The Prophets by Robert Jones, Jr. It’s about slavery, being gay, love and many other important issues, plus it’s beautifully written.
…I could only have discovered at an independent bookstore:
The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini, which was promoted by independent booksellers before it became a huge success and the chains picked it up..
…has a great ending:
Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel García Márquez. (Spoiler alert: The old couple gets on a boat to escape the cholera pandemic and they sail forever and ever.)
Bonus question: If I could live in a bookstore, it would be:
Book Passage, in Corte Madera, Marin County, California. It has been my second home for more than 30 years, the staff is like family; I buy all my reading and have done the research for many of my novels there; the launching of all my books starts with an event at Book Passage; I feel that I own the place.
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