1 comments about The Other State, New Mexico USA.

1. Mr. McCord has captured the special essence of New Mexico, which is nominally part of the USA, but really almost a separate country and culture all to itself. One could put the case that N.M. is really 2 countries:
   1. N.M. in the summers and 2. N.M. in the winters. Both of these countries have a special charm like no other place and deserve a visit with care toward preserving such a vital resource. Buy the book!

1 comments about 49 Trout Streams of New Mexico.

1. This book is a very nice University Press book that conveys the essence of NM trout streams and its high quality trout fishing. Not a fish pic book, it emphasizes the experience of angling in beautiful places. Highly recommended.

4 comments about Sandia Mountain Hiking Guide.

1. This book is a fantastic resource. I have watched the author over the years put this guide together with painstaking precision, love and care. The full-scale map alone is worth the price of the entire book!



2. I must say this i probably one of the best guides for the sandia mountains in a long time. knowing the author myself i can tell you he definitely knows what he is talking about when it comes to the sandia moutains. it says it took him twenty or so years to hike them all, well before he wrote the book he decided to hike them again and it took him 3 months. Now thats detication.



3. now, just because we all know Mike doesn't mean these reviews are baised. This is an excellent book and it's easy to use. I would reccommend this book to anyone in Albuquerque that wants a beautiful hike, but doesn't know where to go. It is true that there are a lot more trails than just La Luz.



4. I've been hiking this area since 1983. My bible for the Sandias is Mike Hill's "Hikers & Climbers Guide to the Sandias". However, the last edition is well out of date and I supplement with this book. When I decide it is time to explore a new area of the Sandias in depth, I take out both books and the maps provided therewith, set my GPS and make notes about terrain and when I have the time I'm off. Now if someone could just write one book that combines all this information, I'll be in hiker heaven!

No comments about Lee Friedlander: New Mexico.

5 comments about Lonely Planet Southwest: Arizona, New Mexico, Utah (Lonely Planet Southwest).

1. I have recently encountered poor Lonely Planet books, but this was not one of them. It is the good old LP at work.
   The coverage of Las Vegas, however, was extremely poor. I spent there 24 hours and this book didn't have enough info for even that short of a trip. The rest is great.
   The California LP had twice as much info on Las Vegas.



2. I purchased this book before a recent visit to Albuquerque, Santa Fe, and Taos. I lived in Albuquerque for 4 years about 6 years ago, but I hoped to find new insigts on places to eat, explore, etc. Basically the guidebook told me where not to go. It failed to mention some excellent restaurants in Albuquerque including The Dog House, Las Mananitas, Il Vicino, etc. In Santa Fe I attended a class at the Santa Fe School of Cooking which was a five star class - not mentioned in the guidebook. In Taos I visited a community of alternative homes constructed of tires and cement (earthships.com will explain more) - again not mentioned in the book. I did go to look at a ruin near Espanola that was recommended, but the reservation does not allow admittance.



3. This book was incredibly helpful to me. The maps are awesome. It's organized well. I hiked and did Route 66. The book was great for both. The table of contents is super accessible. Buy it and take it everywhere!



4. Living in Australia, planning a road trip around the Southwest is not an easy consideration. I received this book and suddenly the Southwest was withing smelling distance. The reading is easy and expressive. I have a clear idea of where I will go and what I will do. No matter if I were travelling with children or on my own, I'd be clear about what is available to me. This will be the trip of a lifetime and this sensational book is a catalyst for my planning. Fully enjoyable, this book allows the magic of anticipation to grab me and give me colourful dreams.



5. Does a very good job of covering a large area. This book exhibits the best of the Lonely Planet series: a combination of facts, interesting suggestions, opinion and background information. Good maps and graphics. I like that camping suggestions are included for many places.

2 comments about Mountain Biking Northern New Mexico: A Guide to Taos, Santa Fe, and Albuquerque Areas' Greatest Off- Road Bicycle Rides.

1. This book has some great rides with good descriptions and directions. It is lacking some critical closure information that a NEW guidebook should have. For example, the Otero Canyon ride has been closed, but this book does not mention any access issues at all. Some similar problems on other trails.



2. This is as good as a mtb guide gets. The focus is small enough that it can really cover the 3 areas thoroughly, the advise is good, the trail selection is good, and the maps are...standard Falconguide maps, which are OK. D'Antonio doesn't make the mistake of underrating the technical difficulty of his trails. Two caveats: he omits the wonderful Horse Thief trail in Taos--go to Gearing Up bike shop and they'll sell you a stunningly good map; and he tells you to ride the Chamisa Tr in Sante Fe backwards--take his advice and you'll do all the dirt uphill and all the pavement downhill.

1 comments about The Chaco Experience: Landscape and Ideology at the Center Place (Resident Scholar).

