|
 Miraculous Air: Journey
of a Thousand Miles Through Baja California by C.M. Mayo
University of Utah
Press Fall 2002
Travels from Los Cabos to Tijuana.
"A stunning
portrait of Baja California" - Sara Mansfield Taber
For more about my book, Miraculous Air,
click here |
|
Natural History |
 The Log from the Sea of Cortez by John Steinbeck and Edward Flanders
Ricketts ISBN 0140187448 A beautifully written memoir purportedly about
a collecting expedition, but in fact a meditation on just about
everything, Baja California as template. Published in December
1941, the week of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, this books
provides fascinating glimpses of a rougher and more isolated
Baja California. Not the best book for those genuinely interested
in learning about the peninsula; Steinbeck's and Rickett's understanding
of Mexico was fairly primitive, both pre and post trip. Nonetheless,
this strange little book has inspired generations of Americans
to study natural history and visit the Sea of Cortes. (As for
me, I took my own book's title from the quote, "the very
air here is miraculous...") |
 The Forgotten Peninsula: A Naturalist
in Baja California
by Joseph
Wood Krutch ISBN 0816509875 A classic. |
 Among Whales by Roger Payne ISBN:
0385316593 One of the peninsula's
most spectacular sights are the Pacific coast lagoons filled
with nursing gray whales. Each December hundreds begin arriving
in Lagunas San Ignacio, Guerrero Negro and Bahia Magdalena, having
migrated thousands of miles down from their Arctic feeding grounds.
Though Roger Payne doesn't have much to say about Baja California
(most of his research has been done on right whales in Argentina),
anyone who plans to visit the grays in Baja California should
read his book. This is the best -- the most entertaining and
authoritative -- book on whales out there. Payne, by the way,
is the cetologist who first discovered that humpback whales'
eerie cries are in fact songs. |
|
Reflections
of a Whale-Watcher
by
Michelle A. Gilders
ISBN: 0253209579 If you reallyreallyreally are into whales and you
reallyreallyreally want to know about whales in Baja California,
this is the book for you. An accomplished photographer and an
environmental scientist with a degree from Oxford, Michelle Gilders
currently lives and work in Canada. To visit this book's page
on amazon, click
here. The author's website,
www.michellegilders.com
offers
more information about her books, as well as extensive links
on earth sciences and industry and government. |
|
History |
|
Antigua
California
by Harry W. Crosby It's back in print! For more information visit
Harry Crosby webpage, www.harrywcrosby.com |
|
Ray Cannon by Gene Kira
For more information
visit Gene Kira's webpage www.bajadestinations.com
Ray Cannon was the King. |
|
Cave Paintings |
|
Cave Paintings
of Baja California: Discovering the Great Murals of an Unknown
People by Harry W. Crosby ISBN: 0932653235
This is the
numero-uno book on the cave paintings of Baja California, which
are the most important rock art in the Americas. Harry W. Crosby,
an American historian (also author of Antigua California,
a history of the Jesuit missions on the peninsula, and numerous
other, unfortunately out-of-print books on Baja California) personally
documented over 200 of the sites, trekking with local guides
through the rock-strewn labyrinths of the central peninsula's
canyons. Gorgeous full-color photographs. (Message to the Mexican
authorities: please award Harry W Crosby an Aztec Eagle. It's
well-deserved and long overdue.) To
visit this book's page on amazon, click here. To visit the author's
webpage, click
here. |
|
The US-Mexico Border |
 Coyotes: A Journey Through the Secret World
of America's Illegal Aliens by
Ted Conover ISBN: 0394755189 Coyotes is a gripping read about a group of
people -- Mexican illegals -- who in other writers' work are
usually shown at a nice, safe distance, with about as much depth
as cardboard cut-out figures. Conover is the most extraordinary
writer of literary journalism writing in the English language
today -- well, other than (kowtow, sprinkle of lotus petals)
V.S. Naipaul. A trained anthropologist, Conover has the guts
and stamina of a marine, the discernment of a trapeze artist,
and the heart of a poet. Amazing. Riveting. Read this and you
will begin to understand the meaning of the US-Mexico border.
Read this and you never see an undocumented worker in the same
way again. Visit Ted Conover at www.tedconover.com |
 Across the Wire: Life and Hard Times
on the Mexican Border
by Luis
Alberto Urrea ISBN: 0385425309 Luis Alberto Urrea is one of the most interesting
and eloquent writers writing on Mexico and the US border.Highly
recommended. Visit his webpage at www.luisurrea.com |
 By the Lake of the Sleeping
Children:
The Secret Life of the Mexican Border by Luis Alberto Urrea ISBN:
0385484194 [Review to be posted
soon...] |
 Twilight on the Line: Underworlds and Politics
at the US-Mexican Border by
Sebastian Rotella
ISBN: 0393041131 In-depth research by a first-rate journalist on
some the ugliest events and places in Mexico today. In writing
about Tijuana and the 1994 assassination of PRI presidential
candidate Luis Donaldo Colosio, I found Rotella's book indispensible. |
 Cutting for Sign by William Langeweisch ISBN: 0679759638
In Cutting
for Sign, Langeweisch travels the US-Mexico border from Texas
west to Tijuana, interviewing all along the way. He comes off
as a shade cool, but in all this is a well-researched and elegantly
written meditation on the US-Mexico border. Langeweisch, by the
way, is a very interesting writer. After Cutting for Sign
he went on to write a memoir about his travels through the Sahara
(Sahara Unveiled), and another -- Inside the Sky
-- about flying. Out-of-print. (Message to publishers: are you
nuts?) |
|
Into a Desert
Place:
A 3000 Mile Walk Around the Coast of Baja California by Graham Mackintosh ISBN: 0393312895
What a wacky
guy! I was so impressed that, in writing my own book on Baja
California,I tried to set up an interview.We talked on the phone
in San Diego briefly. Unfortunately, he was off to Rosarito to
work as an extra in the movie "Titanic". (Check it
out -- in the scene where Jack takes Rose down to the party in
steerage, MacKintosh is the red-head briefly seen arm-wrestling.)
