Tropical Truth: A Story of Music and Revolution in Brazil


Caetano Veloso - 1997
    Caetano and the movement he catalyzed, tropicalia, urged an adoption of personal freedom in politics, music, and lifestyle. His "rabble-rousing," as the government saw it, would get Caetano and his comrade Gilberto Gil arrested and exiled to London to wait out the military dictatorship. His fame increasing by the year, Caetano focused on writing songs about his homeland, returning to Brazil as a national hero-a mantle he still wears today. His most recent album, Live in Bahia, was released to international critical and popular acclaim.

The Best American Travel Writing 2007


Susan Orlean - 2007
    It’s about getting lost -- that is, it is about losing yourself in a place and a moment. The little things that tether you to what’s familiar are gone, and you become a conduit through which the sensation of the place is felt.” -- from the introduction by Susan OrleanThe twenty pieces in this year’s collection showcase the best travel writing from 2006. George Saunders travels to India to witness firsthand a fifteen-year-old boy who has been meditating motionless under a tree for months without food or water, and who many followers believe is the reincarnation of the Buddha. Matthew Power reveals trickle-down economics at work in a Philippine garbage dump. Jason Anthony describes the challenges of everyday life in Vostok, the coldest place on earth, where temperatures dip as low as minus-129 degrees and where, in midsummer, minus-20 degrees is considered a heat wave.David Halberstam, in one of his last published essays, recalls how an inauspicious Saigon restaurant changed the way he and other reporters in Vietnam saw the world. Ian Frazier analyzes why we get sick when traveling in out-of-the-way places. And Kevin Fedarko embarks on a drug-fueled journey in Djibouti, chewing psychotropic foliage in “the worst place on earth.”Closer to home, Steve Friedman profiles a 410-pound man who set out to walk cross-country to lose weight and find happiness. Rick Bass chases the elusive concept of the West in America, and Jonathan Stern takes a hilarious Lonely Planet approach to his small Manhattan apartment.A brief and awkward tour of the end of the Earth / Jason Anthony --Lost in space / Rick Bass --High in hell / Kevin Fedarko --A kielbasa too far / Ian Frazier --Lost in America / Steve Friedman --Long day's journey into dinner / Elizabeth Gilbert --Arieh / Reesa Grushka --The boys of Saigon / David Halberstam --Hutong Karma / Peter Hessler --Miles from nowhere / Edward Hoagland --Birth of a nation? / Ian Parker --The long way home / Nando Parrado --Do not disturb / Ann Patchett --The magic mountain / Matthew Power --Streets of sorrow / David Rakoff --The incredible Buddha boy / George Saunders --Brazil's untamed heart / Gary Shteyngart --Circle of fire / Andrew Solomon --The lonely planet guide to my apartment / Jonathan Stern --Fantasy Island / Cynthia Zarin

Why This World: A Biography of Clarice Lispector


Benjamin Moser - 2009
    Now, after years of research on three continents, drawing on previously unknown manuscripts and dozens of interviews, Benjamin Moser demonstrates how Lispector's development as a writer was directly connected to the story of her turbulent life. Born in the nightmarish landscape of post-World War I Ukraine, Clarice became, virtually from adolescence, a person whose beauty, genius, and eccentricity intrigued Brazil. Why This World tells how this precocious girl, through long exile abroad and difficult personal struggles, matured into a great writer. It also asserts, for the first time, the deep roots in the Jewish mystical tradition that make her the true heir to Kafka as well as the unlikely author of "perhaps the greatest spiritual autobiography of the twentieth century." From Chechelnik to Recife, from Naples and Berne to Washington and Rio de Janeiro, Why This World strips away the mythology surrounding this extraordinary figure and shows how Clarice Lispector transformed one woman's struggles into a universally resonant art.

