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Editor's Note: Mari Rodríguez Ichaso has been a contributor to Vanidades magazine for several decades. He is a CNN en Español style columnist. He is a specialist in fashion, travel, gastronomy, art, architecture and entertainment. The opinions expressed are specific to the author. More at CNNE.com/opinion.
(CNN Spanish) - In times as complex as those we live in - amid the uncertainty and harsh reality of the covid-19 pandemic - the company of a book is wonderful. And if that book is written by a woman and reflects our many moods and ways of looking at life, even better!
I have always had several favorite authors. I have been fortunate to meet and interview some of them. Making a count of her books and others that have "marked" me from a very young age, I am pleased to be able to recommend some of them.
I must confess to you that not all of them are profound books, of those that make us reflect and of which suffering is part of the pleasure of reading them. They are light, frivolous and fun. They are also serious, those that leave their mark, but not necessarily painful and complicated, but accompanied by the joy of the pleasure of reading. And they really reflect our feelings!
I would like to recommend them to you and perhaps it could be the beginning of your own Book Club, to share them with your family and your friends. These are some, among many other wonderful.
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Unforgettable
"The Anne Frank Diary" is a key book, written by a smart German teenager, who died too young in a Nazi concentration camp, and since its publication in 1947, has marked millions of people across the globe. A book that we can read and reread, and in these days of "confinement" will impact us even more.
Unforgettable Classics
There are three wonderful authors that I recommend to you: the American Pearl Buck, winner of the 1938 Nobel Prize for Literature. From her, her famous book "The Good Land", a beautiful novel set in China in 1932. In 2004 she was chosen by Oprah Winfrey for your Book Club.
Another author is Austrian Vicki Baum, with her fascinating "Grand Hotel" (not to be confused with "Hotel Shanghai") and the lesser-known but very romantic "What Men Never Know". Several Vicki Baum novels take place in hotels and were taken to the movies.
Daphne du Maurier was an English author from the beginning of the 20th century who left us books such as "Rebeca" and "The Birds", both brought to the cinema by Alfred Hitchcock. This is how her work became better known.
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The fabulous Latin American authors
New voices, new accents, some are already icons of our literature and many of his books have been taken to the cinema
Laura Esquivel is the award-winning Mexican author of "Like Water for Chocolate", published in more than 35 languages and whose film of the same name is a charm.
"The House of the Spirits" and "Paula" are very special books by Isabel Allende. Chilean-American born in Peru, she is one of our most famous and respected international voices.
“The night of Tlatelolco” by Elena Poniatowska is a must. The Mexican author, French by birth, received the Cervantes Prize in 2013.
Sandra Cisneros, born in Chicago of Mexican origin, rose to fame with her fabulous and highly awarded "La casa en Mango Street". Do not miss it.
Ana Merino, Nadal Prize 2020 and her new and super fascinating novel "The map of the affects". It is attracting a lot of attention. Bravo!
The Cuban exile in Paris and multi-awarded Zoé Valdés has two novels that I recommend: "The everyday nothing" and "I gave you my whole life". They are among my books.
Julia Álvarez, an American of Dominican origin, is the author of “How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents” and the extraordinary book “Love in the Time of Butterflies”. Do not miss it!
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Authors who break molds and encourage you to disobey
One of my favorite authors - the French Francoise Sagan - revolutionized the world in 1954 with her daring "Good morning sadness", followed by "A certain smile". When interviewing her in Paris years later I said to her: "You urged us to disobey a whole generation of women." Her books, written when she was only 19 years old, were widely criticized at the time by amorals, cynics and breakers.
Another author who scandalized Europe (her husband initially signed her novels and the couple ended up divorced) was Colette. Sidonie Gabrielle Colette (1873-1954) recounted 19th century French customs with all its prohibitions and hypocrisies. "Song of the Dancer" and "White Night" are two of her novels, although the best known was "Gigi", written in 1944 and masterfully made in film in 1958 with Leslie Caron, Maurice Chevalier and Louis Jourdan. Do not miss the book and neither the movie.
The enchanting world of Jane Austen
The novels of the English author Jane Austen (1775-1817), in addition to being classics of literature, are a window to the fascinating world of England in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, its customs, rules and prejudices. Unforgettable characters parade through them, women very sure of their thoughts and often with surprising endings. I recommend "Emma", "Love and friendship", "Pride and prejudice", "Sense and sensitivity" and "Mansfield Park". Many of her works have been taken to the cinema and the theater.
The family and its women
A rigorous book, about the family, the sisters and the relationships between them, is the charming novel "Little Women" by the American Louisa May Alcott. Freshly brought back to the cinema in 2019, it is ideal to read at home, as a family, while watching and commenting on the film.
Margaret Mitchell's Gone with the Wind, the novel on which the famous film is based, is another classic that tells the story of a southern family, with the US Civil War. as a backdrop.
Two light and very funny books
Annemarie Selinko's “Desireé” is one of my favorite books (I have read it several times) about the life of Désirée Clary, Napoleon's first girlfriend, who years later would become queen of Sweden and who along with her husband, Marshal of the Napoleonic Army, Jean-Baptiste Bernanotte, founded the current Royal House of Sweden. You will love it! And Marlon Brando plays Napoleon alongside Jean Simmons in the 1954 film version.
The second book is the super fun and sexy novel "Forever Amber," about a seventeenth-century English courtesan, Amber St Clare, by American author Kathleen Winsor. It was an immediate best seller when it was published in 1944, towards the end of World War II, as the public was hungry for light, frivolous and sensual books.
The gothic and mystery novel
Mary Shelley's "Frankestein" is an example of a Gothic novel, just like Victoria Holt's novels and Agatha Christie's 66 detective book series. And in recent times the mysteries of the Susan Kiernan-Lewis novels that take place in Provence, Paris or Marseille. I recommend it.
The Victorian era in full splendor
Edith Wharton, from the end of the 19th century and beginning of the 20th, was a great American novelist and short story writer who also fought hard for women's rights. And if you just read the book (and watch the film) "The Age of Innocence", you will agree with me. The story of her life is also fascinating. .
The poetesses, the philosophers
Women dedicated to literature cover countless themes and genres in all parts of the world: Poets like the Chilean Gabriela Mistral, the Argentineans Alfonsina Storni and Silvina Ocampo and the wonderful Cuban Gertrudis Gómez de Avellaneda. They are all part of a 'musts' list. As well as essays and diaries by Cuban-resident Anais Nin in Paris and iconic feminist Simone de Beauvoir. Without forgetting the sad reality of the American Sylvia Plath and the force with which the Spanish Emilia Pardo Bazán, pioneer of naturalist and feminist literature of the 19th century, as well as others such as Gloria Steinem, Betty Freidan or Virginia Woolf herself have defended since his works the rights of women.
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