This was not to be your usual sight-seeing trip, moving from one convenient accommodation to another. Their desire was to be isolated from civilization and to live as simply as possible. An element of self discovery was also a definite part of the program. Thus it was that they found themselves a week or two later on an empty beach on the remote west coast of the Baja constructing a tiny hut that was to be their home for an indefinite period. Pacific breakers pounded the beach a few steps away. The specific area where they set up camp was between El Rosario and Guerrero Negro where a number of tiny fishing villages were located. read more

Here's a story that takes in a complete life, from childhood well into adulthood, and from rags to riches. It's a story that is of interest to we residents in the Lake Chapala area as it starts out in Ajijic and covers a fair number of years there - or should I say here. On page one we encounter ten-year-old Francisco Obregón, a homeless barefoot orphan outside the Old Posada on the Ajijic waterfront. It's 1940 and Francisco is hustling for odd jobs and tips. It's the only way he can manage to survive. read more

Most of us think of the Baja Peninsula as a vast, sprawling, empty, underpopulated space on the Pacific Coast with hundreds of miles of desolate beaches. To a great extent, that's what it is. What Ms. Mayo gives us in Miraculous Air is a beautifully researched account of the history, geography, ecology, oceanography, the folklore, the wildlife and the incredible fishing in this vast area. We read of cave paintings of people who lived in the area some 10,800 years ago. And along the way, we meet a few quite interesting and memorable people. read more

This is the story about Jeanine Lee Kitchel and her husband, Paul, who made their first trip to the Yucatan Peninsula in 1985 and fell in love instantly with the place. They had visited various parts of Mexico before that and were quite taken with the country. But the Yucatan beaches were of a different order. It seems that almost from the very start they determined that they would like to build a house and live there. read more

Author Oster's portraits make this an excellent account of a timeless and yet changing Mexico. His approach is to focus on twenty varied individuals and use them as a reason to discuss the larger issues they represent. read more

What a disappointment! I really enjoyed the first two books of this trilogy: All The Pretty Horses and The Crossing. But this final volume is something of a letdown. McCarthy still has that great prose gift going for him, but, in this case, it's in the service of a rather tawdry narrative. The two heroes of the first volumes come together here. To refresh your memory, they're Billy Parham and John Grady Cole. The time: 1952. The place: New Mexico and various border cities of Mexico. Our lads are a couple of ranch hands in an area that is soon to be taken over by the government for nuclear testing. The times are a-changing and a way of life is disappearing. read more

Here's an interesting collection of stories of nineteen women who came on their own to Mexico in recent years to settle in the Lake Chapala area. The book consists of eighteen interviews plus the story of the author herself. The women range in age from their 40's to their 80's. Their backgrounds and experiences and approaches to life are as varied as you can imagine. read more

Here's a collection of stories with a rather unusual theme. Mexico isn't just the place where the action takes place in these tales. Rather, it's as if Mexico - sunny, exotic, mysterious and occasionally slightly dangerous - is yet another character in each of the tales. There are 18 stories here, by authors such as Stephen Crane, Jack Kerouac, Anaís Nin, Tennessee Williams, Patricia Highsmith and Graham Greene. With those kinds of names you can at least rely on the pedigree of the material. read more

"The key to understanding the ‘Mexican Way’ of doing business is to recognize that business management in Mexico has traditionally been an application of cultural attitudes and customs - not the objective, pragmatic function that is associated with management in the United States and other practical-minded countries." read more

Isabella Tree tells about her solitary travels to various parts of Mexico. Is this becoming a sort of literary sub-category - single ladies taking on the world? This book largely consists of a half dozen essays covering specific geographic areas that Ms. Tree visited, including Mexico City, Chiapas and Lake Pátzcuaro. My own personal favorite was "Holy Week," the one on San Miguel de Allende. read more

These six wonderful books hit a real soft spot because I'm an ardent admirer of Mexican creativity as it exhibits itself so lavishly in art, architecture, the design of everyday objects and the bold approach to color. And I particularly enjoy good photographic books, which these essentially are. read more

