Recommended Readings about
México
by Perry Robert Wilkes
Poetry:
Poems, Protest and a Dream
Selected Writings by Sor Juana de la Cruz
Penguin Classics, 1997
Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz (1648-1695) is recognized now as an early feminist, but in 17th century Mexico she faced the wrath of the Catholic church for her writings. When she penned her famous “Response” (1691) to the bishop she knew it meant the end of her intellectual freedom. She would be a victim of the plagues that swept the country, just a few years later.
Fiction:
The Underdogs
by Mariano Azuela, 1915
Signet Books, 2016
A peasant’s dispute with a wealthy landowner gets him swept up into the larger forces of the Mexican Revolution. Azuela’s account, originally published in 1915 and quickly recognized as “The Novel of the Mexican Revolution,” illustrates the many personal and complex issues that drove the Revolution for ten brutal years.
––––––––––––––––––––––––
The Plumed Serpent
by D H Lawrence,
Alfred A Knopf, 1926
Lawrence began this novel, of an Irishwoman in the immediate aftermath of the Mexican Revolution, during his 1923 visit to Mexico City and Guadalajara. Portions were written on the picturesque shores of Lake Chapala, and it captures a picture of the people of Mexico just as they emerge from the brutalities of the Revolution.
––––––––––––––––––––––––
Under the Volcano
by Malcolm Lowery
Vintage Books, 1958
First published in 1947, this classic novel follows the last 24 hours of the life of the British Consul in a small town in the shadow of central Mexico’s great volcanos. Made into a movie starring Albert Finney but, as usual, the book is richer and more gripping.
––––––––––––––––––––––––
The Death of Artemio Cruz
by Carlos Fuentes
1962; Atlantic Books, 1991
Widely recognized as one of Mexico’s finest authors, Fuentes uses innovative narrative styles to explore the Mexican national identity. Here he delves deeply into the mix of her Spanish, indigenous, and mestizo cultures.
––––––––––––––––––––––––
Stones for Ibarra
by Harriet Doerr
Penguin Books 1985
A forty-ish couple moves to Ibarra to reopen a mine abandoned by his grandfather 50 years earlier, during the Revolution. Doerr deals graciously and intelligently with the cultural misunderstandings that accompany the venture. Winner of the 1985 National Book Award for First Fiction, the book is far better, and more compelling, than the made-for-TV movie starring Glenn Close.
–––––––––––––––––––––––––
Consider this, Señora
by Harriet Doerr
Mariner Books, 1994
The second excellent novel by Doerr, who started writing in her late 60s, and published her first novel at the age of 75. She must have been a remarkable person in her own right.
–––––––––––––––––––––––––
Rain of Gold
by Victor Villaseñor
Delta, 1992
The award-winning best-seller about two families and their struggles to escape the violence of the Revolution. The story begins on the Río Urique, deep in the rugged La Cañada de Cobre and continues into a desperate escape across the US border. Based on the true experiences of the author’s family.
–––––––––––––––––––––––––
The Hummingbird’s Daughter
by Luis Alberto Urrea
Little, Brown and Company, 2005
This sweeping novel of southern Sonora chronicles the tale of the author’s great-aunt, Saint Teresita of Cabora. This experienced writer tells a very good story that truly captures the essence of the region, and the times leading up to the Revolution. It is set near the historic mining town of Alamos, recently designated a “Pueblo Magico” by the Federal Government.
Non-Fiction:
God and Mr. Gomez
by Jack Smith
Franklin Watts, Inc. 1982
Probably the classic story of cross-cultural misunderstanding as the author and his wife embark on building a vacation dream house in Baja California. With God and Mr. Gomez in partnership, the work continues apace.
––––––––––––––––––––
The Guaymas Chronicles
by David E. Stuart
University of New Mexico Press (2003)
Back in the 1960s, Stuart was a young buck recovering from an accident suffered in Ecuador, and a broken heart inflicted in Guaymas. While ostensibly working on his doctorate in anthropology, he manages to pay the bills by partnering up with a very savvy street urchin named Lupita and smuggling fans, toasters, and other small appliances into Mexico. Using Stuart’s map and photos, you can still find the Hotel ‘Rubi’ and other locations in south Guaymas, and the story of young Lupita will break your heart.
