Magoffin was a name familiar to the Mexicans who had trading relations with Susan's husband for years before he married her and took her with him from the states on an expedition to Chihuahua, Mexico. She kept a diary from which she drew her information for the only book I know written by a woman, young and pregnant, whose fate it was to die in her 26th year, at home. Accounts from her perspective at such a crucial time in relations between the United States and Mexico, in a venacular peculiarly her own, make her work one of considerable importance to the serious student of the time. Revealing also are individual encounters with men, some from her own country, and her opinion of Gen. Stephen Watts Kearny, commander of the U.S. Army of the West stationed in Sante Fe. Susan was a young lady of class the exercise of which makes the reader proud, and whose elegance charmed all who came to know her.

A wonderful tale of how the wastefullness of a village became their downfall and why it is important to respect nature and her bounty. Very beautifully illustrated.....a favorite at our house

Bought at a visitor center in western New Mexico this tiny book was my lightweight companion (among other humans) during an eight day hike. The black and white drawings are added with comments on habitat and behaviour, size, weight etc. Many of the common mammals of NM are shown: From Black-tailed Jackrabbit to badger, bobcat, peccary. From Porcupine to Bighorn. Even a checklist and the scientific names are included. A very good compilation for the compromise between weight and content. Keep it allways in your pocket!

I am a landscape photograper, like Mr. Varjabedian is, but not as good. His photographs are some of the best I have ever seen in my entire life, even better than Ansel Adams. This book is about "Los Hermanos Penitentes," or the Penitent Brothers, a Catholic lay brotherhood that was founded because of a lack of preists in New Mexico. The Brother's activities have always been very secret, but have been aggrandized by the early white settlers in the region. Mr. Wallis' text illuminates and fully explains this unusual brotherhood. I highly, highly reccomend this book to anyone interested in the history of New Mexico or, anyone who appreciates fine black and white photographs.

First, this is a technical, academic book, targeting linguists, psychologists, cognitive scientists. Not introductory.

Having said that, I enjoyed the book tremendously. My background is in linguistics and computational linguistics. The various authors consider a) the ways in which language is a complex adaptive system (and what it means to be complex and adaptive) and b) the evidence we have about how language evolved, from various perspectives. For example, how human language differs from, but is related to, abilities and attributes of higher primates, and how the two might have been bridged. Evidence is drawn from medicine/brain science, as well as physical artifacts studied by archeologists. Other papers look at linguistic data from the perspective of various theoretical orientations, including the typological perspective, considering the types of variation that is and is NOT found in human language and what that may suggests about the language faculty. Language development stages in children, and the amazing area of creoles, in which children construct a complete language from fragmentary pieces are also of interest.

Anyone who has a good technical background in linguistics will find it accessible, and it is an engaging way to broaden your thinking about language and linguistic analysis.

The Farolitos of Christmas tells a warm story of a young girl's respect and love for her grandfather, who is too ill to keep his commitment to light fires at Christmas time. The story creates how the young girl thought of "farolitos" or "little lights" to be used to keep the promise in an acceptable way and also light the path for the carolers at Christmas time. A wonderful story that reflects the rich family traditions of the Mexican American culture. This book was one of the winners of the 1995 Tomás Rivera Mexican American Children's Book Award, given to recognize books that authentically reflect the lives and experiences of Mexican Americans in the United States.

Flowering Plants of New Mexico has gone through 3 editions in its 15 years and sold over 9000 copies. It is widely used by schools, and the nature loving public. In its third edition, it is still in print and will be until the next edition. It retails for $40 and can be obtained from R.D. Ivey, 9311 Headingly Court NE, Albuquerque, New Mexico, 87111.

If you live in New Mexico or southern Colorado and fish or tie flies you will like this book. It catalogs unusal regional fly patterns and the waters to fish them. I, of course, haven't tied or fished all of the patterns in the book but its an enjoyable read. Because these flies are not going to be found in even some of the best fly shops in the region the recipes and tying instructions are worth the price. The instructions also include a variety of techniques that are not as well described in other fly tying manuals. The only negative I can think of is the lack of color pictures, but I have a good enough imagination not to need them. Besides I'm a sucker for books from the University of New Mexico Press.

(From Planeta.com Journal) - Subtitled "Architecture and Landscape across the Mexico-United States Border, this book is tour-de-force that gives visual explanations of the great changes at the heart of the US/Mexico Borderlands. The book is expertly illustrated with maps and black-and-white photos, but the majority is space has been crafted by the author. It's a wonderful medley of observations, historical anecdotes and interviews with the architects themselves. Highly recommended.

In his book From Coronado To Escalante:The Explorers of The Spanish Southwest Dr. J.M. Morris told the story about Don Francisco Vazquez de Coronado's journey of 1540 to the present-day Southwest, and skillfully depicted the origins of this expedition. He used the accounts of the previous Spanish conquistadores like Hernan Cortes and Francisco Pizarro who before Coronado organized their "entradas" and subjugated the mighty Aztec and Inca empires. The author has also drawn the images of the people who participated in these adventures by portraying their ethnic and social status, and what motivated them to endure hardships such as fatigue, thirst, cold, and heat in the terras incognitas. As Dr. Morris followed every footstep of the Coronado conquistadores across the vast territories of Northern Mexico, Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, and Kansas, he educated the reader about the types of landscape they encountered. The author not only pointed out the geographical terms of the landscape such as the Continental Divide, the Great Canyon or the rivers of Sonora, Pecos and Rio Grande, but he also linguistically enhanced the characteristics of that environment by providing the terms used by the Spanish explorers themselves like despoblados,"desolate, cactus-strewn wastelands", and the Llano Estacado, "Staked Plains",a part of the plateau streching across Northern New Mexico and the Texas Panhandle, to name just a few. The author introduced the reader to a variety of Indian cultures that the Coronado expedition encountered in its way. "The Zunis, the Opatas, the Hopis, the dwellers of the pueblos in the Rio Grande Valley, the Querechos of the buffalo plains, the Teyas of the barrancas and the Wichitas of Kansas" provide evidence of a diverse world of the America's indigenous population. Besides this ethnic diversity, Dr.Morris exhibited various attitudes of how Europeans were perceived by the Indians. The title From Coronado To Escalante is a timeline during which the power of the Spanish conquistadores declined (since gold was not found to be abundant) and the ascent of the Catholic Church missionaries began. Where the magic and attraction of the riches were gone, the abundance of the Indian pagan souls prevailed. Friar Silvestre Velez de Escalante and his small group in 1776 opened a new era in mapping the landscape of the Southwest that resulted in creation of more missions in that area, the monuments to the legacy of the Catholic Church of Spain. Dr. J. M. Morris book provides a focused, comprehensive narrative that makes the reader open the map of Mexico and the present-day Southwest in order to plot Coronado's trail as he or she reads about the Spanish explorers' adventures in search of gold, glory, and fame.