The Sum of Our Days - Softcover

Allende, Isabel

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0007299850 ISBN 13: 9780007299850

Publisher: Harper Collins Ome, 2009

Synopsis

A brilliant memoir from the celebrated Chilean novelist on friends, family and life in California, her adopted home. Isabel Allende has sold more than 50 million copies of her books worldwide. The most beloved and successful of her books, 'The House of the Spirits', was based on her Chilean childhood, and her autobiographical works include the deeply moving 'Paula' -- a family history written at the bedside of her daughter while she lay in a coma -- and the fascinating 'My Invented Country', which explored the events of her native Chile where she lived until Pinochet's military coup. Now, in 'The Sum of the Days', we have Isabel describe in an exceptionally vivid, human and deeply personal way her life in California where she has lived for more than 25 years. The first page picks up from where Paula ends -- her daughter never did wake up from her coma and died in 1992 -- when Allende recounts spreading Paula's ashes in her favourite part of the woods by their home. It is fair to say that Isabel has never recovered from losing her daughter but has managed to survive by keeping her husband, son, grandchildren as well as close friends -- kindred spirits -- central to her life. 'The Sum of the Days', based on Allende's own journals and daily correspondence with her mother in Chile, reveals the author to be a dazzling, generous, warm and hysterically funny matriarch within her swirl of family and friends.

About this title

About the Author:

Isabel Allende is the author of nine novels, translated into more than twenty-seven languages, including the New York Times bestsellers InÉs of My Soul, Portrait in Sepia, and Daughter of Fortune. In 2004 she was inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Born in Peru and raised in Chile, she lives in California.

Nacida en PerÚ y criada en Chile, Isabel Allende es la autora de nueve novelas incluyendo mÁs recientemente Zorro, Retrato en Sepia, Hija de la Fortuna e InÉs del Alma MÍa. TambiÉn ha escrito cuentos cortos, tres libros autobiogrÁficos incluyendo Mi PaÍs Inventado y Paula, y una trilogÍa de libros para jÓvenes. Sus libros han sido traducidos a mÁs de 27 idiomas y son bestsellers a travÉs del mundo entero. En 2004, fue nombrada a la Academia de Artes y Letras de los Estados Unidos. Vive en California.

From AudioFile:

In PAULA: A MEMOIR, Allende recounted the tragic death of her daughter. Paula's spirit remains a constant presence in the family, and in this, Allende's second memoir, she writes a lengthy letter to Paula, tracing significant events in the lives of the members of their "tribe" since her death. Allende's voices are so alluring that the rationalist will set aside logic and step into a world populated by ghosts, spirits, magic, and fate. Blair Brown's performance makes the surreal feel completely natural and turns the everyday turmoil and joy of this close-knit extended family into something to be envied. Brown delivers Allende's passionate opinions on everything from drug addiction and marriage to fidelity and religion with sincerity, humor, and an appropriately defiant attitude. S.J.H. © AudioFile 2008, Portland, Maine

About this edition

• Publisher: Harper Collins Ome
• Publication date: 2009
• ISBN 10: 0007299850
• ISBN 13: 9780007299850
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 320