––––––––––––––––––––––––––
On Mexican Time
by Tony Cohan
Broadway Books (2000)
Tony and his wife, Masako, buy a 250 year-old house in San Miguel de Allende. As with most of us who buy a home in Mexico, that’s when the adventure really begins. Laced with good descriptions of life in San Miguel, and the process of rebuilding an old casa under the constraints of a very foreign culture.
History and Analysis:
Conquest of Mexico
by W. H. Prescott
1843
Despite its quaint Victorian language, this remains one of the best accounts of the remarkable events that led Hernán Cortez and a handful of Spanish soldiers to defeat the mighty Aztec Empire. The careful scholarship and descriptive precision make this book a compelling read for the terminally curious. Prescott also wrote The Conquest of Peru.
––––––––––––––––––––
The Wind that Swept Mexico
by Anita Brenner and George R. Leighton
(1943) University of Texas Press 2003
When this book was first published in 1943, many felt the Revolution was still in progress as Mexico continued the sweeping changes that left much of its feudalistic past behind. This sense of immediacy is felt in Brenner’s text. But the real treasure here is the documentary photography collected by Leighton that tells a story impossible to convey by words alone.
–––––––––––––––––––––––––––
The Labyrinth of Solitude
by Octavio Paz
Grove Press, 1961, 1985
A deep exploration into the character and culture of the Mexican people by the winner of the 1990 Nobel Prize for Literature. This is essential reading for anyone who wants to understand the complex realities of the Mexican psyche.
–––––––––––––––––––––––––––
Distant Neighbors
by Alan Riding
Vintage, 1984, 2000
One of the best written explanations of Mexican history, life, and culture, this book covers the complex interplay between the economic, historic, and political forces that drive modern Mexico. Authored by a former New York Times Mexico City bureau chief, this is the insider’s view behind the headlines. The latest edition has a section on recent developments.
–––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––
There’s a Word for it in Mexico
by Boyé Lafayette De Mente
NTC Publishing Group, 1996
The cure for those nagging questions you’ve had about many of the words you encounter in Mexico. As in any other language, many of them have a deeper meaning than you’ll find in your Spanish/English Dictionary. With 139 different terms – ranging from Abrazo to Zonas de Tolerancia – much of the culture becomes more understandable with this book in your hands.
––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––
The Life and Times of Pancho Villa
By Friedrich Katz
Stanford University Press 1998
An excellent read despite its heft, this 985 page book (including Footnotes, Bibliography and Index) is filled with carefully researched facts and observations about the Mexican Revolution, as viewed through the life of one of its most compelling figures. Zapata was the true revolutionary, but this caudillo and former bandido dominated many of the most important events of the times. Revolutionary intellectuals attempted, and failed, to groom Villa for a larger role than that of simply replacing the dictatorship of Porfirio Diaz. And his failure to learn from past tactical and strategic blunders (read of his defeat by Obregon in both the first and second battles of Celaya) was nothing short of stunning. Still, his colorful life and blatant self promotion have kept him as the foremost symbol of the Revolution for most norteamericanos. A very good book for the serious student of Mexican history.
––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––
Padre Kino and the Trail to the Pacific
by Jack Steffen
Kino Heritage Society, 2014
This driven Italian priest established numerous mission churches throughout the current states of Sonora and southern Arizona, including the iconic San Javier del Bac mission just south of Tucson. His extensive wanderings took him to the mouth of the Colorado River and beyond, where he established that the Baja Peninsula was not an island, as shown on early maps.
Guidebooks:
The Log from the Sea of Cortez
By John Steinbeck
The Viking Press, 1941
If you had been standing on the beach at Kino in early April of 1941 and gazing thoughtfully upon the broad and peaceful Sea of Cortez, you might have seen a small ship steaming southward from the end of Tiburón Island, then chugging slowly across the surface before passing behind Punta San Nicolas. That would have been the trawler Western Flyer out of Monterrey California, chartered by John Steinbeck and his good friend Dr. Ed Ricketts for a six-week scientific expedition to this fertile Sea. They mostly gathered specimens along the eastern side of the Baja Peninsula and at the ‘midriff’ islands of Angel de la Guardia and Tiburón before heading toward the pleasures of Guaymas and then the large Agiabampo estuary to the south. They didn’t stop at Kino. But Steinbeck’s descriptions of the abundant sealife, the primitive conditions of what is now the resort of Cabo San Lucas, and his philosphical ramblings on life in general, make this a book for the serious student of the Sea.
