"South of Yesterday" is the story of my mother's life as a bride coming to a strange land. The book flows through the charmed life of an American living in Guadalajara in the early nineteen hundreds, into the violence of the Revolution, escape from and return to a much-beloved Mexico. I related never before publicized events of history." read more

Here's a welcome addition to the growing library of Mexican guidebooks. It covers all the information you would expect, like motels, hotels, bed & breakfasts, restaurants, shopping, money exchange locations, tourist highlights and how to get from one place to another. In addition, there's an abundance of information on such items as bus fares, rental cars, walking and jogging routes, exercise gyms, language courses and even where to get rolls of film processed. read more

This is a compilation of photos, drawings, essays, poems, letters, parts of novels and stories and other sources, all designed to shed light on this unique and enduring Mexican festival. I was also intrigued by the odd coincidence that I happened to read it on the actual Day of the Dead, November 2. read more

An odd mixture of very positive descriptions of the country along with some appalling examples of what can happen south of the border. read more

Oliver Sacks is obviously too seasoned a traveller and too astute an observer to confine himself to ferns. One encounters a host of pleasures as he ruminates on a variety of topics. He muses about the New World's contributions to civilization -cocoa, tobacco, potatoes, tomatoes, chilies, gourds, pepper, maize, chewing gum, cochineal and exotic hallucinogens. In Monte Alban he considers the production of rubber which the Zapotec people used to make balls. read more

Bob Culbertson, a Border Patrol chief, is chasing Mexican border crossers somewhere in Texas when a light aircraft in obvious difficulties flies overhead and then crashes in the scrub. Culbertson and his partner go to investigate and find two dead men and 40 or 50 bags of cocaine in the aircraft. One of the men has a satchel with a pouch in it. When he examines it, he finds a collection of government documents which he believes are CIA papers. read more

The book consists of nine short narratives - stories, if you like - each one occurring in the hazy borderline between Mexico and America - what Fuentes chooses to call the crystal frontier. read more

You would be hard pressed to find a more Mexican novel than this one. Just about all of the action takes place in the state of Coahuila. I don’t particularly enjoy reading westerns but such is the power of McCarthy’s writing that I was drawn into those small researches simply to enhance my enjoyment of his book. read more

This is a well-organized and clearly presented compilation of data about this country that any newcomers - and some old-timers, too - could use. read more

The setting of the story is around 1910, the time of the Mexican Revolution and the war is an ever-present background to the story. It's a time when great cruelties were imposed on the Indian populace by the country's rulers. Indeed, genocide is the only word you could use to describe what happened. The villain of the piece is a colonel of the Rurales who makes it his personal mission to see that every Indian dies in the most hideous fashion possible. As villains go, this one is a real bastard. read more

Atticus Cody is a 67 year old Colorado rancher. He’s a very successful straight-shooting kind of guy. He has a son, Scott, who is a painter, evidently talented. He has gone to Mexico and is out of touch with his father. Atticus cares: Scott doesn’t seem to be concerned. When the story opens, Atticus has learned about Scott’s death, by suicide, in a place called Resurrección, near Cancun. Atticus goes to Resurrección to pick up his son’s body and return it to Colorado. There he meets up with the cast of characters who knew Scott, most of whom are, at best, hippies and bohemians, at worst, drifters and fugitives. read more

In 1952, John Steinbeck won an Academy Award nomination for his screenplay of the movie, Viva Zapata! Many years later, however, a manuscript was found in UCLA Library in which it was discovered he had... read more

I’d love to have had this book five years ago when we first came to live in Mexico. It’s not that we ran into a string of problems then but it’s just such a useful source of information and opinion about living here it would have cut a lot of corners for us at the time. As the author says, this book is written for people of all ages who want to live in Mexico and Central America, from retirees to baby-boomers who want a new life to artists and writers who want a stimulating and less expensive way of life. read more

The story begins in 1941, at the time America went to war with Japan and Germany. It concerns the Salazar family, poor farmers in Chihuahua. The grandfather, Sebastian, knows he is dying and he advises the family to move to the United States. He reasons that because of the war the Americans will want lots of people to work in their country as their men go off to fight. Their farm is a ruin. Only expensive fertilizer could bring it back to life. And they don't have any money. read more

