SUGGESTED READING
Colombia: Because Reality is Very Different
Here is a brief selection of favorite, new and hard-to-find books, prepared for your journey. For your convenience, you may call (800) 342-2164 to order these books directly from Longitude, a specialty mail-order book service. To order online, and to get the latest, most comprehensive selection of books for your voyage, go directly to reading.longitudebooks.com/TJ26183.
HIGHLY RECOMMENDED
These five items are available as a set for $98 including shipping, 15% off the retail price (Item EXSAM367). Any additional books ordered will be shipped free of charge.
LaRosa, Michael, and Mejia, German R. Colombia: A Concise Contemporary History. Rowman & Littlefield, 2013. This refreshing history showcases the country’s political, social and cultural accomplishments over the past two centuries – a welcome break from all the focus on Colombia’s failures and disappointments. (PAPER, 288 Pp., $33, Item SAM212)
Jacobs, Michael. The Robber of Memories,. Counterpoint, 2013. Inspired by a chance encounter with Gabriel Garcia Marquez in Cartagena, the adventurous Michael Jabobs travels to Baranquilla to journey 1,000 miles across western Colombia on the great Magdalena, the "river of our lives." He captures the conflicts, troubled past and spirit of isolated communities along the way. (HARD COVER, 272 Pp., $26, Item SAM194)
Marquez, Gabriel Garcia, and Edith Grossman (Translator). Love in the Time of Cholera. Vintage Books, 2007. A glorious tale of great love consummated after fifty years, nine months and four days, memorably set in a dusty 19th-century town on the Caribbean coast of Colombia. (PAPER, 348 Pp., $15.95, Item SAM26)
Dier, Andrew. Moon Colombia. Avalon Travel Publishing, 2014. A practical guide, packed not only with travel necessities (hotels, restaurants, sights), but also with a good overview of history and destinations throughout Colombia. (PAPER, 450 Pp., $19.99, Item SAM202)
National Geographic Society. Colombia Adventure Map. National Geographic Maps, 2012. A colorful travel map at a scale of 1:1,525,000. (MAP, $11.95, Item SAM96)
MAPS & GUIDEBOOKS
Cathey, Kate. Culture Smart! Colombia. Kuperard, 2011. A concise and practical guide to local customs, etiquette and culture. (PAPER, 168 Pp., $9.95, Item SAM163)
HISTORY, CULTURE & EXPLORATION
Bushnell, David. The Making of Modern Colombia, A Nation in Spite of Itself. University of California Press, 1993. A leading historian of the region, Bushnell traces the political history of Colombia from before the arrival of the Spaniards through independence and reform in the 19th century, then through to the 1980s in this thoroughly enjoyable, incisive portrait of a nation. (PAPER, 334 Pp., $31.95, Item SAM170)
Dudley, Steven. Walking Ghosts: Murder and Guerrilla Politics in Colombia. Routledge, 2006. A meticulous and informative analysis of the culture of violence surrounding Colombian rebels, guerrillas, drug kingpins and politicians. (PAPER, 280 Pp., $41.95, Item SAM99)
Guillermoprieto, Alma. Looking For History, Dispatches From Latin America. Vintage Books, 2002. A beautifully written, incisive collection of essays on contemporary Argentina, Colombia, Cuba, Peru and Mexico. (PAPER, 303 Pp., $16.95, Item SAM60)
Leech, Gary. Beyond Bogota, Diary of a Drug War Journalist in Colombia. Beacon Press, 2010. Part memoir, part history, this is the tale of journalist Leech's 11-month captivity in Colombia at the hands of FARC, a guerilla group. Leech is very critical of the drug war, and uses his ordeal as a frame for exploring the history, culture and current politics of Colombia. (PAPER, 260 Pp., $21, Item SAM161)
Marquez, Gabriel Garcia. News of a Kidnapping. Vintage Books, 2008. In 1990, fearing extradition to the United States, Pablo Escobar – head of the Medellin drug cartel – kidnapped ten notable Colombians to use as bargaining chips. With the eye of a poet, Garcia Marquez describes the survivors' perilous ordeal, depicting the keening ache of Colombia after nearly forty years of turmoil. (PAPER, 291 Pp., $15.95, Item SAM174)
TRAVEL, BIOGRAPHY & MEMOIR
Abad, Hector. Oblivion. Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2013. Written by his son, this searing memoir celebrates the life of a Colombian doctor who fought against oppression and inequality and who was murdered by paramilitaries in 1987. (PAPER, 263 Pp., $15, Item SAM183)
Betancourt, Ingrid. Even Silence Has an End, My Six Years of Captivity in the Colombian Jungle. Penguin, 2011. The moving story of Ingrid Betancourt's campaign for the Colombian presidency in 2002, when she was abducted in the Colombian jungle and held captive. An intelligent, thoughtful meditation. (PAPER, 528 Pp., $16, Item SAM214)
Erlick, June Carolyn. A Gringa in Bogota, Living Colombia's Invisible War. Texas Press, 2010. Editor-in-Chief of ReVista, the Harvard Review of Latin America, Erlick captures the rhythms of daily life and culture of the city. (PAPER, 144 Pp., $19.95, Item SAM184)
Marquez, Gabriel Garcia, and Edith Grossman (Translator). Living to Tell the Tale. Vintage Books, 2004. Garcia's celebrated memoir, as captivating, warm and spirited as any of his fictional tales, covering his youth in Aracataca, memorably recast as fictional Macondo on Colombia's Caribbean coast. (PAPER, 496 Pp., $15.95, Item SAM61)
Paternostro, Silvana. My Colombian War. Henry Holt and Company, 2008. Now a journalist living in New York, Paternostro travels back to her homeland in a search for the roots of Colombia's bloody civil war. (PAPER, 323 Pp., $22.99, Item SAM169)
LITERATURE
Marquez, Gabriel Garcia. One Hundred Years of Solitude. HarperCollins Publishers, 2006. The breathtaking, life-altering, much-celebrated tale of life and love is on most everyone's list of the greatest books of all time, ours included. Its setting and themes are universal. (PAPER, 417 Pp., $15.99, Item SAM27)
Vallejo, Fernando, and Paul Hammond (Translator). Our Lady of the Assassins. Serpent's Tail, 2001. A vivid, cynical portrait of Medellin, Colombia's second largest city and the stronghold of ruthless drug lord Pablo Escobar. The narrator returns to the town after a long absence to find it beset by horrific violence and a chilling indifference to death. (PAPER, 144 Pp., $17.95, Item SAM100)
NATURAL HISTORY & FIELD GUIDES
Forsyth, Adrian, and Ken Miyata. Tropical Nature. Scribner, 1984. Two uncommonly observant and thoughtful field biologists offer a lucid portrait of the tropics through 17 marvelous essays that introduce the habitats, ecology, plants and animals of the Central and South American rainforests. (PAPER, 248 Pp., $16, Item GPS13)
Kricher, J.C., and Mark Plotkin (Introduction). A Neotropical Companion. Princeton University Press, 1999. From plants and animals to birds and bugs, it's all here in this wonderfully written overview of the ecology, habitats, plants and animals of Central and South America. (PAPER, 536 Pp., $39.95, Item GPS11)
TO ORDER
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© 2012 Longitude Rev 8/15