Brazil: Five Centuries of Change


Thomas E. Skidmore - 1999
    Thomas Skidmore, a preeminent authority on Brazil, vividly traces the 500 years of Brazil's development. Its epic story begins in the wake of Vasco da Gama's historic circumnavigation of the globe, when another Portuguese vessel, commanded by Pedro Alvares Cabral, ran aground on the coast of Brazil in April 1500. From there Skidmore probes Portugal's remarkable command of the vast country in the face of the advances of the Spanish, French, and Dutch colonial interests; Brazil's compromised independence in 1822; its evolution as the center of world coffee cultivation; and the creation of the republic in the late nineteenth century. He also examines its unique forms of modernist art and literature, the dictatorship of Getulio Vargas and the military coups, and the liberal reforms of current President Fernando Henrique Cardoso. Informed by the most recent scholarship available, Brazil explores the country's many blessings: ethnic diversity, racial democracy, a vibrant cultural life, and a wealth of natural resources. But, as Skidmore writes, the Brazilians must also grapple with a history of political instability and military rule, a deplorable environmental record, chronic inflation, and international debt. An ideal choice for undergraduate and graduate courses in Latin American history, this eloquent and detailed look at Brazil will be the standard history of the country for years to come. .

All Dogs Are Blue


Rodrigo de Souza Leão - 2008
    Its raw style and comic inventiveness signal a major voice in Brazilian literature. Sadly the author died, aged forty-three, soon after it was published in 2008.Due to his mental fragility, Rodrigo de Souza Leão rarely left his house and yet, through social media, blogging, and e-mail, he became close to many Brazilian writers and poets and remains highly regarded today.

Empire Adrift: The Portuguese Court in Rio de Janeiro, 1808-1821


Patrick Wilcken - 2004
    Napoleon's troops were closing in on Lisbon, so he chose to transplant his entire court and government to Portugal's largest colony, Brazil. About 10,000 aristocrats, ministers, priests and servants clambered aboard a rickety fleet and, after a rough passage, they spilled off their ships bedraggled and lice-ridden – much to the astonishment of their New World subjects.Thus began thirteen years of imperial rule from Rio de Janeiro. But the “tropical Versailles” that grew up against the city's jungle-clad mountains only partly obscured the brutal workings of what was then the largest slaving port in the Americas. And while the court grappled with the dark side of its own empire, Brazil was coming of age.Patrick Wilcken brings this remarkable period to life, blending vivid contemporary testaments with a rich evocation of a time when European royalty went native.

Brazillionaires: Chasing Dreams of Wealth in an American Country


Alex Cuadros - 2016
    The billionaires of Brazil and their massive fortunes resided at the very top of their country’s economic pyramid, and whether they quietly accumulated exceptional power or extravagantly displayed their decadence, they formed a potent microcosm of the world’s richest .001 percent. Eike Batista, a flamboyant and charismatic evangelist for the country’s new gospel of wealth, epitomized much of this rarefied sphere: In 2012, Batista ranked as the eighth-richest person in the world, was famous for his marriage to a beauty queen, and was a fixture in the Brazilian press. His constantly repeated ambition was to become the world’s richest man and to bring Brazil along with him to the top. But by 2015, Batista was bankrupt, his son Thor had been indicted for manslaughter, and Brazil—its president facing impeachment, its provinces combating an epidemic, and its business and political class torn apart by scandal—had become a cautionary tale of a country run aground by its elites. Over the four years Cuadros was on the billionaire beat, he reported on media moguls and televangelists, energy barons and shadowy figures from the years of military dictatorship, soy barons who lived on the outskirts of the Amazon, and new-economy billionaires spinning money from speculation. He learned just how deeply they all reached into Brazilian life. They held sway over the economy, government, media, and stewardship of the environment; they determined the spiritual fates and populated the imaginations of their countrymen. Cuadros’s zealous reporting takes us from penthouses to courtrooms, from favelas to extravagant art fairs, from scenes of unimaginable wealth to desperate, massive street protests. Within a business narrative that deftly explains and dramatizes the volatility of the global economy, Cuadros offers us literary journalism with a grand sweep. Praise for Brazillionaires“A wild, richly reported tale about Brazil’s recent economic rise and fall, and some of the biggest, most colorful characters in business in Brazil who now have a global reach. . . . Cuadros’s story really takes off when he focuses on Eike Batista, an over-the-top one-time billionaire who became the country’s corporate mascot, only to go bankrupt in a dramatic unraveling.”—Andrew Ross Sorkin, the New York Times   “In this excellent book [Cuadros] has managed to use billionaires to illuminate the lives of both rich and poor Brazilians, and all those in between.”—The Economist“Brazillionaires [is] journalist Alex Cuadros’s compelling tale of Brazil’s superrich, which deftly weaves lurid soap opera with high finance and outrageous political skullduggery. . . .

