To celebrate Hispanic Heritage Month, we have curated a list of books written by Latino/a/x/e authors. Hispanic Heritage Month runs from September 15 through October 15.
Fiction
Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno-Garcia
After receiving a frantic letter from her newly-wed cousin begging for someone to save her from a mysterious doom, Noemí Taboada heads to High Place, a distant house in the Mexican countryside. Noemí is a glamorous debutante, but she’s also tough and smart. Not even the house itself can scare Noemí. However, visions of blood and doom begin to invade her dreams. Her only ally in this inhospitable abode is the family’s youngest son. Does he know something of the family’s dark (and secret) past?
Until August by Gabriel García Márquez
In a rediscovered novel from the Nobel Prize-winning author of One Hundred Years of Solitude, Ana Magdalena Bach has been happily married for 27 years, and yet, every August, she travels by ferry to the island where her mother is buried, and for one night takes a new lover.
You Had Me At Hola by Alexis Daria
Leading Ladies do not end up on tabloid covers.
Leading Ladies don’t need a man to be happy.
Leading Ladies do not rebound with their new costars.
After a messy public breakup, soap opera darling Jasmine Lin Rodriguez finds her face splashed across the tabloids. When she returns to her hometown of New York City to film the starring role in a bilingual romantic comedy for the number one streaming service in the country, Jasmine figures her new ‘Leading Lady Plan’ should be easy enough to follow–until a casting shake-up pairs her with telenovela hunk Ashton Suárez.
Non-fiction
The Soul of a Woman by Isabel Allende
The author describes her lifelong commitment to feminism in a meditation on what it means to be a woman, discussing progress within the movement in her lifetime, what remains to be done, and how to move forward in the future.
The Man Who Could Move Clouds by Ingrid Rojas Contreras
For Ingrid Rojas Contreras, magic runs in the family. Raised amid the political violence of 1980s and ’90s Colombia, in a house bustling with her mother’s fortune-telling clients, she was a hard child to surprise. Her maternal grandfather, Nono, was a renowned curandero, a community healer gifted with what the family called “the secrets” the power to talk to the dead, tell the future, treat the sick, and move the clouds. This legacy had always felt like it belonged to her mother and grandfather, until, while living in the U.S. in her twenties, Rojas Contreras suffered a head injury that left her with amnesia. As she regained partial memory, her family was excited to tell her that this had happened before: Decades ago her mother had taken a fall that left her with amnesia, too. And when she recovered, she had gained access to “the secrets.” Check out this memoir that shows the healing power of storytelling and invites the reader to embrace the extraodinary.
Young Adult
The Poet X by Elizabeth Acevedo
In this young adult novel, Xiomara Batista feels unheard and unable to hide in her Harlem neighborhood. Ever since her body grew into curves, she has learned to let her fists and her fierceness do the talking. But Xiomara has plenty to say, and she keeps it all in a leather notebook. With Mami’s determination to force her daughter to obey the laws of the church, Xiomara understands that her thoughts are best kept to herself. So when she is invited to participate in her school’s slam poetry club, she is conflicted. Does she obey Mami or does she face the world and refuse to be silent?
They Both Die at the End by Adam Silvera
In a near-future New York City where a service alerts people on the day they will die, teenagers Mateo Torrez and Rufus Emeterio meet using the Last Friend app and are faced with the challenge of living a lifetime on their End Day.
Children
Just Ask by Sonia Sotomayor
Sonia and her friends plant a garden, and each one contributes in his or her own special way, in a book that celebrates the many differences among humans.
My Very Own Room (Mi propio cuartito) by Amada Irma Perez
The young Mexican American girl at the center of this charming book loves her family — five younger brothers, her two parents, and several visiting relatives — but in such a crowded house, she can never seem to find a moment alone. Told in both English and Spanish, this boldly illustrated title delivers the inspiring story of a California family that pulled together to give a young girl her own corner of the world. Imparting lessons about collective problem solving, the unshakable bonds of familial love, and the possibilities that arise when you dream big.