Chile

Reading List

Field guides

A Wildlife Guide to Chile

Sharon Chester

Chester’s splendid guide, featuring 120 color plates, covers the wildlife, plants and natural history of Chile from the Atacama Desert and Patagonia to Easter Island and Antarctica.

 

Birds of Chile

Alvaro Jaramillo

This compact, comprehensive guide with superb color plates also includes Antarctica, South Georgia and the Falkland Islands.

 

Birds of Southern South America & Antarctica

Martin R. de la Peña & Maurice Rumboll  

With color plates, range maps and brief descriptions, this is a compact regional guide.

 

Plant Life in the World’s Mediterranean Climates

Paul Dallman

Richly illustrated, clearly written and engaging, this book is an ecological overview of the landscapes, plants and vegetation types found in Mediterranean climates.

 

Maps

Chile Adventure Map

National Geographic

Printed on tear- and water-resistant paper, this colorful map shows topography, sites, cities and roads from the Atacama to Tierra del Fuego in a series of strip maps at a scale of 1:1,750.000.

 

Chile Map

Borch Maps

A handy laminated road map of Chile in full color at a scale of 1:2,000,000, with supplementary maps.

 

Lake District, Araucania: Argentina & Chile

Zagier & Urruty Maps

This regional map (1:400,00) covers the mid-section of Chile and Argentina from Bariloche across to Puerto Montt and Temuco.

 

Patagonia and Tierra del Fuego Map

ITMB

This handy map shows all Patagonia on one side (1:2,000,000), with a more detailed map of Tierra del Fuego (1:750,000) on the reverse.

 

Santiago & Central Chile Map

ITMB

A travel map of Santiago, shown at a scale of 1:12,500 including an inset of the subway system. Plus, on the reverse, a map of central Chile at a scale of 1:750,000 with an inset of Easter Island.

 

Guidebooks

Insight Guide Chile

Insight Guides

This glossy guide is a full-color introduction to the land, people and history of Chile, written by a team of experts. Brief background essays highlight important topics, and there is some practical travel information interspersed throughout.

 

Lonely Planet Chile

Lonely Planet

This practical guide includes a chapter on Easter Island in addition to a comprehensive overview of Chile, its history and culture.

 

Culture Smart! Chile

Caterina Perrone

A concise and practical guide to local customs, etiquette and culture.

 

Wallpaper City Guide Santiago

Rachael Moloney

A stylish, thin (it fits in your back pocket) city guide compiled by the design magazine Wallpaper’s local reporters. Well-organized, with chapter tabs, many photographs and of-the-moment recommendations.

 

Rough Guide to Chile

Shafik Meghji

A comprehensive guide to Chile in the hip, literate and very infomative Rough Guide style. It's divided cleanly between practical information and illuminating background on culture and history.

 

Natural History

Natural Patagonia: Argentina and Chile

Marcelo D. Beccaceci

An informative photographic journey through the breathtaking landscapes and wildlife of Patagonia. Featuring 120 color photographs, presented in Spanish and English.

 

Voyage of the Beagle

Charles Darwin

The wide-eyed tale of a young man on a five-year voyage that changed his life—and our way of thinking about the world. First published in 1839, it’s still a marvelous introduction to the wildlife, nature and allure of South America.

 

Voyaging Southward from the Strait of Magellan

Rockwell Kent

An illustrated account of Rockwell’s foolhardy voyage with a madman through magnificent Tierra del Fuego in a jury-rigged lifeboat. Both the text and striking woodcut illustrations communicate this dangerous landscape’s dynamic character.

 

History & Culture

Forgotten Continent

Michael Reid

Economist editor Reid draws on his years in the cities, presidential palaces and shantytowns of Central and South America in this portrait of a region rich in oil, farmland and culture, with consideration on its prospects in the face of globalization.

 

My Invented Country

Isabel Allende

Novelist Allende ruminates on her upbringing in Chile, interweaving memories of South America with her feelings for the United States, where she has lived since the assassination of her uncle, Chilean president Salvador Allende, on September 11, 1973.

 

The Dictator’s Shadow: Life Under Augusto Pinochet

Heraldo Muñoz

A gripping memoir of life in Chile under Pinochet, the horrors perpetrated by his regime, his complex character and what it took to overthrow him by Chile’s current ambassador to the United Nations.

 

Five Decades, Poems 1925-1970

Pablo Neruda

A bilingual edition of 138 poems by the great Pablo Neruda, drawn from his entire career. Neruda is the quintessential South American poet: lyrical, engaging and bristling with life.

 

Gabriela Mistral: Selected Prose and Prose-Poems

Gabriela Mistral & Stephen Tapscott

Selected prose by the Chilean Nobel laureate as edited and translated by Stephen Tapscott. Part of the Texas Pan American Literature in Translation Series.

 

Ines of My Soul

Isabel Allende

Allende turns the amazing life of Spanish conquistadora and founder of Santiago, Inés Suárez (1507- 1580), into a gripping novel.

 

Chilean Wine, The Heritage: A Journey from the Origins of the Vine to the Present

Rodrigo Alvarado

Alvarado does justice to the long winemaking tradition of Chile in this narrative, which explores the history of Chile’s vineyards and wine production. Ideal for anyone on the path to becoming a connoisseur, or interested in gaining a deeper understanding of this long-standing tradition in Chile.