For Chile, I read The House of the Spirits by Isabel Allende. I read this book before in high school and loved it, and rereading it as a forty-five year old woman, I fell in love with it all over again. The magical realism! The family saga! The backdrop of Chile’s political history during the twentieth century! What an epic book!

If you have not heard about House of the Spirits before, here’s a quick overview: it’s the story of three generation of the Trueba family, as told by the ninety-year-old patriarch Esteban and his granddaughter Alba. There’s Esteban’s wife Clara, who can talk to spirits and move things with her mind, and Esteban’s daughter Blanca who falls in love with the son of the foreman of her father’s ranch. I won’t say anything about Alba because honestly, just go read this book already.

As I read House of the Spirits, I kept thinking how a college professor could dedicate an entire class to just this book. You could spend weeks dissecting the book itself: the way Allende brings the characters to life, giving everyone main character energy, even if they only join the story for a few pages; her lush style of writing (you could easily spend an entire class just debating her use of foreshadowing); and how she deftly combines an epic family drama with political history. But then you could use House of the Spirits as a launching pad to discuss magical realism, South American literature, and the role of literature in the world. (Please tell me someone has been teaching this class, and then please let me audit it.)

But, as much as I think you could spend an entire college semester dissecting this book, you could just as easily read it in a hammock during your tropical vacation and let the lush descriptions carry you away. That’s the brilliance of Isabel Allende. She can let you enjoy a intriguing, scandalous soap opera while drinking a fruity beverage out of a coconut shell and she can also inspire you to rethink your understanding of the world.

Here’s something I did not know when I read House of the Spirits in high school: it’s autobiographical! Isabel Allende started writing it as a letter to her dying grandfather! Her uncle was Chilean President Salvador Allende, who was assassinated in 1973 during a military coup. How wild is that? You know how movie blu-rays often include a version with the director and actors comments about the making of the film? I want something like that for House of the Spirits! Maybe Isabel Allende could host a podcast and in each episode, she goes through a chapter of the book and explains the real life inspiration behind the characters, setting, etc. (Just sending this out to the Universe…)

A movie version of House of the Spirits was made in the 1990s but it stars Meryl Streep, Jeremy Irons, Glenn Close, and Winona Ryder. I love all those actors, but I don’t love the idea of watching them in a Chilean story. (Seriously–Winona-Fucking-Ryder?) A few years ago, Eva Longoria was reported to be headlining a reboot of House of the Spirits for Hulu, but I can’t find any recent reporting about that. Fingers crossed someone brings this story to television someday! It would make such a fantastic drama.