New Mexico Books

A favorite of mine. My first introduction to this book was on a trip to Albuquerque many, many years ago. Since then, I have purchased 6 of these books and given 5 as gifts. Great recipes.

One thing that I particularly like about this book, which may be a surprise to some, is that not all the old fashioned *fat* ingredients have not been taken out of the recipes, and the book not entirely updated to reflect low fat "healthy" foods. I like to eat healthy but once in a while a good, old fashioned recipe with the yummy bad ingredients is just plain good. You can easily eliminate fats yourself but I enjoy the authentic recipes. I can modernize them myself.

Love this book.

I purchased this book several years ago from the Jr League of Albuquerque. I am now ordering one for my daughter. It has lots of great regional dishes from New Mexico and lots of other great dishes as well. I collect cook books and this is a great one.

Today, when we think of art, we can't imagine a work without the artist's signature or some identifying mark, but in the 1930s, many women and men of New Mexico and southern Colorado worked without credit or recognition. Hispano and Hispana (men and women) worked "sin nombre," literally "without name." But they worked for the love of producing beautiful paintings and murals, fabric and textile art, tin work, and wood carving and furniture. And the love and knowledge of fine crafting shows in everything; much of this cultural legacy appears here in photographs for the first time. This book is a permanent monument to Southwestern Art and the people; it is a cultural and community achievement. The author, or central energy behind the project, Tey Marianna Nunn, has given us her own work of love and persistence--evidence of the will power necessary to recover the names of these nearly lost artists of the New Deal Era.

In May 2001, at the Moroles Art Center in Los Cerrillos, (south of Santa Fe), I had the luck to attend a gathering of the remaining New Deal artists and workers of the Civilian Conservation Corps who told their stories. I feel sure that this revival of interest in the surviving New Deal and WPA artists came about because of Tey Nunn and her book. Thank you so much for the joy this book has brought over the years.

A few years ago, a brilliant and talented student found a gap in the recent art history of New Mexico. She went out and conducted the research, raised the money, wrote the PhD thesis, and then was curator for an exhibit at the Museum of International Folk Art in Santa Fe that identified and saluted the artists whose names had been lost in the dusty archives of our Great Depression and the resulting New Deal. The exhibit changed the lives of the artists still living and assured artistic credit for those who are no longer with us. How many of the thousands of PhD theses produced since Dr. Nunn wrote hers have had any impact, let alone a major impact on the lives of people? This beautiful book is climax to Dr. Nunn's efforts.

Most people will never have the opportunity to be charmed and enlightened by a Dr. Nunn lecture. This book is a wonderful introduction to what a committed individual can do to make modern art history come alive. It is also a very useful introduction to the art of New Mexico created by the true artists of New Mexico, not the visitors (temporary or permanent) from other parts of the country. The Hispana and Hispano artists of the New Deal look straight at us from the pages of this book not for our approval but with pride in the art that they have created. Fortunately for us, Dr. Nunn, the Museum, and the University of Mexico Press have taken the time to reproduce this art to let us share in their joy of creation.

Reading this book made me feel as though I could try what is usually left to professionals, because Cindy captures the personal aspects of home repair and shares it as a woman, who learns as she goes, has successes and some failures. She gives hope and a wonderful sense of humor to every phase of her projects. She expresses her feelings about the tasks she's tackling and that brings in the human aspect which puts it in the realm of possiblilty, even for the beginner. Her organic way of approaching projects, spiced with her tonge-in-cheek sense of humor makes this book a refreshing and delightful read.

