The Sum of Our Days
A Memoir
By Isabel Allende
(Harper, Hardcover, 9780061551833, 320pp.)
Publication Date: March 11, 2008
Other Editions of This Title: Paperback (December 17, 2008), Large Print (March 20, 2008), Compact Disc (March 13, 2008)
Categories: Literary, Personal Memoirs, Women
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In this heartfelt memoir, Isabel Allende reconstructs the painful reality of her own life in the wake of tragic loss—the death of her daughter, Paula. Recalling the past thirteen years from the daily letters the author and her mother, who lives in Chile, wrote to each other, Allende bares her soul in a book that is as exuberant and full of life as its creator. She recounts the stories of the wildly eccentric, strong-minded, and eclectic tribe she gathers around her that becomes a new kind of family.
Throughout, Allende shares her thoughts on love, marriage, motherhood, spirituality and religion, infidelity, addiction, and memory. Here, too, are the amazing stories behind Allende’s books, the superstitions that guide her writing process, and her adventurous travels. Ultimately, The Sum of Our Days offers a unique tour of this gifted writer’s inner world and of the relationships that have become essential to her life and her work.
Narrated with warmth, humor, exceptional candor, and wisdom, The Sum of Our Days is a portrait of a contemporary family, bound together by the love, fierce loyalty, and stubborn determination of a beloved, indomitable matriarch.
Born in Peru and raised in Chile, Isabel Allende is the author of eight novels, including, most recently, Zorro, Portrait in Sepia, and Daughter of Fortune. She has also written a collection of stories; three memoirs, including My Invented Country and Paula; and a trilogy of children's novels. Her books have been translated into more than twenty-seven languages and have become bestsellers across four continents. In 2004 she was inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Isabel Allende lives in California.
"...Ms.Allende...executes this epistolary memoir with the same authenticity and poetry that grace her fiction...Ms. Allende is a survivor worth reading and emulating."
-Dallas Morning News
"Allende's trademark magical realism is ever present...This high-spirited, emotionally packed book enables readers to get a closer look at the life of a much-loved writer."
-Library Journal
"A powerful memoir"
-Seattle Post-Intelligencer
"Allende is a genius."
-Los Angeles Times Book Review
"A warm meditation on family and love.A book to be savored and reread."
-Kirkus Reviews
"THE SUM OF OUR DAYS is terrific. It's funny, insightful, moving and filled with Allende's unique voice."
-USA Today
"A vibrant voice, which is at once introspective and forthright.an inspiring and thought-provoking work.The insights resonate, on page after page."
-Denver Post
"A deeply revealing memoir . . . Allende's insight is keen, her prose polished and her language hypnotic . . . This is a book to savor."
-Publishers Weekly (starred review)
"Allende's THE SUM OF OUR DAYS adds up to an exuberant love letter-not only to her daughter, but to her tribe and anyone lucky enough to belong to one."
-St. Louis Post-Dispatch
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