Central America Books

Pilkey argues that barrier islands move, whether we like it or not, and that attempts to stabilize them nearly always make things worse. A wonderful read, especially for your next beach vacation. Pilkey is regarded as something close to the devil incarnate by coastal developers and their allies

First of all, I avoided buying this book because of that brutal cover. I mean, is that the worst drawing ever of a soccer shirt. Did a 3 y/o do it? They couldn't get a real pic of Pele? Or maybe of the confetti showers created by Argentina soccer crowds?

Well, never judge a book by its cover. This is as brilliant as Futebol by Alex Bellos. The stuff on how Mexican soccer is controled by Televisa was particularly insightful. The early Columbian breakway league of the post-WWII era was something new for me and adds to the nacrodollar mystique of the Columbian league always being way out of the norm. I just loved the explanations of the Menottistas vs. Bilardistos in Argentina and the Fla-Flu rivalry in Brazil.

The only chapter that is a complete waste is the one on Latin American amateur leagues in the UK. Frankly, who cares? Every nation with an immigrant population has these leagues and I couldn't really see the relevancy at all to his dissection of Latin American soccer. I'd sonner have seen another chapter on maybe one or two of the other nations the author didn't quite get into.

I just attended a reading of "A Beauty that Hurts" by Dr. Lovell, so I am only familiar with two chapters in the book. But those two chapters were well-written and enlightening, and I expect that the balance of the book stays the course.

This work of "creative non-fiction" studies the Guatemalan society as a whole by narrating specific examples from Lovell's travels there.

One chapter explains the plight of an older woman whose son was killed during the civil wars in Guatemala. Even though she and the rest of the family were learning to deal with the loss, it was sad to learn about a culture where people have learned to expect heartache and strife.

Another chapter, "The T-Shirt Parade," is much more light-hearted. Lovell describes his encounters with Guatemalans and the different English-language t-shirts that they wear. Most of them had little idea what their clothes said, and Lovell pointed out the irony linking the undecipherable t-shirt messages and the wearers' lives. Some did understand their t-shirts, and Lovell uses instances like these to describe the Americanization of the developing world and of Guatemala in particular.

I highly recommend "A Beauty that Hurts" to anyone who wants to understand what life in the developing world is really like. The literary style is accessible and highly interesting, and the topics discussed have great importance. It was a pleasure to meet Dr. Lovell, a friendly and caring author, and I recommend his book.

This is a great resource book written through actual experiences of the authors. Great pictures and references. The book shares information that is not readily available through tourist information. It makes you want to get out your bike and ride along with nature. One does not have to be biking to enjoy the Bed &Breakfast establishments visited in the book.

Written by the top-notch experts working in bee systematics today, this book is extremely well conceived and executed. It would be very useful for pollination ecologists and others who encounter wild bee species and are at a loss as to what they're dealing with.

This book is quite simply one of the best ways to see a complete picture of what America is by way of poetry. Even though the selected poetry is obviously limited to the Before Columbus Foundation Book Awards, the selections are wonderful. This fact only validitates the necessity and power of the book series and the extremely woderful editing of the anthology. What's more, the editors take turns in introducing the poets and their poetry.

As someone who grew up in rural Utah, I did not readily take the opportunity to read a varied set of voices. When I bought this book while I was in the Army, I felt that I truly began my education in reading multi-cultural voices in poetry. I had heard names like Allen Ginsberg and Amiri Baraka (both included in this anthology) but suddenly I was reading Larry Neal, Ai, Etheridge Knight, Tato Laviera, and Jayne Cortez.

My favorite selections from this book are from the poets Larry Neal, Etheridge Knight, Amiri Baraka, and Frank Stanford. Each poem from these selections (and really the whole book) is powerful and essential to the education of Americans. My copy of this book is dog eared and worn because even after eight years I still read from it at least once a week. If you can get a copy of this book, do it.

Burkhart's book is a collection of Nahuatl manuscripts with English translations that deal with the Virgin Mary prior to the development of the Guadalupe cult. Burkhart provides an interesting introduction and postscript to place matters in context. The book does not, however, really contain much information on the development of the Guadalupe cult. The reason for this is that there were virtually no Nahuatl materials dealing with Guadalupe until the mid seventeenth century. For the full story on Guadalupe, see Stafford Poole's book "Our Lady of Guadalupe."

Miles Richardson has translated his life and career into this starkly honest and exquisitely informed offering. From within a field of vision that encompasses Neandertal (and her competitors) and Heidegger, Jimmy Swaggart and Hank Williams, Holy Water and hard living, the New Testament and Post-moderism, he works with the care of a paleantologist unearthing a new fossil.

I don't kow of another text in which theoretical sophistication and spiritual sensitivity are woven so seamlessly with the flesh and blood of ordinary believers. Richardson has clearly lived among (and broken bread with) his subects. He treats them with exceptioanal good will.

Miles tells a mean story, bringing to bear a lifetime of study, observation, reflection and care. He's funny. And he writes.

We owe him one.

I think the books give a real good example of the life of a typical Venezuelan Boy how is in love with the game of baseball like all of the venezuelan kids. What I like the most is that is narrated from the boys point of view and the pictures are excellent they go really good with the text.

This book covered all the ground, sea and air of Belize. If you ever wanted to know where to stay, where to eat, and what there is to see, this is the book to buy.