1 comments about Mexico's Sierra Tarahumara: A Photohistory of the People of the Edge.

1. Sadly, the fine photos in this book are overshadowed by erroneous text. The editors at the University of Oklahoma did not do their job. A hotel in Areponapuchi is mislocated at another train station, Bahuichivo. Cerocahui is placed at the edge of the Urique Canyon instead of in a high mountain valley, an arroyo becomes a canyon. The book seems to contain good information but the many errors caused me to question what is true and what is not. Likewise, many photo captions are so questionable that they detract from the superb photography.

No comments about American Map Arizona, New Mexico: State Map (Travelvision State Maps).

1 comments about Baja Boater's Guide: The Sea of Cortez : The Definitive Guide for the Coastal Waters of Mexico's Baja California.

1. This book is very in depth with excellent drawings and photos but is almost entirely about the Baja peninsula side of the Sea of Cortez - if you are looking for the mainland side SOc info, the Cunningham books are bibles for that territory.

1 comments about Savoring Mexico: A Cookbook & Travel Guide to the Recipes & Regions of Mexico.

1. I have owned this cookbook for almost 15 years, and it is the most authentic, yet easy to use, cookbook for regional Mexican cusine that I have come across. And you can trust me on this because I lived in Guanajuato, Gto., Mexico for six years!
   
   If you are tired of the typical fare that we Americans call "Mexican", and would like to taste "real" Mexican food, buy this book! The recipes use ingredients that are easy to find in your typical well-stocked grocery store. (If you don't have one of those, you can also go to an international grocery store.)

1 comments about The Temple of the Jaguar.

1. This is an excellent book. The publisher's review does not do it justice. I was afraid it would be bogged down by the author's introspection but found it had just enough to make his experiences more interesting & personal. It is a well-written & fascinating account of the history, flora, fauna and people of the Yucatan. Don't go without it!

No comments about Mapsco The Roads of New Mexico.

No comments about The Great Unknown: The Journals of the Historic First Expedition Down the Colorado River.

1 comments about Desert Passages: Encounters with the American Deserts.

1. *Desert Passges,* Patricia Nelson Limerick's first book, surveys a cast of American characters who wrote about their encounters with the deserts of the American Southwest. Her subjects fall into two broad groups: those who hated the desert, and by extension wanted to redeem it by settlement and irrigation, and those who -- however conditionally -- loved it, and by extension wanted to preserve it. The turning point between these two groups fell in the later nineteenth and earlier twentieth century, when the railroads and the obliteration of independent Native American cultures had rendered the desert a scene out of the carriage window, traversed in ease, instead of a horrible wasteland waiting to destroy the naive traveler.

   Limerick's subjects range from the famous -- Mark Twain, whose reaction to the desert inspires some of Limerick's sharpest prose -- to the famous in their own day but now obscure -- like William Ellsworth Smythe. She's pretty hard on almost everybody she treats -- especially Edward Abbey, who comes across as something of a charlatan -- except William Manly. Manly survived a harrowing trek in 1849 through Death Valley to California; he recorded his adventures in sincere and plain prose that repays reading today.

   This book is a revision of Limerick's Ph.D. dissertation, and suffers from some of the faults of the genre -- for which it would be entirely unfair to blame her! Her choice of subjects left me somewhat puzzled, especially the omission, until the very end, of the most important figure in working out our relations to the desert: John Wesley Powell. Powell is a big figure, famously treated in Wallace Stegner's massive biography (the last chapter of Donald Worster's *Rivers of Empire* makes for inspiring reading too); no doubt Limerick felt he had had enough attention, and it was time to turn toward less well-known, but arguably important, persons. Yet his ghost hangs unacknowledged around the text, and the story of America's relations with its arid West just isn't complete without his tangled, contradictory presence.

   Much of the material and indeed many of the same authors treated in *Desert Passges* recur with a somewhat more literary bent in Peter Wild's *The Opal Desert,* which appeared in 1999. A third edition of *Desert Passages* has been announced but hadn't appeared as of this writing.

No comments about Mexico Berlitz Pocket Guide.

5 comments about Things I Like About America: Personal Narratives by Poe Ballantine.

1. If life were a greyhound bus, you would find Poe Ballantine out on the front bumper, experiencing it sooner and more intensely than the rest of us. This book is a collection of dispatches from the road, and what they have to tell us is edifying, entertaining, terrifying, and reassuring, as well as utterly authentic. Some readers have likened Ballantine to Charles Bukowski, and certain common themes suggest the comparison, but Ballantine's sympathy, wry understanding, and cheerless optimism have more in common with the themes of Tom Waits, Bob Dylan, and Hank Williams.



2. I became a fan of Poe Ballantine through reading his articles in The Sun magazine. This collection of short stories is just great. They are all autobiographical stories about his stays in different areas of the US and Mexico. The editorial, or maybe confessional, "twist" he puts on each experience is what makes the narrative so interesting.



3. I am not very good at writing reviews, but just wanted to say this is a great book which deserves reading!!!



4. This is a great book. Endlessly fun and insightful and funny. Poe's adventuresome spirit sweeps-up the reader and delivers us to places we may probably never go. He dares to visit the shadow of America as well, and delivers to us the jewels of characters hidden therein. The experiences through which they all live are painted here in vivid, full spectrum color. I would buy and/or read anything this guy writes.



5. Imagine that! Poe actually lived here, and I missed it!
   Good read! Glad he's finally settled!