Discovering books about Mexico and its people

Book Reviews and Articles  Wednesday, May 20, 2009↓ May Book Recommendations  Here's a handful of good reads to help chase away the swine flu blues, five books about Mexico and its people that inform, inspire or entertain you. Read more... Book Review  Gabriel García Márquez: A Life  By Gerald Martin This long, meticulously researched book is not an easy read, but it is about as clear and sympathetic as any biography of such a "magical" writer could be.  Read More... Book Review  Mexico's Swine Flu Epidemic: Is the Truth Stranger Than Fiction? The recent outbreak of swine flu in Mexico calls to mind Barth Anderson's futuristic biotech thriller "The Patron Saint of Plagues," in which a mysterious terrifying virus threatens to decimate the population of Mexico and spread to the rest of the world.  Read More...

Current Events Putting Mexico in an isolation unit "Did you hear that Mexico has become a world power?" goes a new joke in Mexico. "When it sneezes, the whole world gets the flu."  Behind the quip is a serious problem: apparently, when Mexico sneezes, the whole world gets in a flu panic, and it is costing Mexico dearly.  Read More... Travel Travel Warnings: What's So 'Non-Essential' About Travel? The U.S. government advises against non-essential travel to Mexico, yet no one bothers to clearly define non-essential travel or, for that matter, its presumed opposite: essential travel.  Read more... Culture As Mexico's Catholics look elsewhere, evangelicals gain   For hundreds of years, religion in Mexico has meant the stained glass windows and kneeling worship of the city's large Roman Catholic cathedrals. Change has come to Mexico, however: Evangelical Protestantism has taken firm hold in the soil of the world's second largest Catholic country.  Read more...

Art Drug-Related Murders Inspire Mexican Art  Decades After Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera, a young Mexican artist is rising to prominence, expressing new themes of inspiration and fears.  Read more...

Author! Author! Remembering Mexican poet Jaime Sabines  Jaime Sabines may not have been Mexico's most distinguished poet, but he was surely Mexico's most popular. Mr. Sabines was the bard and soul mate of generations of Mexicans who have turned to his enchanting romantic poems when they loved and lost, when their children were born and their elders died, when in ecstasy or in lonely despair.  Read more

It's All in the Frijoles! Revolution Road British writer and modern explorer Hugh Thomson follows in the wayward footsteps of Mexican rebel Pancho Villa, through the badlands of the Sierra Madre and into the trekking paradise of the Copper Canyon.  Read more...

Current Events "The Mexican Evolution" by Enrique Krauze  The opinion that Mexico is breaking down seems to be shared by much of the American news media, not to mention the Americans I meet by chance and who ask me whether Mexico will "fall apart."  Read more...