New Mexico Books

Ms. Kopp finds something to love about all her subjects, from the "loveable beast" of a black bear to the "hairy, scary and misunderstood" taratula. With her wit and way with words she brings New Mexico's wild inhabitants to life. When and if we do encounter any of them, we'll be ready with increased understanding and appreciation. I'm looking forward to reading this book to my grandsons.

Richard Throssel was a Cree Indian, adopted by the Crow. He was also a trained commercial photographer who worked with some of the best in the profession at the time. This book serves as a brief biography and a compilation of his photos of Plains Indians-mostly Crow and Cheyenne.

Those interested in the study of Plains Indian culture will enjoy Peggy Albright's well-written text and the way she incorporates the photos into her brief biography of Throssel. While those interested in the art of photography can simply skip to the section containing the photos and read the comments by people she interviewed while working on the book. Some, for example, are descendents who helped identify and give background on people in the photographs.

This is not your typical collection of portraits of dour "chiefs." Included here are portraits of many different people- some better known than others-including women and children. There are also photographs of ceremonies that were actually being performed illegally at the time, as well as posed compositions lke "The Three Scouts," riding amongst the markers at The Little Bighorn Battlefield.

My only regret is that I purchased this book in paperback. I certainly hope it will withstand all the many times I, and others will leaf through it.

"Cuentos de Cuanto Hay" is a great collection of over sixty folktales collected by the young J. Manuel Espinosa in the early 1930s in the Spanish-speaking regions of northern New Mexico. Originally published in Spanish as "Spanish Folktales from New Mexico" (American Folklore Society, 1937), the tales are here translated for the first time by the well-known New Mexico storyteller Joe Hayes. The book is the first substantial collection of Spanish-language stories from New Mexico available in English. Arranged in a parallel-text format, the Spanish version and the translation are made readily accessible to the student learning Spanish (although it has no vocabulary list), yet the stories have not been "dumbed-down" for language-learning purposes and can be enjoyed by anyone. Espinosa has written a short historical introduction and Hayes includes some brief linguistic notes.

I did find one potential flaw with the book, though. Espinosa's original Spanish versions published in 1937 have been modernized by Hayes. By updating archaisms and standardizing the grammar and some vocabulary, the translator has sought to make the stories more widely accessible to English speakers learning Spanish. This is fine, but you should be aware of the changes. Personally, since I have an interest in Spanish linguistics and have been studying some of the New Mexico dialect, I found the changes a loss. But the original versions are available elsewhere and only you can decide which one you prefer. Even with the linguistic changes, the book deserves five stars and more.

The recipes in this great book are of true old mexican cooking that is hard to find today, and it is a great read as well. I give it Five Star's in my cookbook collection.

Even residents of New Mexico may not realize all the gourmet events happening around the state, nor the culinary trends taking place: that's why professional food writer Sally Moore's Culinary New Mexico: The Ultimate Food Lover's Guide will prove eye-opening to so many. From restaurants and bakeries to food festivals, cooking stores and even wineries, Culinary New Mexico outlines all food oriented destinations, from handmade chocolate makers to breweries and cafes. The recipes scattered throughout also assure many dishes will be reproduced outside the state; but the meat of Culinary New Mexico lies in its destination-oriented tips travelers and residents will appreciate!

Cycle Of Seasons In Corrales by freelance writer Ruth W. Armstrong is an inspirational celebration of the turn of the seasons in Corrales and throughout New Mexico. Love of life, memories of the past and keen awareness of the present permeate this spiritual treatise. Enhanced with the photography of Ruth and Ellis Armstrong, Cycle Of Seasons In Corrales an impressive and timeless evocation and well worth the reading by anyone who appreciates what nature offers as the Earth encircles the Sun.

Rare is the book that can keep you enthralled and page-turning on a topic of which you previously couldn't hold ground past two seconds in conversation.

Or one that you can actually read cover to cover from first picking up.

The style of writing is as breezy as it is intensive and never dry.

An excellent work and book.

Mr. Nichols continues to amaze and delight his readers. As a novelist he lives in an invented world but as an essayast he takes his master's skill at prose and knifes into the butter of living in a world he finds all too real. "Dancing On The Stones" allows the reader to hop safely from the rocks of reality onto the reefs of fantsy. John's reality in Taos becomes the reader's virtual trip to his moral values. The trip is a maze of lofty thoughts bottomed by harsh facts and an unpleasant insistence on making one's living while living with what one makes. If more of us had John Nichols's insight into nature we'd see our world the way he sees his: life exists in spite of nature and life is as fragile as the clouds which enhance and hide it.

I had the privilege and honor to be one of Professor Luis Martín's pupils at SMU a decade and a half ago. I recall his playful, excitable and gregarious personality, as well as his trademark lectures in which he typically juggled history, theology, poetry, sociology and hard-core Sevillian gossip!

Such is the trademark of his writing in "Daughters of the Conquistadores." Don Luis artfully stretches the imagination of the reader by plotting in occurences and tribulations of nuns, divorcees, concubines, "tapadas" and "beatas" in the colonial Peru of 1550-1800. In a most authentic and self-bred style, he narrates the mysteries and abuses taking place in convents and nunneries, haciendas and palaces; and underlines the influence of women in a society relentlessly dominated by "Don Juanism" and sternly regulated and probed by an over-zealous Catholic church.

A book tough to research and tougher to write, "Daughters of the Conquistadores" is fun to read, bare of profound insights and laden with satyrical, albeit tragic, anecdotes.

Joe brings a lot of native stoys with jokes and morals. All use interesting creatures from New Mexico.