100 books like The Murmur of Bees

This book by Mario Vargas Llosa explores the last days of the Dominican Republic's Trujillo dictatorship. I really enjoyed this novel for its blending of historical facts with fiction and for providing a detailed depiction of Rafael Trujillo's regime, its impact on the country, and his assassination in 1961.

The narrative combines three storylines: The character of Urania, who returns to the Dominican Republic after many years in the United States, and shows us the long-lasting psychological impact of Trujillo's rule on her and her family. Trujillo’s last days, personality, control over the country, and the loyalty and fear he commanded. Finally, the group of people plotting to assassinate Trujillo, their motivations, fears, and actions show us that freedom is one of our most valuable treasures worthy of risking our lives.

Vargas Llosa's detailed and compelling narrative profoundly examines how dictatorial regimes can distort societies and damage lives.

Eduardo Galeano examines Simón Bolivar’s famous question of whether Latin America will ever know happiness by documenting how exploitation has led to social inequities and political instability. Another question I have grappled with is just as complex to answer, but Galeano does it. Why has Latin America suffered so many military dictatorships?

Recent political developments in the United States resemble the instability and unprincipled rhetoric that caused democracies to fall all over the southern continent. 

This novel masterfully blends journalism, magical realism, and detective fiction. The story is told by a narrator who returns to his town to reconstruct the events that provoked Nasar’s death. Nasar was young and wealthy and was accused of dishonoring Angele Vicario. 

Garcia Marquez explores the concept of honor in Latin American culture and how it drives individuals to commit extreme acts. The community's failure to prevent the murder highlights themes of complicity and social responsibility. I recommend this novel because of its rich details and the author’s ability to blend reality with elements of magical realism, creating a haunting and entertaining narrative. 

This novel is both a love story and an insightful account of the political tragedies many countries face today. It is a story about recognizing and accepting unpleasant and difficult situations that are experienced daily. 

It is set in an unnamed South American country whose elected government has been recently overthrown by a right-wing coup. While reading this book, I thought of the effects of a dictatorship on the lives of people of all ages. Allende helps us to understand the impact on individuals and families who oppose it. She vividly describes the fear, the violence, and the oppression that these families experience. The main characters fall in love while trying to deal with political struggles. Allende’s storytelling is vivid and combines romance with the social and political realities of many countries in Latin America.

This author tells the story of the Irish Battalion and the Mexican War from the perspective of a female nurse who treated soldiers on both sides. It provides an element of compassion as the day-to-day conflicts unfold within and without.

I could sympathize with the plight of women, whether camp followers on the Mexican side or washerwomen and cooks on the American side. I especially liked the fact that she does not shy away from women of loose morals while at the same time showing the dignity and courage of those who helped heal and comfort the wounded.

This brave thriller set in Mexico follows a reporter covering the grand schemes of collusion between government officials, government institutions, police and military forces, as well as United States agencies and foreign militias involved in the Mexican drug trade and the various levels of riches it has to offer.

It paints a realistic journalistic picture of the conflict and guides us with the pace of a crime novel into the very real dangers faced by journalists throughout a Mexican social landscape of violence. 

This novel sparked my lifetime obsession regarding Mexican Revolutionary Francisco “Pancho” Villa and the U.S. Army’s eventual pursuit of Villa deep into Mexico following his presumed attack on Columbus, New Mexico.

In some ways evoking aspects of Hemingway’s A Farewell To Arms, this is a blood and thunder coming-of-age novel set against a wartime backdrop and narrated by a young (and future silent movie cowboy star) Tom Mix, who on a romantic whim, decides to cross the border and fight with Villa to overthrow Mexico’s despotic president.

I believe I reread this novel perhaps six times within a year of its 1982 release. Irving also knows something about effectively mixing fact and fiction as the convicted (and incarcerated) author of the notoriously fake Autobiography of Howard Hughes.

Gavin Lambert adapted the works of D. H. Lawrence and Tennessee Williams for the films Sons and Lovers and The Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone. He directed one interesting, low-budget, Paul Bowles-like movie, Another Sky. His prose work is insightful about the behind-the-scenes world of the movies.

The linked stories in this book memorably spotlight hangers-on and working-class people on the edges of entertainment. Also of interest is Inside Daisy Clover, his novel about a teen tomboy star which became an affected, bombastic, entertaining Natalie Wood movie.

I love ghost stories. But I am rather tired of old houses with creaky furniture. The strangest and most dangerous monsters lurk in the wilderness, in the remote and inaccessible corners of the natural world. And what is more remote and inaccessible than Kanchenjunga, the third-highest mountain in the world, located on the border between Nepal and India?

I have always admired those mountain climbers of the past who, with inadequate equipment and minimal knowledge, braved the unknown dangers of the heights. Paver’s beautifully written novel is a historical mystery and a ghost story at one, whose final twist is as vertiginous as the pinnacle of the sacred mountain. 

I’ve spoken to people who really couldn’t get into this book, and I consider them somewhat deranged. It’s a rollicking good read, and maybe it helped that I enjoyed the author reading the story, which added to my enjoyment. I’ll go out on a limb and suggest very few authors make great audiobook performers. Mortimer absolutely does, getting the voice of the squirrel spot on.

There’s a strange and convoluted plot set in the not-terribly-underworld of London. A brilliant neighbor part for Kathy Burke should Mortimer ever be fielding Netflix offers. It’s a book you’ll read in days, not weeks. Fast-paced and has me on edge for part two–out in August.