The House of the Spirits

And even though it is a sort of gothic family drama, at the end, you're going to be horrified.

I would also argue that something like The House of the Spirits by Isabel Allende, which is a magical realism novel set over three generations in Chile, and addresses specifically the horrors of the landowning class in Chile, and then the horrors of the—oh god, what the hell is his name? Pinochet.

Sorry.

I should know this.

What's a book you wish you could erase from your memory just to experience it again? Just to experience it again.

The House of the Spirits by Isabel Allende.

I actually read it a couple of times.

It's a beautiful story.

of Chile from like, you know, the pandemic in 1900s to the pandemic we just experienced and tells you the life of a woman who has major economic agency and is still real and still struggles with relationships and struggles with raising her kids and struggles with her job.

So Isabel Allende also has another book called The House of Spirits, which is like her previous generation iteration of this similar type of theme.

But what I love about Isabel Allende is she writes stories that have depth about the real lives of women.

And I would say that one thing I do when I travel, this is my little mini story, one thing I do when I travel abroad is I always go into local bookstores and I look for books written by local female authors.

Chilean-American writer Isabel Allende has been awarded Spain's €1 million Premio Planeta for an unpublished follow-up to her first novel, The House of the Spirits.

She submitted the work under the pen name Luz Ventura and used the fictional title Los Que Faltan.

The winning book, titled La Hora Antes del Alba, revisits the characters from Allende's 1982 novel.

It centers on Alba, the granddaughter of Esteban Truba and Clara del Valle, as she struggles to heal after being imprisoned and tortured during Pinochet's rule.

According to Reuters, Allende stated that this sequel would conclude the world of The House of the Spirits.

The Premio Planeta allows submissions under false names, yet Professor Duncan Wheeler from Leeds University, expressed doubt that the judges failed to recognize Allende's distinctive style.

He noted that while the prize is among the most handsomely paid in the Spanish-speaking world, it does not hold the highest level of prestige.

The second-place finisher was the Spanish novelist and screenwriter Sergio Hernández, who earned 200,000 euros for his historical work titled La Añoranza.

La escritora chilena Isabel Allende recibió ayer en Barcelona el premio Planeta.

El galardón, dotado con un millón de euros, se otorgó a la novela titulada La hora antes del alba, que es la continuación de La casa de los espíritus, publicada en 1982 y considerada la obra cumbre de la novelista.

El Planeta llegó así a su edición número setenta y cinco.

Lo han ganado escritores como Javier Cercas, Carmen Posadas o Mario Vargas Llosa y ahora Isabel Allende, que en su discurso dijo algo curioso.

It doesn't need to be English historical fiction, but something that has that sweeping saga-like sense of just being immersed in this world.

I have read quite a bit of Isabel Allende, so I have read House of Spirits, things like that.

So I'm probably not after something like that.

But are books from other areas of the world that have the vibe of Pillars of the Earth.