This month's column is a little bit different as I'm not reviewing one particular book on or about Mexico. Rather, I'd like to take the opportunity to pay tribute to some local writers here in the Guadalajara/Lake Chapala area. I recently had the experience of reading and enjoying four books, all within a very brief time span, and then realized that all four were written by local writers. read more

This must surely be one of the great adventure stories of all time – how Hernan Cortés and about 500 conquistadores conquered a settled and established civilization in three short years, from 1519 to 1521. Distinguished scholar and historian Hugh Thomas has made good use of recently discovered archival material in both Spain and Mexico to produce a feast of reading for history buffs. Cortés must have been an incredible leader – as well as being a total bastard. read more

What Luboff has set out here is all the basic information one needs on a host of topics relevant to moving to Mexico. You'll find details on acquiring residency documents, whether or not to buy or rent a house, working in Mexico, how to bring your car here, how to move your furniture here and so on. You’ll also find hints and tips on staying healthy, dining out, hiring help, what to bring on your first trip, road safety, the best ways to get from one place to another and much, much more. Indeed, there is hardly a page that doesn’t have some useful hint or tip on living here successfully. read more

Here's an unusual volume with ten individual authors, each of whom is independent of the other nine except for the fact they all reside - either full or part-time - in the Lake Chapala area of Mexico. Their book consists of some 45 or more pieces of fiction and non-fiction plus a poem or three. The non-fiction includes travel tales, accounts of significant events in the authors' past lives, recollections of interesting people and other offbeat memoirs and anecdotes. read more

To see Mexico from the air is to look upon the face of creation. Our everyday, earthbound vision takes flight and is transformed into a vision of the elements. This book is a portrait of water and fire, of wind and earthquake, of the moon and the sun. For it is we - you and I - who see and touch and smell and taste and feel today, even as we witness the perpetual rebirth of the land here and now. We are the witnesses to creation, because of the mountains that watch us and in spite of their warning: "we will endure, you will not." read more

Here is the history of Mexico in the last two or three decades - and what a history it is. It's the story of how a dictatorship eventually found its way toward becoming a democracy. As stories go, this one has everything - political corruption, student demonstrations leading to a massacre, earthquakes, citizen crusades, an Olympics and, as they say, much, much more. It looks as though it might even have a happy ending. read more

The two cultures - Mexican and U.S. - come together in a thoughtful way in this interesting novel, which is set in both countries. The story concerns a group of Mexican illegal immigrants who travel north in May each year to work in the cherry orchards in northern Michigan. They are from the village of La Purísima in Michoacán. It's a community inhabited solely by elderly people and women and children during the picking season when all the men head north on what has become their annual rite of passage. It's perhaps more than that. read more

Here's Fuentes at it again, publishing short stories and novellas under a single title and trying to interlink them into a cohesive whole as he tried to do in The Crystal Frontier. The connection here is the orange tree, the symbol of Spain. read more

Personally I don't think I've come across anything quite like Las Cucarachas' Tails. And I should also quickly add that I found it to be an interesting and enjoyable read. read more

The first thing I should say about this book is that it was originally published more than half a century ago, in 1953. I mention that out front just so no reader assumes it is yet another recent travel book about Mexico. However, it's a good one and it's easy to see that it merits republishing. It comes with the highest kind of praise. read more

Mary Morris is an intrepid and courageous lady. She was living in San Miguel de Allende in Mexico, in the Mexican part of town, when she decided to take off on her exploration of Central America. The trip took her to countries such as Bolivia, Guatemala, Honduras and San Salvador. Just about all of the transit was on local buses and very little of it seemed to be very tightly planned. Most of the time she seemed to be traveling the back roads. read more

The Dictionary is based on a rather neat and simple idea to help us learn new words in Spanish and for providing us with the names of hundreds of everyday products and articles. read more

Although there's heavy duty immigration going on, there's not a whole lot of integration taking place. read more

There's no good news in Joel Simon's book. It's a catalog of the awful things that have happened in Mexico since the time of the Conquest. read more