Lance Cutler provides a witty, personal guide to tequila and mezcal - not just the drinks, but to the industries, the regions, the people and the cultures. Part travelogue, part research, the book meanders between serious study of the spirits, and playful retelling of his many trips into Mexico's heartlands. The inclusion of mezcal in the latest edition should help to open more eyes to the traditional liquor of Mexico. Very enjoyable to read and easily the best book on the subject. Highly recommended!

The first "cookbook that I've read cover to cover! A wonderful combination of party recipes, information about tequila, stories of rural Mexico, and beautiful folk art, this book makes a wonderful gift and an indispensable addition for the library to anyone who likes to give parties. Reading this book will go a long way towards making you a connoisseur of tequila and margaritas (going out and sampling the wide variety of tequila will complete your education). The party recipes are intriguing and the suggestions for presentation and will help make your next "Mexican" theme party a great success. I heartily recommend this little gem of a book.

Terra Incognita is a collection of black and white large format images of various aspects, grand and minute, of the North American landscape. This work establishes Steve Mulligan as a true heir to the mantle of Ansel Adams, Minor White, and other luminaries of the "black and white" photographic medium. Mulligan is able to see what most of us cannot, and is able to translate that perception into images of light, shadows, and darkness which touch the soul and heart as well as the eyes. Experience this book!!

"Compadre, I entreat you to do me the favor of taking my son, Antonio, among your troops, that when he is old he may have a tale to tell." This was a request of a certain Escobedo asking Alonso (the younger) de León to allow his son to join the anticipated entrada into Texas in 1689. Although the expedition was intended as a punative military campaign against the French incursion into Spanish domains, the elder Escobedo sensed its historic nature and wished his son to participate in it. Escobedo was right, for this expedition had historic consequences. The 1689 entrada not only opened up a gateway into Texas, but left its mark by giving landmarks and rivers names that are still in use today, and allowed the establishment of missions, presidios and settlements that firmly secured Texas as a Spanish dominion.

Juan Bautista Chapa, native of Albisola, near Genoa, participated in this entrada and chronicled it among other events in his Historia del Reino de León which traces the history and colonization of northeastern Mexico and Texas in rich detail for the period between 1650-1690. Chapa intended his history to be a follow-on to Alonso (the elder) de León's Discourses which detailed the history of this region prior to 1650. Chapa's Historia demonstrates the author's literary acumen through a mournful poem written as a memorial to the dead French encountered in 1689 at La Salle's settlement. This history has become the key contemporary work from which any historical study of this region must begin.

This volume is the first widely accessible and accurate English translation of Chapa's Historia. Elegantly translated by Ned F. Brierley and annotated by William C. Foster, who is becoming known for his welcomed efforts in bringing to the English-speaking world the chronicles of other Spanish expeditions into Texas, this book is a valuable addition to the historiography of colonial Mexico and Texas. Foster provides a cogent and insightful introduction in which he details the history of Chapa's manuscript and an analysis of the history and puts it in context with De León's Discourses. Foster has added De León's previously unpublished revised diary of his 1690 expedition into Texas as well as a listing of the 80 Indian tribes identified in this book. This book is essential reading for all students and scholars of Mexico's far north frontier and Texas. Additionally, the descriptions of the Indians, vegetation, wildlife, and climate in seventeenth-century Texas, will be of interest to ethnographers, anthropologists, and biogeographers. Genealogists of northeastern Mexico and south Texas will also benefit because the book contains some muster listing of the expeditioners-whose many descendants presently carry their names throughout the region and beyond. So names in genealogical trees and pedigrees get fleshed-out and placed in historical context.

I grew up among the Tzotzil people and this book gave me insights to things that I never realized were around and to things that I took for granted. A wonderful book for anyone where ever you are in your Christian walk.

(From Planeta.com Journal) - Endrezze weaves prose and poetry in an ecclectic tome that blurs the stories of the Virgin of Guadalupe and Coyote Woman. The author tells the story of her family -- a Yaqui father and a European mother and through Aztec and Yaqui creation stories, she weaves stories of her own family history. She writes: "The faces of my ancestors are both luminous and shadowy. I'm standing in a long line, holding the memory of their hands." Highly recommended.

Uncle River lives in the mountains he writes about, and he provides a different viewpoint from most western mountain literature. He observes the people very carefully and sensitively. His story has an ecological awareness which puts Earth First and Save the Forest activism in a new light. Highly recommended. List price is $ll.00.

My wife Fayaway and I have lived in the Catskills for many years, but several of our friends on the West Coast, in an effort to convince us to join them in Southern California, sent us two dozen or so books about the natural history of the region. The wildlife and settings described in these guides helped us decide to move to Malibu Lake, California, and this field guide was among those books they sent us.

Since our relocation, we have spent several weeks travelling up and down the Southern California coast with these friends, and this book. One of its finest features is its color photographs of the creatures found in tidepools, obviously taken by someone with experience in underwater photography. These photos serve admirably as a means to identify the various plants and invertebrates of the intertidal zone, as we can attest: we spotted many of the different types of chitons, sea stars, barnacles and crabs depicted in this book. The fine photographs in this book made identification a simple matter. And the descriptions which accompany each plate are also invaluable.

As if these portraits of each creature weren't enough, the guides to the individual tidepools of the area are even better. Each locale has its own description, with a rating based on accessibility, safety, and abundance of various life forms, a note about the nature of the rocks in which the pools are found, a list of the creatures most likely to be seen there, and other information of interest. The sections on the ecology of the intertidal zone, tidepool safety and conservation, the origin of the tides and further reading, all make this book even more useful. With more than 90 different tidepools described in this book, those naturalists who want to become sea-side rock hoppers will find places enough to keep them happily busy for many years. I hope that this book comes back into print soon.

This book reads like poetry. It's been a while since I read it, but am thinking of reading it again...such a beautiful, if not sad look back on a long and rich life centered in a dry and dusty old Mexico.

I am a very busy executive and don't have much time to write reviews but this book was really exciting. Could hardly put it down. Like a fine wine this book will only get better with more readings. Way to go Doris. Basic for all families.