I should confess right off the bat that this one is out of print. Amazon.com doesn’t have any copies. However, I’m sure it’s still available in libraries or used bookstores. In any case, it’s worth looking for. It’s a collection of essays and travel pieces that resulted from Lawrence’s visits to Mexico and New Mexico in the early 1920s. Some wonderful descriptive writing is to be found here. read more

Here's a nifty idea for a book for both Spanish language students and for people interested in Mexico. Author De Mente has found an effective way to reach both groups with a volume that takes a studious and careful look at 130 key words in Spanish and has written a couple of pages on each one. In the process, the reader is treated to a variety of knowledgeable tours through Mexican history and sociology and customs that would be hard to find elsewhere. read more

As the legend goes, Dane Chandos came to Ajijic and made his house into an Inn and, in the process, met a mixed bag of people who also visited the place, which the author describes as "nestling between the lake and the paws of the mountains." There's a full-blooded Mexican Army general and an interesting French countess who arrives alone, wearing a mink stole who makes extravagant demands on the establishment. And there's a pedantic German professor who feels compelled to explain everything he encounters in scientific terms….and many many others. read more

Even though the story starts out calmly enough, by the time you reach chapter two, you're in the middle of the wildest kind of fantasy, part new age and part sci-fi, complete with time travel, space travel, reincarnation, astrology and almost anything else you can imagine. The time span of the book stretches from the fall of Moctezuma to the 23rd century read more

William Reed tells us his own personal story and what a tale it is. Most of the action takes place in Puerto Vallarta where Reed has lived since his move to the beach in '72. He seems to have met everyone who ever went there - including some very well-known ones, such as actor Richard and Elizabeth Burton, Peter O'Toole, Xaviera Hollander and many, many others. Two people who figure most prominently in the story are movie director John Huston and Johnny Weissmueller (Tarzan himself). In the struggle for Huston's affections, William Reed was the loser. It all adds up to quite a story. read more

The story is related to us by Jeff Farrell who, with his wife, Mia, purchases a property high above the rooftops of Zijhuatanejo, overlooking the famed Playa de la Ropa beach with the Pacific Ocean beyond. They fulfill an ambition and turn the place into a restaurant, Casa Blue. And it's not your ordinary everyday restaurant. This is a cooking school where you can join other diners around the cooking island and help prepare your meal under the tutelage of Jeff and Mia. read more

This is the first coffee-table book I ever reviewed and I have to say right off the bat that it's a winner. It is made up of some 200 photographs from all parts of Mexico - all of them taken from a high elevation, either an aircraft or mountaintop or, occasionally, a tall building. At first it sounds like a rather limited concept but in execution the "godlike" perspective works beautifully to highlight the uniqueness of this country. What this handsome volume delivers is a treasure trove of striking views of deserts, cities, villages, volcanoes, mountain ranges, desolate beaches, crowded beaches, jungles, individual buildings and other striking images. We look down on huge elaborate temple ruins in the midst of lush jungle or on abandoned haciendas in arid desert country, as well as on vast populated modern cities and luxury resorts. read more

Here's a book of travel essays from a man who obviously admires this country. He's covered Mexico from coast to coast and from north to south in a criss cross journey that's well described here. Thus we get informed accounts of places like Cuernavaca, Puerto Vallarta, Oaxaca, Mazatlan and so on, along with a lengthy look at Mexico City. But rather than simply giving us the usual guidebook account of a place, Butler finds all kinds of interesting facets and people, too, wherever he goes. Along the way you're also treated to history, politics and whatever attractions are available locally. read more

I reviewed Chandos's other book, "House in the Sun", in Mexico Connect a couple of months ago and now I'm catching up on what was actually the author's first book, published four years earlier. We're given a good long loving look at the various events that mark a typical year in a Mexican village - like The Day of the Dead, the Day of the Cross, Navidad, birthdays and the other festivals that are customarily celebrated. It all adds up to an attractive narrative. read more

Lida's writing and his choice of material cast a powerful spell. read more

“This book is about Mexico - about living, travelling and taking things as they come in a foreign country. It’s about driving conditions and health and how to cross the border. It’s about drinking the water without getting sick… It’s not about which hotels to stay in or the most interesting villages to visit. The purpose of the book is to teach you how to find out those things for yourself.” read more