1. Van Dyke's multilayered study centers on the Chaco Canyon spiritual, cultural center. The Chacos were a Southwestern Native American tribe from which the familiar Pueblos are descended. This Chaco site flourished from about 850AD to 1200AD.
   
   Remarking that the "Chacoan landscape was to be experienced," Van Dyke tries to recreate this experience for herself as much as this is possible by "walking where the Chacoans walked, perceiving spaces as closely as possible to the ways in which they perceived them." Besides scholarly and imaginative scrutiny and hypothesis regarding numerous artifacts and ruins of the Chaco spiritual site, the author also looks to elements of historical and present-day Pueblo mythology, belief, and spiritual practices to help her form an idea of Chaco spirituality and spiritual practices and corresponding reasons for and uses of buildings and objects of the site.
   
   While basically and for the most part rigorously a work of archaeological research and related anthropology, the book adds a considerable dimension to this by being primarily concerned about the site as the "center place," a key concept and often particular site in any mythology and spirituality sometimes known as the "omphalos." This gives the book a wider interest than most archaeological, anthropological books which do little more than organize findings and explain the design of structures, use of utensils, identify references of symbols, and the like. Yet despite Van Dyke's obvious keen interest in, and in many ways affinity with the particular Native American spirituality, with the author's determined, consistent reliance on the physical evidence of the artifacts, consultation with respected scholarly research and opinion (the bibliography is about fifty pages of references in small type), and habit of reasoning rather than speculating, the book does not take on the style of a New Age-like celebration of Native American or other aboriginal spirituality. Besides up-to-date reporting on the archaeological work and discoveries of the Chaco center place and elucidation of them for what they tell and imply about the place of the site in the Chaco culture and about their spirituality, the author represents a method for greater intellectual and sympathetic understanding of vanished cultures.
   
   The Chaco site is realized as a "palimpsest created over the course of centuries...[e]ach particular moment during that span, each particular construction, built on what came before and influencing what came after." Van Dyke's study has amplitude and insight for paying attention to each particular moment and particular construction while appreciating the site as the highest, most complex expression of the Chacoan culture built according to the ideas of its leaders "to communicate and extol ideas about the way the world works--ideas that legitimated leaders' authority and encouraged visitors to transform themselves into subjects." Grasping the Chacoan culture and its major symbolic remains in this way, as others have done for Aztec and Inca cultures, Van Dyke brings the Chacoan spirituality recognition as a highly-developed, advanced spirituality reflecting the political ideas, self-awareness, class structure, etc., of the society.

1 comments about New Mexico Map (State Maps-USA).

1. All the route information you could want while traveling through
   the State Of New Mexico and then some.
   Excellent !

1 comments about The Southwest: New Mexico and Arizona (The Smithsonian Guides to Natural America).

1. All of the Smithsonian Guides to Natural America are excellent, and this one is no exception. It is one of the best guides available to the natural history of the Southwest, and is beautifully illustrated with color photographs. Not only visitors to this region but residents as well would find their understanding and appreciation of the natural environment enhanced by this attractive and informative book.

5 comments about Talking to the Ground: One Family's Journey on Horseback Across the Sacred Land of the Navajo.

1. This book and its predecessor, Cities of Gold, chronicle the amazing, arduous, foolhardy, inspired journeys of a "yankee" in search of the traces of cultures his own people have nearly annihilated. Unlike many memoirists, Preston doesn't shrink from chronicling his own failures and misjudgments, and that's what makes him so accessible to the people he meets along the way, and to the reader him or herself. Most of us will probably never have the guts to make these journeys or get to know all these people - that's what makes this book such a radical act of anti-tourism. Above all it's a poignant homage to "the people." (They know who they are!) If you're a horse person, a traveler to the southwest, or if you're just interested in the question "what is American?" you have to read these books now. And don't miss the great story about the skinwalkers - it's enough to keep you cold in July.



2. A wonderful read, both encouraging and disheartening, with some real family values thrown in. A graphic, first-hand description of the way things were and are, and might be. Mr. Preston provides many enduring messages about the sanctity of life and living that the Bilagaana have nearly completely lost in our rush of subservience to the technology god.



3. It's a pleasure to enjoy the author's background studies (dry) and then his reality (with large hail stones) on a search that leads to more respect... for everything.
   Reading this book caused me to yearn for some concrete search of my own, and that is the dream this book passes along. It was given to me as someone else's favorite book. I can see why. Thanks.



4. It helps immensely to have travelled to the Navajo Nation when reading this story. I found that I had minor interest in the developing family story, compared to the lore and myth of the SW Native Americans. If you've travelled to the SW and are familiar with horses, you'll love this book.



5. As a native of New Mexico I found this book wonderful. I live with a Navajo who was raised very traditionally and he found the book wonderful also. Douglas Preston is the best.