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Book summary and reviews of The Sum of Our Days by Isabel Allende

The Sum of Our Days by Isabel Allende

The Sum of Our Days

A Memoir

by Isabel Allende

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  • Published:
  • Apr 2008
    320 pages
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About this book

Book Summary

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.

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Reviews

Media Reviews

"Starred Review. In this deeply revealing second memoir, after Paula, novelist Allende utilizes her family and the complex network of their relationships as the linchpin of the narrative .. This is a book to savor." - Publishers Weekly.

"A turbulent life to be both pitied and envied, and a book to be savored and reread." - Kirkus Reviews.

This information about The Sum of Our Days was first featured in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.

Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.

Reader Reviews

Write your own reviewwrite your own review

Jill Aldrovandi

Champion of truth
Loved this book, especially that Isabel sends herself up continuously and hilariously. She loves women and men equally (albeit an ardent feminist) and champions all in her quest for family (in the widest all-connecting way) and harmony. During her quest she falls into many a pit and has to crawl up and out and this ensures and compounds her humanity and realness - we can all relate to the frailties, foibles and strengths she talks about and exhibits (her own and others).

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Author Information

Isabel Allende Author Biography

Born in Peru and raised in Chile, Isabel Allende is the author of a number of bestselling and critically acclaimed books, including The House of the Spirits, Of Love and Shadows, Eva Luna, Paula, and In the Midst of Winter. Her books have been translated into more than forty-two languages and have sold more than seventy-four million copies worldwide. She lives in California.

Author Interview
Link to Isabel Allende's Website

Name Pronunciation
Isabel Allende: Ees-abel Ay-enday (or ä-YEN-d?)

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