I read 40+ pgs of this book in the bookstore alone. I just moved to Nogales, AZ in January and I have found this book to be very helpful in providing me a background of the Ambos Nogales areas. The book is very well written and keeps you interested from cover to cover. Living in the area and being able to directly relate to the book is a plus, however anyone interested in the US-Mexico Border would find this book to be a spectacular read. Enjoy!!

must also read Miriam Davidson's "Lives on the Line." Maybe I'm a bit biased since I live here in Southern Arizona twelve miles north of our border with Mexico. But Davidson writes such sweet, firsthand-experience prose about other realities I see here -- like the Mexican migrants who have, for decades, crossed the border to keep Americans fat and sassy. The risks they now are taking have become obscenely dangerous, with the US spending billions upon billions to protect-- futiley -- our southern border.

Davidson's book is the first one I've read from cover-to-cover in one sitting since I read Ernest Hemingway's "The Old Man and the Sea." She's actually the better writer who shares the same themes.

But one does not have to live near the border with Mexico to understand that our friendly, much older, south-of-the-border nation's problems are really ours.

Besides, the Mexican border is now up in Minnesota -- isn't it, really?

This is a must read.

What is a book about lost mines without maps? The maps in the book were neat. Maybe the gold is still there?

I wrote the original book in 1963 (as Lost Desert Bonanzas) to mark 25 years of Desert Magazine lost mine stories. The main appeal was Norton Allen's great cartography (this is the only kind of map book that gets better as the maps are outdated by freeways and etc.). I would like input from treasure-seekers, but all I know about the particular lost mines is recounted in the book.

This book is just beautiful. I thought the story was great and the pictures incredible. My little girl can stare at them for hours.

"In this impressive first effort from two newcomers, Manuela longs for a new yellow dress for her birthday."

"The text is gentle, a fine contrast to the striking paintings in gold, aqua, terra cotta, and green, which use decorative patterns to capture the flavor of Mexico and strong portraiture to show the loving relationships in the family. The images are so compelling that readers will want more time to savor them before the tension in the text forces them forward."

I bought this from my bookclub and hoped it was a steamy novel like the rest of her books. It wasn't, but it was superb in a different way. These three women in the book will win your heart from the start. Don't hesitate, this one's a keeper!

Pat Booth's new book "Marry Me" is not like her previous books. I expected it to contain adult contents. I am only half way through but I can't put it down. If only I had all the time in the world I could finish it in one sitting. It always upsets me when I have to put it down. Definitly a page turner.

This is a compelling story. Judge H. C. McComas and his wife, Juniata, were brutally murdered by a band of Chiricachua Apaches while traveling on the road from Silver City to Lordsburg, New Mexico, on March 28, 1883. Their six-year-old son Charley, traveling with them, was carried away by the Indians and never found, despite long and determined efforts to learn of his whereabouts. For many years, the McComas story remained an obscure footnote to the long history of the Apache Wars in the Southwest. Simmons has rescued it from its obscurity in this fine book.
The detail that Simmons brings to the McComas story is remarkable, considering the difficulties he must have encountered in his research. He has, I think, considered the story from every possible angle, speculating where the facts are not definitely known (many are not), but laying his speculations on a firm foundation of facts. The story is, of course, incredibly sad, and the Chiricahuas do not come off at all well in the telling. But the book is far from an anti-Indian screed. Simmons is sensitive to the Indians' cultural milieu and lifestyle, even if they are not in all respects admirable. The book ends with a description of the 1994 funeral of the celebrated Apache sculptor Allan Houser. Houser's Chricahua father, Sam Haozous, was ten-years-old and an apprentice warrior when he rode with the Indians who attacked the McComas family in 1883. For many years, he and his son carefully guarded the dark secret of his youthful involvement in the atrocity. But Allan Houser related his father's recollections of the incident to Simmons not long before his death. Simmons came to Houser's funeral with an appreciation of the sculptor's artistic accomplishments and a sensitivity to the Chiricahua legacy that he represented.

Highly recommended!

Marc Simmon's Massacre on the Lordsburg Road, A Tragedy of the Apache Wars, Texas A&M University Press, 1997, xviii + 250 pgs. is a splendid book. It takes a great writer to make so much of so little, by which we mean no sarcasm but rather mean so little in the way of records and facts. Apaches attack a little family traveling on the Lordsburg (New Mexico) Road. The adults are slaughtered. The child? There has always been a lot of "surmisin' " about little Charley McComas, and there still must be, but Simmons has taken what facts there are, what contemporaneous stories there are, and a good deal of heretofore unpublished background material on the McComas family and their associates, and put together not only an excellent history, but also a book that at times holds the reader with the same fascination as a good "mystery" might. That's probably not odd. Charley's story is a mystery. This book not only tells the McComas story, as completely as it ever will be told barring new documentary discovery (and if Simmons missed something it really must be hidden), but gives the reader a "feel" for how it was to live in those times (circa 1883), particularly in western New Mexico and Arizona, but by extension in other places in the southwest including northern Mexico.

