The Hispanic Reader is two!

The Hispanic Reader is two years today! And with our last post, a review of Javier Mácias’ The Infatuations, this blog has marked another milestone – 75 book reviews. Let’s look at these books:

Type of books:

• 53: Novels
• 6: Memoirs, including My Beloved World by Sonia Sotomayor
• 5: Short story collections
• 4: Essay collections
• 4: Non-Fiction
• 3: Graphic books/Picture books

Gender of authors:

• 38: Female
• 37: Male, including Carlos Fuentes, author of The Death of Artemio Cruz

Settings of book:

• 53: United States
• 13: Mexico
• 5: Spain
• 5: Dominican Republic
• 4: Chile, including The Neruda Case by Roberto Ampuero
• 4: Other
• 3: Argentina
• 3: Cuba
• 1: Panama
• 1: Colombia

Note: Some books take place in more than one country. (And, in case you’re wondering, I kept a spreadsheet of these details.)

First book reviewed: Say Her Name by Francisco Goldman

Shortest book: Have You Seen Marie? by Sandra Cisneros, 112 pages, much of which were illustrations

Longest book: The Time in Between by Maria Duenas, 624 pages

Number of contemporary books (released during the blog’s existence): 58

Number of classic books (released before the blog’s existence): 17

Oldest Book: The Aleph by Jorge Luis Borges, released in 1949

Favorite title: Yaqui Delgado Wants to Kick Your Ass by Meg Medina

Favorite ending: When I Was Puerto Rican by Esmeralda Santiago

Favorite book: The Hummingbird’s Daughter by Luis Alberto Urrea

Best passages:

From The Hummingbird’s Daughter by Luis Alberto Urrea

“If you are too blind to see God in a Goddamned taco … then you are truly blind.”

From Loving Pedro Infante by Denise Chávez

“There’s nothing a Mejicano or Mejicana loves more than the burning, stinging pain of thwarted, frustrated, hopeless, soulful, take-it-to-the-grave love. Nothing gets us going more than what I call rabia/love of the te-juro-you’re-going-to-pay-for-all-the-suffering-you-caused-me variety.”

From The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Díaz

“I kept waiting to run into my family posting up flyers of me on the boardwalk … but the closest I came to any of that was someone had put up for a cat they lost. That’s white people for you. They lost a cat and it’s an all-points bulletin, but we Dominicans, we lost a daughter and we might not even cancel our appointment at the salon.”