Mexico Books

I loved this book! Having just finished my own American pilgrimage, and non-fiction book: HOLY PERSONAL, looking for small private places of worship, Indiana University Press, Fall 2000, I found HOME ALTARS OF MEXICO one of the best books on the subject currently available. It touched me deeply. The color photographs are wonderful, somewhat formal considering the informality of the subject matter, and the contrast is intriguing-- no SOHO artist could improve on these spiritual assemblages. The text is a series of very well-written and inspired essays. Salvo looks at the altars of one small town in Mexico, so the book is highly focused. A truly aesthetic collection that brings light to a subject that is too often triviaalized and trendy.

I love this book and need to look at it periodically to remind myself of timeless values. The villagers who opened their homes and hearts to the Salvo family and the readers of this book bring their love of God, Christ, the Virgin Mother and all the saints to life through the photos, statues, and items both religious and secular that they collect in their sacred spaces. One picture features two Coca-Cola bottles as candle-holders. One altar-shelf has a chair below it featuring the handiwork of the lady of the house: the neatly folded sheets and laundry bring the fruits of her labors to God in a very concrete fashion. Thank you, Dana Salvo, for sharing these photos, and thank you, authors, for your thoughts on them. Above all, thanks to all the people in the pictures for sharing their lives and spirit with this book's readers.

As the owner-manager of the Humuya Inn Bed and Breakfast in Tegucigalpa I can verify that this is the best guidebook I've seen for Honduras and the Bay Islands.

It is my constant companion as I take it on my trips with my family around our beautiful country. The information is concise and accurate, and I would only reccommend this book to my guests for there travels.

Don't leave home without it!

There are few guidebooks on Honduras at all.Even if competition were available HONDURAS & THE BAY ISLANDS would be well worthwhile.It is simple ,well laid out by regions and truly has all the essential information a travelor would need.We found it more helpful than most of the ''big name'' books that we are all familiar with. Using this guide I planned our entire three week trip.,including air, car rentals, sights and lodging. We so thoroughly loved Honduras ,we are moving there.Bon Voyage. Bill Lockman

Dan Flores has lived most of his life in the Horizontal Yellow. Another, more historical term for this land would be the Spanish-Mexican Frontier. Florida was not settled from Mexico, of course, and the settlement of California was decades to more than a century later.

Flores explores this land from both the history and natural history points of view, with the historical part generally beginning with the first Spanish-U.S. contact as part of post-Louisiana Treaty boundary negotiations.

Not all Texas is the Southern spillover of Dallas and Houston; get acquainted with the rest of it, and adjacent areas, in this book.

Dan Flores' long-awaited new book once again proves he has few peers when it comes to a deep understanding of his native Near Southwest, a vision for its long term health, and the ability to weave a tale which is scholarly, literary, and deeply personal.

Anyone who cares about our Earth will love this book. The pictures of Cherokee medicine plants at the end of the book are beautiful. This story helps us remember the delicate balance that exists on this planet between the plants, the animals and us.

Wow! The Cherokees had some great ideas about the origins of diseases and medicine! Because the human beings treated the animals so badly, the animals fought back by making the humans sick. I especially like the scary drawing of the copperheads weaving above the heads of the sleeping people. According to the story, this is why we have frightening dreams about snakes to this day. The animals make so many illnesses that the people are struck down. But all is not lost. The plants come to our rescue and create medicines to treat all the sicknesses made by the animals. When the story ends, the reader finds a bonus on the last four pages - beautiful drawings of medicinal plants, complete with their Cherokee and Latin pronunciations and a list of their uses in natural medicine. The illustrations in this book are superb. My personal favorite is a double-page spread of a young man in a canoe. Murv Jacob did his homework. Not only the animals, but every plant in the book is readily recognizable. This is a great read and a great visual experience for kids and adults alike.

No one should buy a home without reading this book first! It is a gem--packed with useful information in a very readable format. The author uses his knowledge of the real estate business and his own experiences as a professional to provide a valuable and thoughtful perspective on the whole process. I wish I'd read this book before my first foray into the world of home-buying, but even after several such ventures in my life, I still found I learned a lot by reading this book.

Buying a house would be a lot easier for all of us if we did it frequently. But most of us only buy a home a few times in our lives and, face it, the process is dauntingly complex. As with any complex field, real estate has developed its own technical vocabulary. Fortunately, this book is written in plain English, and makes few assumptions about its readers.

That being the case, it is an invaluable resource to potential home buyers, *especially* if the buyer is looking in the author's home state of Colorado.

