Laurence Mackinreveiws Memoirsby Pablo Neruda and the DK Eyewitness Travel guide Argentina
Memoirs
Pablo Neruda
Condor, £12.99
Pablo Neruda lived life with an intensity that beggars belief. One of the finest poets of the 20th century - he won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1971 - the Chilean also had a diplomatic career that gave him the opportunity to travel the world before returning home to become a senator, then fleeing the country on horseback because of his communist beliefs. His memoirs reflect many of the obsessions of his poetry, with his vivid depictions of nature and fascination with the wilder frontiers of Chile shimmering and shifting on the page with all the elegance of his verse. A cast of famous characters that Neruda numbered among his friends makes for riveting reading, but it is his sketches of the small details of daily life in the bohemian sectors of Santiago or the wilderness of the Chilean forest that make this such an eloquent portrait of a man, his travels and his travails.
Argentina
DK Eyewitness Travel, £15.99
Chile is often unfairly overlooked by travellers in South America, especially in favour of its westerly neighbour, and from the first page this guide sets out to seduce, with its photographs of mountainscapes, sizzling tangos and the faded grandeur of Argentina's cities. As ever with the DK guides, the maps and images are fantastic, though this does mean fewer words and less background and history than most guides. It focuses on the sights and sounds, with accommodation and restaurant listings compressed at the back of the book. As a guide to the must-see elements of Argentina's provinces, though, it makes for very appetising reading.