Shelling in the Sea of Cortez
by Paul E. Violette
Dale Stuart King, Publisher, Tucson (1964)
We inherited this one with the purchase of our casa and it’s probably long out of print. Illustrated with simple line drawings, and touched with charming flourishes of purple prose (“When the sea is asleep in her bed, the tide slips silently down like a silk sheet, leaving a diaphanous cover of algae and plankton upon the sand.”), this booklet concentrates on the area around San Carlos – although many of those species are also found here.
––––––––––––––––––––––––
Gulf of California Fishwatcher’s Guide
by Donald A. Thomson and Nonie McKibbin
Golden Puffer Press, Tucson, 1976
There are nearly 700 species of fish in the Sea of Cortez. Thomson and McKibbin have divided 208 of them into 28 groups “according to their taxonomic, anatomical, or ecological similarities.” If you can’t find that fish you caught in this book, I don’t know what to tell you. Illustrated with 208 very clear line drawings, and with clear concise descriptions.
–––––––––––––––––––––––––
National Audubon Society Field Guide to North American Shells
by Harald A. Rehder
Chanticleer/Knopf, 1981
Excellent photos and descriptions of more shells than you’ll ever need to know about. The handy thumb tab shell icons make it very easy to find what you’re looking for.
––––––––––––––––––––––––––
A Field Guide to the Birds of Mexico and Adjacent Areas
by Ernest Preston Edwards
University of Texas, 1998
Want to know what a Jabiru looks like? How about a Black-Bellied Whistling Duck, or an Ornate Hawk-Eagle, or maybe even a Great Kiskadee? Then this is the book for you!
––––––––––––––––––––––––––
Course Reader for the Kino Bay Region
edited by Mark Riegner
Prescott College, 2001
This 139 page spiral-bound course book for Prescott College students at the Kino Bay Campus covers such topics as Geology, Geomorphology and Soils, Weather and Climate, the Intertidal and Mangrove Communities, Seabirds, Marine Mammals, Plantlife, and Conservation Issues in the Kino Bay area. The air pressure difference between Blythe, California and La Paz in Baja California, yields the wind speed at Kino Bay. How deep can a sea lion dive? To about 250 meters (around 830 feet)! It’s all in the book!
(Prescott College Publications; Prescott College; 220 Grove Avenue; Prescott, Arizona 86301)
––––––––––––––––––––––––––
A Sonoran Desert Scrapbook
By William J Little
Dog Ear Publishing, 2011
An essential guide to the strange and unique plant life of coastal Sonora, with hundreds of full-color photographs and vivid descriptions. Includes location notes for each plant type, and an ethnographic-botany of the local Seri people. A handy reference to keep in the car.
Atlases, Maps, and a Cruising Guide:
México Atlas Turístico de Carreteras
The biannual Guia Roji, or Red Guide, shows just about every road in the country, and the expanded version has a thick section of tourist info, including hotel listings, restaurants, and many sights of interest. In Spanish. Available at Auto Zone in Hermosillo.
–––––––––––––––––––––––––
México Road Guide
by Quimera (quimeramx.com)
The superior color and well-rendered topographic features of this atlas make it easy to read and very useful. Includes locations of archaeological and historic sites, and national parks. In English and Spanish.
–––––––––––––––––––––––––
Sea of Cortez, A Cruiser’s Guidebook
by Shawn Breeding and Heather Bansmer
Blue Latitude Press LLC, 2009
If you’ve ever wanted to cast off the docklines and set your sails to fully explore the amazing Sea of Cortez, this is the book you need. The plentiful full-color maps and photographs give you all the information you need to avoid most hazards and find a good anchorage in a storm. Even if you’re land-bound, this book contains plenty of information about local wildlife and onshore attractions.