Went to see author Isabel Allende last night, in the local Books Inc. bookshop just down the road. She came to present her new book, “Island Beneath the Sea”, read parts of it and answered a few questions and signed autographs. What a beautiful, warm, intelligent, inspiring woman! I have read a few of her books, and can only recommend her! And she is funny too, and doesn’t take herself too seriously. When ask how she came up with the names for her characters, she said she just made them up. Some weren’t even real names. She said she used to be quite laid back about naming her characters, until a student at Stanford University (one of the most prestigious institutions in the US) wrote a whole thesis about how Allende’s characters’ names were all specially picked for particular meanings. Allende said she had no idea that that was the case, and now googles all her names before she actually chooses them for her stories. I love her.
This is her response to the questions whether she was a spiritual person:
Transcontinental Overload 