A multigenerational, magical-realist saga of the Trueba family in an unnamed Latin American country, spanning from the clairvoyant Clara's girlhood through her granddaughter Alba's survival of a military coup and its aftermath.
Books mentioned in The House of the Spirits (4)
La Philosophie dans le boudoir by Marquis de Sade: “Afterward he was unable to fall back to sleep, and spent the rest of the night reading La Philosophie dans le boudoir, of the Marquis de Sade, while Blanca sighed through her dreams that it was marvelous to be married to an intellectual.”
The Lives of the Saints: “He bought a popular edition of The Lives of the Saints and spent the summer looking for ordinary explanations of the most extraordinary spiritual feats.”
Encyclopaedia Britannica: “Alma stared wide-eyed at father and son as if they were from another species: they were nothing like the Chinese she had seen in the illustrations in the Encyclopaedia Britannica.”
The Treasury of Youth: “discussing the virtues of Sinbad and Robin Hood, the bad luck of the Black Pirate, the true and edifying stories from the Treasury of Youth, the worst meanings of the words that did not appear in the dictionary of the Spanish Royal Academy”