The reader learns about the advantages of "buyer agents" and is walked step-by step, in plain English, through the maze involved in finding and purchasing just the right home. Numerous anecdotal "horror stories" illustrate the potential pitfalls in the buying process.

I know *I* will be able to make better decisions on my next house purchase after having read this book.

Saburo Sugiyama, who has participated in many of the key excavations in Teotihuacan, explore the Feathered Serpent Pyramid, in so far as this Pyramid (and human sacrifices associated) is an evidence of State Ideology and rising militarism of a superpower in Mesoamérica between 200-650 AD.
Excellent archaeological book!

Teotihuacan is an amazing mystery. At its peak, it was the 6th largest city in the entire world and exerted at least partial control over key Maya cities up to 600 miles away. Yet it did so with stone age technology, no written language, no beasts of burden, and not even the wheel. And because of the lack of written records, it's very difficult for us today to understand how any of this was possible in general terms, let alone know the details of its civilization and administration.

This book is an attempt to throw some light on these enigmas. It was written by one of the recognized experts on the site, who has participated in many of the key excavations there, and is based on what is known as of the present. The main discussion is a detailing of the massive (200-odd) victim human sacrifice that was part of the ground-breaking ceremony of the Feathered Serpent Pyramid, one of the 3 major buildings of Teotihuacan, and its implications for the government of the city.

This book is definitely not light reading. It's written in a clear yet rather technical manner, so those who aren't familiar with scientific writing might find it rather heavy going, although still informative. For those with a real interest in pre-Columbian Mesoamerican history, however, it's a very useful and fascinating book. However, there's no way around the disturbing nature of its subject matter, although the book doesn't dwell or even speculate on the gory details. It just tries to explain what the quantity and arrangement of bodies and artifacts means for our understanding of life and government in Teotihuacan.

I went to grade school with the gal who commited this horrendous crime and while I was deeply upset by her actions, I was glad to be able to read about what happened.

This is one of the better true-crime books I've read. What a horrific crime! What a disturbed person! One almost feels sorry for Darci, yet her gruesome crime is unforgivable. This book was well researched and very well written. I found myself neglecting everything around me until I finished this book; I simply couldn't put it down!

In the modern age, traveling from Iowa to California is nothing. But in 1849, it was deadly and treacherous journey. "I Have Seen the Fire" is a splice of reality and fiction, following Sarah Royce (a woman who truly existed) in a work of historical fiction. Telling of her family's journey west, "I Have Seen the Fire" is an eye-opening look at the harsh journey and trials people undertook for a chance at a better life. Highly recommended for community library historical fiction collections.

I was enchanted by this book and had to force myself to put it down so i would have some left to read tomorrow. Knowing that the author is a noted historian, you might expect this book to be a history lesson of sorts and it's true that the details of life on the trail heading west and in the mining camps are colorful and engaging. But mostly this is a deeply personal story written from inside the mind of a righteous, brave and interestingly optimistic woman who feels more deeply and passionately than she may even admit to herself. Hine writes a woman's voice so well you feel like you know Sarah Royce, a woman who loves her home and yet travels constantly, who sees God and yet is haunted by her own failings in not saving a friend from a fire as a child, who supports her husband and yet has a very special relationship with a man with clear, blue eyes. Maybe like me you won't want this short little book to end, but when it does that ending will make you catch your breath!

I'm an adult, but I found this book very helpful in the study about the Aztecs. The illustrations really help to bring the period to life. It covers some mature topics though, like human sacrifice that I hope won't disturb kids reading this book. A great overview about the conquest of Mexico.

Tanaka attempts to portray Cortez's invasion of Mexico from the persective of the Aztecs. Illustrations are vivid and there is lots of information and food for discussion in these pages. Minor discrepancies exist, but overall an excellent book to help balance the Western view of history.

I have not yet read this book, I have only just ordered it, but I am so excited to read it because currently I am the coordinator of the Hollenback Community Garden in Brooklyn New York. Our garden is on the former site of the Hollenback Mansion where Amelia grew up, which burned down in 1979.

Compiled, edited and Annotated by Mary J. Straw Cook, Immortal Summer: A Victorian Woman's Travels In The Southwest is a collection of letters and black-and-white photographs by Amelia Hollenback, a Victorian woman who had the opportunity to see 1897 America with her own eyes. With extensive contextual annotation, Immortal Summer is a vivid, superbly organized and presented primary source which takes in what American life, land and people were really like more than a century ago. One curious note: Author and historian Mary Cook lives in Santa Fe in the very house that Amelia Hollenback commissioned John Gaw Meem to build in 1932!