Across a Hundred Mountains, A Novel  •  Reyna Grande LITERATURE •  2006 •  HARD COVER  • 208 PAGES (MEX161, $23.00)
Ancient Maya, New Perspectives  •  Heather McKillop HISTORY •  2006 •  PAPER  • 460 PAGES (MYA46, $22.95)
Backcountry Pilot, Flying Adventures with Ike Russell  •  Thomas Bowen ANTHOLOGY •  2002 •  HARD COVER  • 206 PAGES An anthology of anecdotes from the air, recounting dangerous flights and unbelievable adventures with Ike Russell, a bush pilot legendary among research scientists of the 60s and 70s. A fearless chauffeur, Ike would fly scientists to inaccessible corners of the globe (mostly in the desert regions of Mexico, but also East Africa, Madagascar and Tierra del Fuego), often under extreme circumstances. Among the writers featured are Bernard Fontana, Richard Felger and Paul S. Martin. (DES07, $29.95)
Chihuahua, Pictures From the Edge  •  Charles Bowden  •  Virgil Hancock CULTURAL PORTRAIT •  1996 •  PAPER  • 117 PAGES A visual celebration of the city with 40 vibrantly colored full-page plates, almost exclusively of street scenes, buildings and eye-popping advertisements. Charles Bowden provides an accompanying essay on the U.S.-Mexico border region. Those readers expecting a straight-forward travelogue will be disappointed but anyone with a love for color and politics and symbols and art will be intrigued. Published in cooperation with the University of Arizona Southwest Center. (MEX128, $29.95)
A Concise History of Mexico  •  Brian Hamnett HISTORY •  2006 •  PAPER  • 368 PAGES (MEX162, $25.99)
Crafts of Mexico  •  Margarita de Orellana  •  Albert Ruy Sanchez ART & ARCHITECTURE •  2004 •  HARD COVER  • 360 PAGES An abundantly illustrated guide to Mexico's crafts, including textiles, jewelry, ceramics, furniture and more. With 400 color photographs and illustrations. (MEX144, $45.00)
Field Guide to Mexican Birds  •  Roger Tory Peterson  •  Edward Chalif FIELD GUIDE •  1973 •  PAPER  • 298 PAGES This easy-to-carry field guide covers 1,000 birds that have been reported in Mexico, Belize and El Salvador but only illustrates those species not already included in one of the Peterson North American bird guides, which you may also want to carry. The guide also covers northwest Costa Rica. (FG12, $22.00)
A Guide to the Birds of Mexico and Northern Central America  •  Stephen Howell  •  Sophie Webb FIELD GUIDE •  1995 •  PAPER  • 849 PAGES Serious birders will want this definitive guide to the 1,070 bird species found in Mexico, Guatemala, Belize, Honduras and western Nicaragua. It may be awkward to carry but it covers, in detail, all the birds you will see in the region in a single volume. (FG15, $49.95)
Kissing the Virgin's Mouth: A Novel  •  Donna Gershten LITERATURE •  2002 •  PAPER  • 228 PAGES The tale of thoroughly modern, contradictory Guadalupe Magdalena Molina Vásquez of Mazatlan (or some fictional place just like it). Barabara Kingsolver chose this book as the first recipeient of her Bellwether Prize supporting literature of social change (a ponderous name but appropriate for this lyrical tale of a woman who scrambles out of poverty). The choice of the name Magdalena for the title character is no coincidence. (MEX122, $12.95)
The Lawless Roads  •  Graham Greene  •  David Rieff TRAVEL NARRATIVE •  2006 •  PAPER  • 240 PAGES A riveting account of Graham's journeys through Tabasco and Chiapas in the 1930s, including his time in San Cristobal de Las Casas and Palenque. Greene was in Mexico investigating the impact of the anti-Church policies of President Calles. He draws on the same expenses for his masterpiece The Power and the Glory. (MEX164, $14.00)
Moon Handbook Cabo  •  Joe Cummings GUIDEBOOK •  2004 •  PAPER  • 352 PAGES An informative guide in the popular series. (MEX143, $16.95)
National Geographic Field Guide to the Birds of North America  •  National Geographic FIELD GUIDE •  2006 •  PAPER  • 502 PAGES From Alaska to Baja California, this field guide published by the National Geographic Society, now in its fifth edition (with tabs!), is the one to carry. Practical to use in the field, it has maps, illustrations and descriptions of the birds on facing pages. The scale of the maps changes with the range of the bird, which means you get a more detailed regional map for those birds with a restricted range. This fully revised fifth edition features nearly 700 color range maps, bigger and better than ever. (FG09, $24.00)
Northern Mexico Map  •  ITMB 2006 •  MAP A colorful traveler's map of Sonora and Mexico's Copper Canyon, at a scale of 1:1,350,000. (MEX112, $12.95)
Pimsleur Quick & Simple Spanish  •  Pimsleur Language Method LANGUAGE & PHRASEBOOKS •  2005 •  AUDIO CD Four audio CDs with eight 30-minute lessons in basic Spanish, covering elementary vocabulary and phrases used in travel and everyday situations. The Pimsleur method emphasizes the use of listening skills without reading materials (so there isn't a book to follow along). It's advertised as "Totally audio: hear it, learn it, speak it." (SPN257, $19.95)
Seven Myths of the Spanish Conquest  •  Matthew Restall HISTORY •  2004 •  PAPER  • 272 PAGES In this provocative book, Restall tackles Columbus, Cortes, Pizarro and the misconceptions surrounding them. The conquisadores most certainly did not conquer the Americas with a handful of men, nor were they received as gods. (SAM52, $19.99)
The Sibley Field Guide to Birds of Western North America  •  David Sibley FIELD GUIDE •  2003 •  PAPER  • 474 PAGES A compact, geographically-specific version of the Sibley Guide with all-new range maps, the same glorious illustrations and expanded, extremely valuable descriptions of each bird with status, habitat, range, voice and identifying marks. The book covers 703 species of birds occurring west of the Rockies, including Alaska, the western Canadian provinces, Baja California and portions of northern Mexico. Maps show the range throughout North America. For birders living east of the Rockies, you'll want to use Sibley's "Birds of Eastern North America" (USE262). (USW418, $19.95)
Sierra Tarahumara Barrancas del Cobre Map  •  International Map Company MAP A simple, two-color map of the Copper Canyon and Sierra Tarahumara from Chihuahua to Hermosillo, Los Mochis and Culiacan on the Golf of California. With roads, travel distances, the route of the Chihuahua al Pacifico railway, lakes and rivers. The reverse side features black-and-white photographs and travel information. (MEX123, $4.95)
Sonoran Desert Spring  •  John Alcock NATURAL HISTORY •  1994 •  PAPER  • 134 PAGES Alcock, a professor of insect behavior at the University of Arizona, writes of the plants and animals and ecology in this lyrical meditation on the Sonoran desert. The book is organized as a series of essays on key plants and animals over the four-month period from February to May. (BJA20, $17.95)