I read "Someone Stole My Outhouse," by Cindy Bellinger, last week on a long flight from Los Angeles to Atlanta. Like any good book, this one made many long miles just disappear. At 37,000 feet in the air I looked down and realized I might well be right over the backwoods cabin home of the notorious Cindy Bellinger and her outhouse stealing neighbors.
On the surface this is a book about home improvement, and indeed there is much interesting material here on building footers and tearing down walls and vanishing outhouses. But actually, as I quickly discovered, Cindy Bellinger's writing is certainly always more than just how to fix or build something. I first read a piece of hers in the Santa Fe New Mexican newspaper a few years ago, an article about the fire raging across New Mexico, and the impact it was having on peoples' lives. I was immediately impressed and showed the article to friends who were also impressed.
Very interesting here are the stories of the down-home sort of folks who wander in and out of these tales of home improvement. I also love the way Ms Bellinger uses construction as her focal point to discuss what it is like for a single woman doing things her own way. She has an uncanny interest and appreciation of good tools "for a woman." I admit, I was surprised by much in this book, surprised by her depth of know-how at building, at her appreciation of doing things herself, of the way she never let her sex be an excuse for not doing something she wanted to do.
The building and repairing going on in this book are always central but she admits that, "I'm not a finish carpenter, probably because nothing ever gets finished." But really, like any good artist, Bellinger understands well that it is the doing that counts, that the actual process of building may be more important than the end product. I recommend this book to anyone interested in: good writing, in something unusual and different, to anyone who appreciates a salty, no BS kind of a lady, to anyone who values a woman who has the guts to live life on her own terms, and who knows how to write about it. Someone Stole My Outhouse would make an excellent present for any liberated lady, or for any fellow not easily intimidated by strong women. A darn good read. Check it out.

This book is well thought out, organized and highly informative. Trying to grow anything in the different soil and conditions found in the Southwest can be frustrating. Unless you can find a little gem of a book like this. It is like finding the key to a lost treasure chest. The book as a whole is indispensible. It walks you through soil condidions, there is a chapter on why the Southwest is different, has the usual list of perennials, annuals, trees, shrubs, etc. She also has a monthly calendar of to do items that I find extremely helpful. She includes cute sketches throughout the book and I am now studying the planning and landscaping examples in the back of the book. A MUST HAVE for any New Mexico gardener.

Pat

Although Roasalie died several years ago in her late 90's, she was still an active gardener. She was only sorry she couldn't do a new book and add lisianthus.

Shapiro's well-structured monograph takes the reader through an overview of architectural analysis and its applicability to archaeology, summarizes the history and layout of the pueblo, and before diving into the analysis itself, provides an entire chapter which acts as a primer on the theory and method of space syntax analysis. This is an important inclusion, since it transforms the reader into a student of space syntax analysis, providing the tools necessary to decipher and understand the graphs and measurements in later chapters.

Unfortunately, the attentive reader will find themselves confused and misled by some of the explanations which are meant to clarify and illuminate. Multiple, significant errors are present in the section describing the alpha index. The formula given for the alpha index (page 43) and the actual examples which follow are not consistent with one another. Referring to another source, this reviewer concluded that the base formula provided for the alpha index is incorrect (there should be no parentheses in the numerator). The example which calculates the alpha index value for a room block at Acoma Pueblo is incorrect in two ways, and identifying them will be left as an exercise to the reader.

Overall, the book delivers much more than access graphs and indices derived from those graphs. Shapiro uses these tools to detect changes in architecture at Arroyo Hondo which demonstrate changing ideas about how space should be organized. He makes a good case that these new spatial arrangements are responses to the changing social and economic environment, and demonstrates how space syntax analysis could be used elsewhere to reveal architecture as an artifact capable of providing insights into culture and social organization.

This book is not only valuable to Southwestern archaeologists interested in Shapiro's analysis of an ancestral pueblo-- it also serves as an example of how to properly apply space syntax analysis to any settlement where sufficient data on rooms and their connections exist.

Shapiro applies the relatively new methodology of space syntax in the field of architecture to the field of archaeology with fruitful results. In analyzing the organization of space in the 14th-century Pueblo Native American community of Arroyo Hondo in the vicinity of present-day Santa Fe, Shapiro's meticulous archaeological study extending over many years arrives at explanations for "how space was both arranged and correlated with the social and political behavior" of this Pueblo community during the relatively brief time of its 125-year existence. The space syntax methodology together with standard and innovative archaeological techniques leads Shapiro to conclude that changes in the structures of the buildings, particularly those allowing for more privacy for individuals and family groups, relieved some of the stresses that might otherwise have led to warfare by "enabling incoming [i. e., migrant or immigrant] groups to reclaim some of their autonomy" they lost when assimilating into the Arroyo Hondo Pueblo. The author relates how space syntax works applied to archaelogy with tables of measurements, diagrams of building structures, and graph-like illustrations noting architectural features and changes. The content is fairly technical, though readily followed by readers with knowledge of the basics of architecture and archaelogy.

The nine authors who each tackle a chapter provide a unique and fascinating insight into life, and more specifically, women's life at Los Alamos. This book is a must read for those interested in the cultural and social aspects of the Manhattan Project at Los Alamos.

