Travel guides
The Lonely Planet Chile & Easter Island and Footprint Chile are the standard backpacker references and are updated regularly. For the Patagonia specialist, Clem Lindenmayer's trekking guides are more detailed on trail conditions and route options.
History and politics
The House of the Spirits by Isabel Allende (1982) is the novel to read before you go — a multigenerational family saga that traces Chile's political history through the mid-20th century, ending with the 1973 coup. Allende is Chile's most widely read novelist internationally.
Chile: The Other September 11, edited by Ariel Dorfman and others, collects essays and testimonies on the 1973 coup and the Pinochet years. A compact, accessible introduction to a period that still shapes Chilean society.
Peter Kornbluh's The Pinochet File (2003) draws on declassified US documents to detail American involvement in the 1973 coup and subsequent dictatorship. Dense but important.
Travel writing and nature
Bruce Chatwin's In Patagonia (1977) covers both Argentina and Chile and remains one of the great travel books, even if its relationship with factual accuracy is loose. It inspired a generation of travellers to head south.
Sara Wheeler's Travels in a Thin Country (1994) is a more journalistic account of travelling the length of Chile — practical, observant, and still largely applicable.
Rapa Nui / Easter Island
Aku-Aku by Thor Heyerdahl (1958) describes his expedition to Easter Island and contains useful material on moai construction and Rapa Nui oral history, though some of his theories have since been revised by archaeologists.
Food and wine
The Wine Regions of Chile by various wine writers (regularly updated editions) is the most thorough English-language guide to Chilean wine if you are serious about the subject.