The Accidental President of Brazil: A Memoir


Fernando Henrique Cardoso - 2006
    As he put the phone down and stared into the darkness of his hotel room, he feared he'd been handed a political death sentence. The year was 1993, and he would be responsible for an economy that had had seven different currencies in the previous eight years to cope with inflation that had run at 3000 percent a year. Brazil had a habit of chewing up finance ministers with the ferocity of an Amazon piranha. This was just one of the turns in a largely unscripted and sometimes unwanted political career. In exile during the harshest period of the junta that ruled Brazil for twenty years, Cardoso started his political life with a tentative run for the Federal Senate in 1978. Within fifteen years, and despite himself, this former sociologist was running the country.And what a country! Brazil, it is often said, is on the edge of modernity, striding with one foot in mid-air towards the future, the other still rooted deep in a traditional past. It is a land of sophisticated music and brutal gold-digging, of the next global superpower and the last old-time coffee plantations. It is gloriously ungovernable, irrepressibly attractive, and home to the family, friends and extraordinary life of Fernando Henrique Cardoso. This is his story and his love song to his country.

Gran Cocina Latina: The Food of Latin America


Maricel E. Presilla - 2012
    In one volume it gives home cooks, armchair travelers, and curious chefs the first comprehensive collection of recipes from this region. An inquisitive historian and a successful restaurateur, Maricel E. Presilla has spent more than thirty years visiting each country personally. She’s gathered more than 500 recipes for the full range of dishes, from the foundational adobos and sofritos to empanadas and tamales to ceviches and moles to sancocho and desserts such as flan and tres leches cake. Detailed equipment notes, drink and serving suggestions, and color photographs of finished dishes are also included. This is a one-of-a-kind cookbook to be savored and read as much for the writing and information as for its introduction to heretofore unrevealed recipes.

A Miracle, A Universe: Settling Accounts with Torturers


Lawrence Weschler - 1990
    In this now-classic and profoundly influential study, the New Yorker's Lawrence Weschler probes these dilemmas across two gripping narratives (set in Brazil and Uruguay, among the first places to face such concerns), true-life thrillers in which torture victims, faced with the paralysis of the new regime, themselves band together to settle accounts with their former tormentors. "Disturbing and often enthralling."—New York Times Book Review"Extraordinarily moving. . . . Weschler writes brilliantly."—Newsday"Implausible, intricate and dazzling."—Times Literary Supplement"As Weschler's interviewees told their tales, I paced agitatedly, choked back tears. . . . Weschler narrates these two episodes with skill and tact. . . . An inspiring book."—George Scialabba, Los Angeles Weekly

Brazilian Adventure


Peter Fleming - 1933
    In 1932, Peter Fleming, a literary editor, traded his pen for a pistol and took off as part of the celebrated search for missing English explorer Colonel P.H. Fawcett. With meager supplies, faulty maps, and packs of rival newspapermen on their trail, Fleming and his companions marched, canoed, and hacked through 3,000 miles of wilderness and alligator-ridden rivers in search of the fate of the lost explorer. One of the great adventure stories, Brazilian Adventure is as fresh a story today as it was when originally published in 1933.

The History of Latin America: Collision of Cultures


Marshall C. Eakin - 2007
    This narrative history of Latin America surveys five centuries in less than five hundred pages.  The first third of the book moves from the Americas before Columbus to the wars for independence in the early nineteenth century.  The construction of new nations and peoples in the nineteenth century forms the middle third, and the final section analyzes economic development, rising political participation, and the search of identity over the last century.  The collision of peoples and cultures--Native Americans, Europeans, Africans--that defines Latin America, and gives it both its unity and diversity, provides the central theme of this concise, synthetic history.

