Hispanic Nonfiction

These nonfiction and biography titles offer the true-life experiences of Hispanic people.

"Al Alvarez touched down in Las Vegas one hot day in 1981, a dedicated amateur poker player but a stranger to the town and its crazy ways. For three mesmerizing weeks he witnessed some of the monster high-stakes games that could only have happened in Vegas and talked to the extraordinary characters who dominated them--road gamblers and local professionals who won and lost fortunes on a regular basis. Set over the course of one tournament, The Biggest Game in Town is botha chronicle of the World Series of Poker--the first ever written--and a portrait of the hustlers, madmen, and geniuses who ruled the high-stakes game in America. It is a brilliant insight into poker's appeal as a hobby, an addiction, and a way of life, and into the skewed psychology of master players and fearless gamblers. With a new introduction by the author, Alvarez's classic account is "the greatest dissection of high-stakes Vegas poker and the madness that surrounds it ever written" (from Amazon.com)

The Story of a Shipwrecked Sailor is a harrowing true account of the sole survivor of a tragic accident originally chronicled in newspapers by Gabriel Garcia Marquez "In 1955, Garcia Marquez was working for El Espectador, a newspaper in Bogota, when in February of that year eight crew members of the Caldas, a Colombian destroyer, were washed overboard and disappeared. Ten days later one of them turned up, barely alive, on a deserted beach in northern Colombia. This book, which originally appeared as a series of newspaper articles, is Garcia Marquez's account of that sailor's ordeal. This story is told in painstaking detail, and one has to admire the recall of the narrator as he recounts the circumstances of the shipwreck, the ensuing 10 days at sea and his ultimate rescue. I was able to feel the roller coaster of hope and despair experienced by narrator, the joys, surges of adrenaline, anger and frustration, determination and resignation." (from Amazon.com)

"Here is García Márquez’s shimmering evocation of his childhood home of Aracataca, the basis of the fictional Macondo. Here are the members of his ebulliently eccentric family. Here are the forces that turned him into a writer. Warm, revealing, abounding in images so vivid that we seem to be remembering them ourselves, Living to Tell the Taleis a work of enchantment. No writer of his time exerted the magical appeal of Gabriel García Márquez. In this long-awaited autobiography, the great Nobel laureate tells the story of his life from his birth in1927 to the moment in the 1950s when he proposed to his wife. The result is as spectacular as his finest fiction." (from Amazon.com)

In Paula, bestselling author Isabel Allende recalls the story of her beloved daughter and her remarkable family’s past. When her daughter, Paula, became gravely ill and fell into a coma, Isabel Allende began to write the story of her family for her unconscious child. Bizarre ancestors are introduced; delightful and bitter childhood memories are shared; amazing anecdotes of youthful years are relived, and the most intimate secrets are quietly passed along. Like Allende’s first novel, The House of the Spirits, this powerful memoir is infused with the real, the magical, and the spiritual, creating a haunting, sad, and beautiful tale." (from Amazon.com)

"Narrated with warmth, humor, exceptional candor and wisdom, The Sum of Our Days is a portrait of a contemporary family, tied together by the love, strong will, and stubborn determination of a beloved matriarch. Isabel Allende reconstructs the painful reality of her own life in the wake of the tragic death of her daughter, Paula. Narrated with warmth, humor, exceptional candor, and wisdom, this remarkable memoir is as exuberant and as full of life as its creator. Allende bares her soul while sharing her thoughts on love, marriage, motherhood, spirituality and religion, infidelity, addiction, and memory—and recounts stories of the wildly eccentric, strong-minded, and eclectic tribe she gathers around her and lovingly embraces as a new kind of family." (from Amazon.com)

200 Suggestions for Reading

Ever want a suggestion on something good to read?  Author and librarian Gina Sheridan offers you 200 titles to choose from in her new book, Check These Out.

The book is divided into fifteen chapters that break down the types of books.  There are even chapters on audio books and young adult fiction.  Each chapter gives you a selection of books with the author, when it was written and a brief description along with why the author enjoyed it.  The audio book chapter even tells you whose voice is reading the book.

So next time you feel stumped on what you'd like to read next, pick up this book for some great ideas.

Miscellaneous Non-Fiction for Your Consideration

The library orders and receives more books than we, here at the library, can read and fit onto this blog or into my weekly newspaper column. So, I thought it would be a good idea to highlight some of the less glamorous, but all-together informative non-fiction that we have recently acquired.

The 11:45 Call: An Expository Bible Study of the Book of Jude is by Joel F. Blakely and Brenda Klutz Blakely. The book of Jude is God's last attempt to give humanity His instructions on how to be delivered from destruction and what will happen if we don't listen. The book of Jude zeros in on the instructions that Jesus left his disciples to beware, to be ready, walk in faith and truth, and to testify to the work that God has done in our lives.

Next, we have 5@55: The 5 Essential Documents You Need by Age 55 written by Judith D. Grimaldi, Esq. and Joanne Seminara, Esq. with Pierre A. Lehu. This small, but informative book is for everyone; not just those 55 years old and older. You never know when you may need a will or an advanced health care directive. Illness, disability, and death may strike at any time; yet most people don't have the necessary legal documents in place to safeguard our loved ones and our assets. This book covers the five most important documents you should have: a Will, a Health Care Proxy, a Living Will, a Power of Attorney, and a Digital Diary (which gives authorization for your representative to access your computer and online accounts). These documents will help ensure that your assets go to the right people, your wishes about your medical care will be respected, and that the people you trust will be in charge of your affairs. This is not a difficult book to understand. The authors wrote it for the average layperson to understand, so why not check it out today?

Finally, have you ever thought about writing your memoirs, but have been at a loss at where to begin? Well, perhaps you should check-out Turning Memories into Memoirs: A Handbook for Writing Lifestories by Denis Ledoux. The author leads you through writing your personal or family history step-by-step. He offers practical advice and tips for helping you remember the salient details of the stories you are trying to tell. You will learn proven story writing techniques and strategies to write stories that others will enjoy and you will gain the skills necessary to help you gain access to your life's deeper, inner meaning.


These, and other informative books are readily available here at the library. Come in and check them out!