I picked up this book for two reasons: (1) I'd recently seen the Matachines performed, first by a Hispanic troupe from El Rancho, NM, and then at Jemez Pueblo, which presents both Spanish and Indian versions; (2) my Ph.D. dissertation was on medieval drama and the relationship between its themes and major societal concerns. This study answered many questions I had about the origins and history of the dance; in addition, her exposition of the meanings it has to the different groups who perform it was well-researched and fascinating. Starting with the same basic material, and incorporating many of the same elements (costumes, dance steps, tunes, etc.), Hispanic and Native American people living within a few miles of each other have used the dance to express very different concerns: pride in the Spanish conquest on the one hand, and ambivalence about it on the other. Rodriguez is evenhanded and objective, and presents the various dancers' points of view without gratuitious comment; her descriptions of the styles of different performing groups are vivid and clear. This is a thoroughly scholarly book, but readable too, and the photographs are well chosen.

Rodriguez looks at the Matachines dance as it is performed in two areas along the U.S./Mexico border. She discusses at great length the different structures, presentations, and meanings of this ritual procession dance to the people of these two areas, as well as examinig the Matachines' cultural background. Other books on Matachines contain similar information, but most stop short of the depth and precision of Rodriguez's work. Matachines is an old and extremely complex art form, and Rodriquez successfully tackles the task of discussing days' worth of variations in costume, execution, characterization, and finally the attitudes and beliefs of individuals in both communities towards their cultural dance. The many photographs work well to demonstrate and enhance Rodriguez's findings.

Far too many accounts of life in New Mexico are written by people with an agenda, often Anglos who came here to "find themselves" or "get back to the land" and were outraged when they discovered that reality wouldn't cooperate with their fantasies. By contrast, Stanley Crawford arrived with an open mind and integrated his family so successfully into a small, predominantly Hispanic village that he became the "mayordomo" in charge of administering the community's irrigation system. This book recounts his experiences and describes the workings of the community, in which the water system performs an important symbolic function as well as a practical one. It's well written, sometimes almost poetic, and often very funny. I think this and Crawford's "A Garlic Testament" are far and away the best books on life in rural New Mexico, and I recommend both of them unreservedly.

In "Mayodomo" Stanley Crawford describes his experience as manager of an "acequia" or irrigation ditch system in arid northern New Mexico. The use of acequia-irrigation originated in Spain and was introduced to the desert Southwest by Franciscan monks over 300 years ago. Acequias feed from rivers or larger acequias, and from these larger tributaries water is run through farm land and orchards then back to the main source. Each year a manager (mayordomo) and three commissioners (comisiados) are democratically elected to oversee water rates and insure fair distribution of water to each "parciante" or landowner who farms along the ditch. Acequia association members are historically of Hispanic or Latino descent, so Crawford's anglo heritage creates an interesting viewpoint of an age old tradition. As mayordomo Crawford supervises the annual spring clearing of his association's acequia, determines the amount of water that each parciante will receive, and is partially responcible for record keeping and payrolls. A parciante's share of water is determined by the nature of his plantings and for a larger part, the weather. As manager of his ditch Crawford must also contend with family feuding, annual dues or "delincuencias" and parciantes who "cheat" by diverting water to their lands. Crawford's observations take more into account than the physical labor and political hierarchy associated with the maintenance of an acequia. His words create a meaningful perspective of life among the residents of an old northern New Mexican farming community and his story reveals a group of people that have been chronicled by few writers and generally ignored or forgotten by everyone else. It is a book with literary, anthropological, political, and historical significance. Spanish water laws, established long before state government regulations, support solidarity and insure the parciante's place in the community. Recent land and water legal disputes threaten to undermine an important aspect of life in northern New Mexico, one that keeps these communities together and has done so for hundreds of years.

