Isabel Allende on her new book — and 2 more titles for your summer reading list

Here & Now Anytime

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4.1 • 953 Ratings

🗓️ 2 May 2025

⏱️ 36 minutes

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Summary

Author Isabel Allende talks about her new book, "My Name is Emilia Del Valle," a historical romance set in the late 1800s about a young female journalist who goes to Chile to cover a brewing civil war. Then, author Zara Chowdhary tells her deeply personal story of growing up in India during a period of anti-Muslim violence in "The Lucky Ones." The book has just been announced as a finalist in the PEN/John Kenneth Galbraith Award for Non-Fiction. And, when his wife, the fashion designer Anna Huling, was diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease in her forties, author Stephen Sicliano began documenting the beautiful settings and local trips the couple and their son took around their Southern California home. Stephen eventually turned it into a book called "Three Surfin' Safari Summers."

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0:00.0	Whoever you are, wherever you're from, NPR is here for you.
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0:19.0	Visit donate.npr.org.
0:23.7	WBWR Podcasts, Boston.
0:28.9	As a feminist, I think that I have many more choices, but I don't have limitations.
0:34.9	Isabel Ayende's new book follows a pioneering journalist covering the Chilean civil war in the
0:40.8	late 1800s.
0:42.3	It's also a feminist romance novel.
0:54.1	Today's Friday, May 2nd, and this is here and now anytime from NPR and WVUR. I'm Chris Bentley.
1:02.4	Today on the show, three conversations Deepa Fernandez had recently about love, loss, and memories that help us carry on. We'll hear about a memoir of
1:13.5	growing up in India during a period of anti-Muslim violence, and a personal story from Deepa's
1:20.1	extended family. What happens when your loved one has early onset Alzheimer's?
1:25.5	I was losing her, and I wanted to take the last moments we had together and enjoy them
1:31.3	in beautiful places that were nearby.
1:33.6	Life lessons that we all could stand to benefit from coming up in about 20 minutes.
1:38.0	But first, as Deepa says, a new novel from Isabel Ayende is always cause for celebration.
1:45.6	Her best-selling works include The House of the Spirits and Ava Luna.
1:49.8	She sold more than 80 million copies in 42 languages.
1:53.6	In 2014, she received the Presidential Medal of Freedom from President Obama.
1:58.2	And Isabel Iende's latest book is an historical novel called My Name
	...

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