To visit the author click
here. |
 Journey on a Baja Burro, by Graham Mackintosh. A memoir of his extraordinary
adventures traveling straight down the rugged spine of Baja California.
Blurbs Bill Evarts, "Two hooves up!" Indeed! More information
on the author's website.
To visit, click
here. |
|
Miraculous Air: Journey
of a Thousand Miles Through Baja California by C.M. Mayo
University of Utah
Press Fall 2002
Travels from Los Cabos to Tijuana.
"A stunning
portrait of Baja California" - Sara Mansfield Taber
For more about my book, Miraculous Air,
click here |
|
Guide Books |
 Baja Handbook by Joe Cummings ISBN:1566911206 The best guidebook to Baja California. I traveled
the length of the peninsula from Tijuana to Los Cabos, and theBaja
Handbook was in my backpack, or on the front seat of my car,
for every mile of it. Plus, the sidebars -- on everything from
the history of theTranspeninsular Highway to the cave paintings
-- were a delight. No other general guidebook to the peninsula
compares. To visit Joe Cummings' personal website, click
here. |
 Baja California Plant
Field Guide
by
Norman Roberts
ISBN: 0960314415 People call it "the desert peninsula,"
but much of Baja California is heavily forested -- with cacti
and plants, many of which are unique to the peninsula. This book
is an excellent resource to help you identify , for instance,
that strange yellow smoke-like bush? That thing that looks like
a giant strand of spaghetti? Or the one bristling with thorns
that looks like a snake crawling along the ground? Numerous color
photographs and ample, authoritative descriptions. |
 The Baja Adventure Book by Walt Peterson ISBN:
0899972314 This is a wonderful guidebook
that has seen many editions over the years. Especially useful
for those planning to travel in the more remote areas on the
peninsula. By one of the biggest "Baja Buffs" ever.
By the way, Walt Peterson also maintains a website that is an
excellent source of information on the peninsula. To visit his
website, click here. |
|
Mexican Politics,
Economics and Culture |
|
True Tales of Another Mexico by Sam Quinones. (Review to be posted soon...) |
 The Labyrinth of Solitude by Octavio Paz ISBN:080215042X Personally, I think it's a big fumada, as
they say in Mexico, very swirly and twirly, the kind of thing
that makes for very profound-sounding quotes with all the substance
of freshly whipped merengue. But, whatever I think of it, it's
a classic, and yeah, I quoted from it. (Couldn't help myself.) |
 The Mexican Shock: Its Meaning for the
United States by Jorge Castaneda ISBN: 1565843126
Message to
Jorge Castaneda: get yourself a better author's photograph. You
look like you just ate a big plate of romeritos and the
Pepto is nowhere in sight. Yes, you have every reason to feel
that way. Yes, I feel that way too when I contemplate the Mexican
economy, and particularly when I contemplate the events of late
1994. Indeed, even now,as I contemplate the Mexican economy in
late 1999 from the comfortable distance of Washington, DC...
where is that Pepto? |
|
Mexico's War
on Drugs:
Causes and Consequences
by
Maria Celia Toro
ISBN: 1555875483 This is the most intelligent analysis of the social/political
costs of this so-called "drug war" as waged by both
Mexico and the United States. Toro, a professor of political
science at Mexico City's El Colegio de Mexico who did her doctoral
research at Stanford and Harvard, makes plain-as-pie common sense.
This should be at the top of the reading list of anyone interested
in the subject. To visit this book's
page on amazon.com, click
here |
 Distant Neighbors: A Portrait of the
Mexicans by Alan Riding ISBN: 0679724419
It's controversial,
it's outdated, it's full of gross generalizations, but I still
highly recommend this book as an introduction to modern Mexico
for Americans. We are, as Riding titled his book, distant neighbors
indeed. Why else would be there be so few good books about Mexico
in English? Most of the good ones concentrate on a single subject
(e.g., Zapotec women, or politics, or say, Frida Kahlo); those
that do attempt a general introduction are -- well, shame they
cut down the trees to print them. Riding, in contrast to those
who shall remain unnamed, actually (gee!) speaks Spanish, had
access to high-level officials (he was Mexico bureau chief for
The New York Times, which meant he did not have
to generalize about Mexicans based solely on his experience with,
say, taxi drivers), and he has (thank you, thank you) an ability
to write intelligible and palatable English. |
For
my extensive bibliography on
Baja California, click
here.
Longitude
Books also has
a list of recommended
books on Baja California.
And for Baja
California Links, click
here. |