Lonely Planet Brazil


Regis St. Louis - 1997
    Party at Carnaval in Rio, come face to face with monkeys and other creatures in the Amazon, or snorkel the aquatic life-filled natural aquariums of Bonito, all with your trusted travel companion. Get to the heart of Brazil and begin your journey now! Inside Lonely Planet Brazil: Full-color maps and images throughout Highlights and itineraries help you tailor your trip to your personal needs and interests Insider tips to save time and money and get around like a local, avoiding crowds and trouble spots Essential info at your fingertips - hours of operation, phone numbers, websites, transit tips, prices Honest reviews for all budgets - eating, sleeping, sight-seeing, going out, shopping, hidden gems that most guidebooks miss Cultural insights give you a richer, more rewarding travel experience - history, music, football, cinema, literature, cuisine, nature, wildlife Over 119 color maps Covers The Amazon, Rio de Janeiro, Sao Paulo, Brasilia, Salvador, Bahia, Pernambuco, Paraiba, Rio Grande de Norte, Parana, Ceara, Piaui, Maranhao, Santa Catarina, Mato Grosso and more eBook Features: (Best viewed on tablet devices and smartphones) Downloadable PDF and offline maps prevent roaming and data charges Effortlessly navigate and jump between maps and reviews Add notes to personalize your guidebook experience Seamlessly flip between pages Bookmarks and speedy search capabilities get you to key pages in a flash Embedded links to recommendations' websites Zoom-in maps and images Inbuilt dictionary for quick referencing The Perfect Choice: Lonely Planet Brazil, our most comprehensive guide to Brazil, is perfect for both exploring top sights and taking roads less traveled. Looking for a guide focused on Rio de Janeiro? Check out Lonely Planet Rio de Janeiro for a comprehensive look at all the city has to offer, or Make My Day Rio de Janeiro, a colorful and uniquely interactive guide that allows you to effortlessly plan your itinerary by flipping, mixing and matching top sights. Authors: Written and researched by Lonely Planet. About Lonely Planet: Since 1973, Lonely Planet has become the world's leading travel media company with guidebooks to every destination, an award-winning website, mobile and digital travel products, and a dedicated traveler community. Lonely Planet covers must-see spots but also enables curious travelers to get off beaten paths to understand more of the culture of the places in which they find themselves. *Best-selling guide to Brazil. Source: Nielsen BookScan. Australia, UK and USA.

Senhora


José de Alencar - 1870
    The poor orphan Aurélia is devastated when her true love, Fernando, breaks their engagement for the financial rewards of a marriage of convenience to another. But Aurélia unexpectedly inherits a fortune and plans her revenge. Winning marriage to Fernando with a large dowery, she stuns her lover on their wedding night by imposing a marriage of convenience until the dowery is returned. The marriage descends into one of hate more than convenience, until both recognize the errors of their ways.

If This Be Treason: Translation and its Dyscontents


Gregory Rabassa - 2005
    His translations of Gabriel García Márquez’s One Hundred Years of Solitude and Julio Cortázar’s Hopscotch have helped make these some of the the most widely read and respected works in world literature. (García Márquez was known to say that the English translation of One Hundred Years was better than the Spanish original.) In If This Be Treason: Translation and Its Dyscontents, Rabassa offers a coolheaded and humorous defense of translation, laying out his views on the translator’s art. Anecdotal and always illuminating, Rabassa traces his career from a boyhood on a New Hampshire farm, his school days “collecting” languages, the two and a half years he spent overseas during WWII, and his South American travels, until one day “I signed a contract to do my first translation of a long work [Cortázar’s Hopscotch] for a commercial publisher.” Additionally, Rabassa offers us his “rap sheet,” a consideration of the various authors and the over 40 works he has translated. This longawaited memoir is a joy to read, an instrumental guide to translating, and a look at the life of one of its great practitioners.