The best book I've read in a long, long time. I devoured every single juicy word.
Indispensible.
A wonderfully immersive backgrounder about the travelling experience in Mexico. It covers more than just the mechanics of Mexican travel -- it fills in the gaps with anecdotes that entertain and illuminate. I consider it a must-read for the independent Mexican traveler. Although it's nominally a guidebook, I preferred to leave all the hard details to the nice people at Lonely Planet and just used it as a primer to get into the right frame of mind.
This a brilliantly challenging book. The subject matter is a bit daunting, as is the presentation, but Nabakov works wonders with the english language. This is also a good book about travelling, and a fascinating psychological profile, and a great all-round read -- if you've got the energy for it.
Another challenging book. This time, though, the author completely shreds the English language, and deciphering the Scottish idioms and accents can be a bit difficult. But the story is well crafted, and, if you've got a stomach for tapeworms (not literally, I hope) and other nauseous afflictions then you'll definitely enjoy this book.
The language in this is good, and the character development is down-right amazing. A little slow to develop, but I still recommend it.
A great collection of true short stories about travel in Mexico. Some are a bit thin, but some provided ideas for future travels, and some provided information that I wished I'd had earlier. Entertaining and informative!
An entertaining murder-mystery. Not great, but engaging enough to pass the time.
Another good page-turner. Not much in the way of added value beyond the time it helps to pass, but entertaining nonetheless. Now I'm certainly interested in seeing the movie...
I can't believe this book was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize, or that it's number-three on the bestseller list. I bought it because it sounded interesting and was one of the ten English-language books that Sanborn's (a Mexican department store) carried. The story is mildly interesting but the language is incredibly awkward. After reading brilliant works like Lolita and Love in the Time of Cholera, this was a big disappointment.
I can generally find in this book less than half the Spanish words I'm eager to decipher.
This almost made it in my pack as a probably-to-be-quickly-discarded filler, but an hour of perusing prior to departure didn't uncover much in the way of usefulness. The background information is broad-ranging, if a little thin. I was hoping this book would offer interesting hotel or restaurant alternatives to the Lonely Planet guidebook, but the recommendations were too few, boring, and overpriced. Simply put, it's not geared to my style of travel.
I used this book once in my entire trip. My Spanish was functional enough to get around, so I wasn't very compelled to learn more. No rating.