Authors: Isabel Allende

The Infinite Plan (54 page)

BOOK: The Infinite Plan

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âChicago Sun-Times

APHRODITE: A MEMOIR OF THE SENSES

Under the aegis of the Goddess of Love, Isabel Allende uses her storytelling skills brilliantly in
Aphrodite
to evoke the delights of food and sex. After considerable research and study she has become an authority on aphrodisiacs, which include everything from food and drink to stories and, of course, love. Readers will find here recipes from Allende's mother, poems, stories from ancient and foreign literature, paintings, personal anecdotes, fascinating tidbits on the sensual art of food and its effect on amorous performance, tips on how to attract your mate and revive flagging virility, passages on the effect of smell on libido, a history of alcoholic beverages, and much more.

“Allende turns the joyous preparation and consumption of fine food into an erotic catalyst.”

âNew York Times Book Review

PAULA: A MEMOIR

With an enchanting blend of magic realism, politics, and romance reminiscent of her classic bestseller
The House of the Spirits
, Isabel Allende presents a soul-baring memoir that seizes the reader like a novel of suspense.

Written for her daughter, Paula, when she became ill and slipped into a coma,
Paula
is the colorful story of Allende's lifeâfrom her early years in her native Chile, through the turbulent military coup of 1973, to the subsequent dictatorship and her family's years of exile. In the telling, bizarre ancestors reveal themselves, delightful and bitter childhood memories surface, enthralling anecdotes of youthful years are narrated, and intimate secrets are softly whispered.

In an exorcism of death and a celebration of life, Isabel Allende explores the past and questions the gods. She creates a magical book that carries the reader from tears to laughter, and from terror through sensuality to wisdom. In
Paula
, readers will come to understand that the miraculous world of her novels is the world Isabel Allende inhabitsâit is her enchanted reality.

“Spellbinding. .Â .Â . In flawlessly rich prose, [Allende] shares with us her most intimate feelings.”

âWashington Post Book World

MY INVENTED COUNTRY: A MEMOIR

Isabel Allende evokes the magnificent landscapes of her country, a charming, idiosyncratic Chilean people with a violent history and an indomitable spirit, and the politics, religion, myth, and magic of a homeland that she carries with her even today. The book circles around two life-changing moments. The assassination of her uncle Salvador Allende Gossens on September 11, 1973, sent her into exile and transformed her into a literary writer. And the terrorist attacks against her adopted homeland the United States on September 11, 2001, brought forth an overdue acknowledgment that Allende had indeed left home.
My Invented Country
, mimicking the workings of memory itself, ranges back and forth across that distance between past and present lives. It speaks compellingly to immigrants and to all of us who try to retain a coherent inner life in a world full of contradictions.

“The book gets my undivided attention when it expounds on the relationship of the author to that country of hers, invented, imaginary, fictional, to the story of her family, which is itself invented memory, and to her vocation as a narrator.”

âLos Angeles Times

THE SUM OF OUR DAYS

In
The Sum of Our Days
, internationally acclaimed author 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 full of life as its creator. Allende bares her soul as she shares her thoughts on love, marriage, motherhood, spirituality and religion, infidelity, addiction, and memoryâand recounts stories of the wildly eccentric, strong-minded, and eclectic tribe she gathers around her and lovingly embraces as a new kind of family.

“Terrific. .Â .Â . Funny, insightful, moving, and filled with Allende's unique voice.”

âUSA Today

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Books by Isabel Allende

THE HOUSE OF THE SPIRITS

OF LOVE AND SHADOWS

EVA LUNA

THE INFINITE PLAN

PAULA

APHRODITE: A MEMOIR OF THE SENSES

ZORRO

ISLAND BENEATH THE SEA

MAYA'S NOTEBOOK

RIPPER

THE JAGUAR AND EAGLE TRILOGY

CITY OF THE BEASTS

KINGDOM OF THE GOLDEN DRAGON

FOREST OF THE PYGMIES

Originally published in Spain as
El Plan Infinito
by Plazay JanÃ©s Editores, S.A., Barcelona.

A hardcover edition of this book was published in 1993 by HarperCollins Publishers.

A signed first edition of this book has been privately printed by The Franklin Library.

P.S.â¢ is a trademark of HarperCollins Publishers.

THE INFINITE PLAN
. Copyright Â© 1991 by Isabel Allende. English translation copyright Â© 1993 by HarperCollins Publishers. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

First HarperPerennial edition published 1994. Reissued in Perennial 2002.

First Harper Perennial edition published 2010.

The Library of Congress has catalogued the hardcover edition as follows:

Allende, Isabel.

[Plan infinito. English]

The infinite plan : a novel / Isabel Allende ; translated from the Spanish by Margaret Sayers Peden.â1st U.S. ed.

p. cm.

ISBN 0-06-017016-6

I. Title.

PQ8098.I.L54P5713 1993

863âdc20

92-54741