This book, originally compiled during the early postwar years at Los Alamos, consists of reminiscences, letters, and essays by representative women who devoted their lives to the Los Alamos experience during World War II. A unique description of the Manhattan Project, it remains one of those disarming pieces of historical literature that make history such an engrossing field to wander into.

This is a great book even you are not interested in the state of New Mexico... and if you are that much the better. Toby, a journalist for the Albuquerque Tribune, looks at ordinary people, landmarks, and places in a way that brings them alive. He choses interesting subjects and then lets you feel that you've been there and met them. Very objective, interesting, and accurate.

Toby Smith has an enviable ability to bring his subjects -- the people of New Mexico -- to life. My favorite story is "A Clean Sweep," but every one has something to enjoy. This is my second favorite book on New Mexico. My first is "New Mexico Odyssey," by the same author!

The best literate companion for a trip to the four corners area of US. It has selections from writings touching all areas where curiousity may take you as you travel through the deserts and canyons of the Anasazi.

Stories and Stone: Writing the Anasazi Homeland is a beautifully conceived, designed, and engaging work. The book sheds new light and understanding on the ancestral puebloan people. Reuben Ellis' forward and introductory essays to each excerpt engender a deeper appreciation and cultural awareness of the southwest and its history. Excerpts from Tony Hillerman, Wallace Stegner, Marietta Wetherill, Frank Waters, and Terry Tempest Williams were among my favorite--leaving me with a strong desire find and camp in a secluded canyon beneath the silent, ghostly ruins of the Anasazi

Of all the books my brother, Bill has written, I most love this one. SUNSTRUCK is about the area of the world on which he is an expert, a remote area of the Sonoran Desert, but more importantly, these are thought-provoking essays on life and living. Even if, like me, you don't usually read essays about the natural world I think you'll appreciate his writing style and world outlook. Bill shares anecdotes about the outdoor life, hiking, those he meets and gets to know in the desert (including la migra and people escaping the border patrol, mountain lions, rattlesnakes, bighorn sheep) that make the reader feel as if they are there with Bill at the moment of encounter.

So I hope you'll enjoy a book about a wondrous place in the world that few people visit, and even fewer understand: El Gran Desierto, the Devil's Highway. Yes, this review is written by the author's sister, but don't hold that against me. Given my proclivity to reading fiction, I might not have picked up this book if my brother hadn't written it. I am so glad I had the opportunity to enjoy his vivid use of language and to vicariously experience some of Bill Broyles' adventures in the desert.

It is officially called El Camino del Diablo-The Devil's Highway. It's also known by a variety of other names best left out of this review. It stretches for some 130 miles of desert from Sonoyta, in Mexico's state of Sonora, to Yuma, Arizona, on the Colorado River. There is precious little permanent water and ground temperatures can, and do, reach 150 degrees and more. It includes parts of two national monuments, a national wildlife refuge, and a gunnery range in Arizona not to mention various intities in Mexico. The are can be explored via foot or four-wheel drive vehicle. It can be done. It's done every year by experts and fools, lots of fools, legal and illegal. Many don't make it. It is a killer. If you are intrigued by scorpions, drug smugglers, sidewinders, bandits, illegal aliens, rattlesnakes, sand storms, unbearable heat, lack of water, a military gunnery range, and a host of other unbelievable challenges this is the trip for you. I don't know of any typical travel or guide book that will prepare you for this trip but this book comes as close as any to providing one with a sense of what to expect and when to go. It is probably the very best book ever published about this special place. The author and photographer have a knack of presenting a highly readable, visually accurate account of the dangers and beauty that await the visitor to a place noted author Charles Bowden says "...we finally get to face ourselves because we are alone with life itself." I have done this trip in a four-wheel drive vehicle and can only say be careful...very careful. This is a must read both for the armchair traveler and boots on the ground type.

This book just won a 2000-2001 Southwest Book Award.

Beneath each handmade quilt is a warm human being, and a fascinating story. Dorothy Zopf uncovers this material in her fascinating pastiche of oral histories. She pinpoints how what's available and what's needed combine with natural artistry to create lasting and functional treasures. The common thread that weaves this patchwork together is a texture of a place, of a time, and of a group of women who come alive in Zopf's deft hands. The stories and photos she has pieced together are not to be missed.