I am always skeptical about books written on Mexico by foreigners. However, Michael Hogan who has lived in the country for more than a decade is a careful, although often critical and sometimes humorous, observer. He also has an obvious love and affinity for the Mexican character and writes about it accurately and well. The book contains observations on the effect of globalization on the Mexican economy, a night at a Mexican concert with the Tigres del Norte, a revolution in Chiapas, a university riot,a meeting with Fidel Castro when he comes to Guadalajara, as well as more tranquil moments riding in the forests or hiking the mountains.
The book is far better than any tour guides I have read, especially of the Guadalajara area, both with its descriptions of the people and the flora and fauna. It is an expatriate equivalent to the Labyrinth of Solitude by Octavio Paz, who by the way, is an inspiring presence in several of the essays.
For someone visiting Mexico for the first time, this is a valuable handbook. For someone who has chosen Mexican as their adopted country it provides clear evidence that it was a correct choice. For all Mexicans living outside the country, and for those who have visited and not yet returned, it clearly evokes the love and the longing that so many have for this land south of the border. Hogan writes lovingly of the person and the poetry of Richard Shelton here as well. For those, like myself, who are enarmored by the Tucson poet, it is a refreshing visit to an old friend who also has strong conenctions to Mexico. All in all, a wonderful read. Hogan has an accesible style with occasional flashes of brilliance and a quiet but poignant wit.

This is Dr. Michael Hogan's latest book, a collection of essays written over the past decade while the author has lived and taught in Guadalajara, Mexico. This is quite possibly his best book, displaying a wide range of topics and an incredible maturity and intelligence that only comes when one's perspectives have been expanded. In one essay, "Letter to a Troubled Student," he deals with the Zapatista uprising of Chiapas, Mexico, telling his student that it is not scary that a group of Indians are taking on the Mexican government, but that, in any war, the truth is always the first victim. To him, and to a lot of us, that is truly scary. Through this essay, marked for its open-mindedness and its intelligence, Hogan is able to explain how his fears transcend the egocentric level, acheiving a greater understanding and universality.
This is the modus operandi for the rest of the book, which is a collection of essays written in Mexico over a period of the past ten years. They relate the expatriate experience, but they differ from other expatriate books because these essays are observations told through the eyes of a person who is committed to the lifelong quest of knowledge, a person who is committed to learning about his surroundings. All the essays are examples of a deep thought process, and one gets the realization that the author is just as much the teacher as he is the student.
One of the best examples of this, and also one of the defining elements of the book itself is the obvious influence that Mexican Poet Octavio Paz had and still has on Hogan's life. Paz's presence is everywhere in the book; the musicality of his poetry helping Hogan the young boy overcome his stuttering problem, the incisive nature of his essays helping Hogan the teacher in teaching the Odyssey to his ninth graders, the profound depth of his social critiques helping Hogan the human being understand humanity and the Mexican better.
This book is a deep, insightful study into the psychology of the expatriate. In my opinion it is a peer to that other great book about the human condition, "The Labyrinth of Solitude." It is also the only expatriate book that is fully able to document the reasons why a person chooses to leave his home country. It interacts with the reader on many levels, displaying intelligence, while appealing to the poets, the teachers, the scholars, the human beings in all of us. It also displays a deep love for a country that is not the native land for the author, nor for many expatriates. And it is this love that makes the book, and the essays within so compelling. I am reminded at this point, while searching for the place to end my review, of some lyrics from the song "Atlanta" by the Stone Temple Pilots.

"Visions of Mexico seduce me,
It goes to my head so carefully."

Decades before the popular travel guide "Lonely Planet" arrived on TV, Eugene Snyder had taken the "Road Less Traveled" to Mexico. Wit and wisdom are only two of the findings you will enjoy in this story of old Mexico. What we know or think we know of Mexico is a mystery revealed to but a few. Author Eugene Snyder is one of them. He show us many varied looks of Mexico a half-century ago. A simpler time to be sure. We follow along and soon are part of the journey. We see how honest and sincere our neighbors south of the border are, even while living far from affluence. This book is well written and gives a colorful glimpse back in time to places off the beaten path. In today's high tech everything, a visit to a simpler place is a nice escape and worth it.

I have just twice read "Mexican Notebook." It is without exception the most delightful and charming thing I have ever read, with many wry, humerous, and charitable insights into a vanishing world.

I bought this book in conjunction with Barron's Law Enforcement Spanish kit. "Mexican Spanish - The Rough Guide" is an outstanding pocket reference! I learned to conjugate verbs very easily given the simple description in the Rough Guide. I particularly like the contextual listings for words in the dictionary section. Very useful! I have several other Spanish books and dictionaries, and they are gathering dust now. I highly recommend this book.

On my first extensive trip through Mexico, I found this book (along with "The People's Guide to Mexico") to be far more useful than any regular Spanish (meaning, almost always, Castillian) dictionary. In fact, I found it to be much more relevant than the Rough Guide to Mexico! My only regret is that the book isn't longer. It's actually a lot of fun to read. I especially appreciated that it includes many conversational phrases, not just single words. Considering that like English, Spanish isn't particularly literal as spoken actually spoken, books like this are a must for those of us still learning that beautiful language. More to the point, guides to Mexican Spanish are in unduly short supply. This one's a boon and a bargain.