| | |  Entertainment | Books | December 2008 
December Book Recommendations from Mexico Book Club
 Ed Hutmacher - MexicoBookClub.com
Our book recommendations page on the Mexico Book Club website now draws about 1,200 unique visitors a week, a good indication that curious readers are looking for books about Mexico. This month's December picks serve up another handful of good reads that will inform, inspire or entertain you throughout the holiday season:
Noche Buena: Hispanic American Christmas Stories edited by Nicolas Kanellos (2000; Collected stories - Fiction and Non-fiction) — It’s December, the month when holiday and Christmas enchantment fills the air. We wanted to discover a book that could be enjoyed by children and adults alike, and this one delivers the right portions — a magical trove of stories, poetry and songs (past and present) that celebrate the special experience of Mexicans and Latin Americans during the season of Navidad. Each story captures some flavor of the cultural landscape that makes the season of Noche Buena (the "Good Night") such a moving experience. Reading it is like opening a present filled with verse and prose.
Cantinflas and The Chaos of Mexican Modernity by Jeffrey M. Pilcher (2001; Non-fiction) — Mexican comedian Mario Moreno, a.k.a. Cantinflas, was the most popular movie star in Mexican history. A fast-talking, nonsensical character, Moreno helped Mexico’s underclass embrace their mestizo identity by deftly satirizing pompous socialites and powerful elites via his trademark word play of double meanings and innuendoes. But this book is more than a biography; it presents a broader perspective on Mexico’s cinema and entertainment culture which facilitated Moreno’s rise to fame (chiefly, the 1930s through the 1950s) while his country and compatriots struggled with the "chaos of modernity."
True Tales From Another Mexico by Sam Quinones (2001; Non-fiction) — Quinones’ book was published in 2001, so it’s not new. But his 15 "true tales" are so fascinating in their depiction of contemporary Mexican subcultures — people, places, big-town and small-town politics and crime — we think the book deserves more readers who are interested in the real-life challenges and illicit undercurrents many Mexicans confront and navigate every day. In other words, beware — Quinones' journalistic eye for detail and nose for digging out a story may shock unsuspecting readers expecting the more popular and generally romanticized view of Mexican life and culture found in mainstream travel books.
Mexico: A Traveler’s Literary Companion edited by C.M. Mayo (2006; Fiction) — This anthology of 24 short stories and novel excerpts, all penned by prominent Mexican writers, is indeed a great companion for discriminating travelers. It’s a reminder that Mexico's literary scene is both diverse and delectable — "a vast banquet," as Mayo describes it in the book's preface. Considering Mexico's storied but turbulent history, she champions Mexican literature as "one of the greatest achievements of the Americas. And yet we who read in English go hungry, for so little of it is translated." The stories are arranged by geographic region, which makes discovering Mexico through Mexican fiction a pleasurable adventure.
Mexican Muralists by Desmond Rochfort (1998; Non-fiction) — It’s easy to like the art of the Mexican muralists Diego Rivera, David Alfaro Siqueiros and José Clemente Orozco. Travelers to Mexico have all been exposed to their work at some point in time and in some way or another. This book is a wonderful summary of these great men’s influential lives. It’s both a pictorial and biographical account of how and why they embarked on a mission of creating a self-consciously popular art, using Mexican folk imagery as their inspiration and the events of Mexican history their subject matter. Rochfort is a bit too scholarly in his style but the content is thorough, balanced and beautifully illustrated. A good book for any home library.
Ed Hutmacher is Editor in Chief of Mexico Book Club. For more information on the above books or other books about Mexico, please visit the website at MexicoBookClub.com. |
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