Reading Patagonia
Read and Recommended: Book by W.H. Hudson, Bruce Chatwin, Sara Wheeler, Lucas Bridges, Pablo Neruda, Isabel Allende and Paul Theroux.
W.H. Hudson
A memoir of a childhood growing up in the Pampas of Argentina in the 19th century. Hudson, a founder of the RSPB, reveals a rapturous delight in the wildlife of the pampas, animal or human. A genuine vision with unaffected clarity, restoring truth to what we have come to regard as cliché. When the modern world becomes too noisy and intrusive, this is a good book to escape into.
Bruce Chatwin
I read this travelling around Patagonia in 2025 and it still dazzles. In Patagonia blends fragments of fact, fiction, myth, and memoir to explore exile and restlessness. A book that many travel writers draw inspiration from. Chatwin was one most vivid and elusive writers of the late 20th century.
Chile: Travels in a Thin Country
Sara Wheeler
A book of travels through a country that is 25 times longer than it is wide. Where the weather is “very hot in the north, pleasantly warm in the middle, and perishing at the bottom.” Wheeler’s reliance on local pisco sours and her ability to laugh at her own self-inflicted misfortunes kept me entertained.
Lucas Bridges
The story of a life lived alongside the last indigenous people of Tierra del Fuego, written in 1947. Bridges learned the Yaghan language and Tok part in many of their ceremonies. This haunting book is the reason I travelled to Estancia Harberton, where Bridges live and wrote the book.
Selected Poems of Pablo Neruda
Pablo Neruda
Pablo Neruda is widely celebrated as Chile's most famous and beloved writer. Pack this book and let him show you Patagonia beyond the postcard. It’s full of his love for Chile’s landscapes, wild Patagonian elements, lyrical beauty and deep connection to nature. A wonderful counterpoint to the travel books on this list.
A Long Petal of the Sea
Isabel Allende
An epic story for a Patagonian journey. The book gets its beautiful title from Neruda’s famous description of Chile as a "long petal of sea and wine and snow." A Long Petal of the Sea follows Victor Dalmau and Roser Bruguera, who flee the Spanish Civil War and secure passage to Chile on a ship chartered by Pablo Neruda.
Paul Theroux
A classic travelogue written by Paul Theroux, detailing his two-month rail journey from Massachusetts to the tip of South America. Theroux’s sharp observations of people amuse, as does his arrival at his final destination, concluding that he had arrived precisely at "nowhere.” I’m not the biggest fan of Theroux but this book deserves a place on the list.
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