Compiled and edited by Nasario Garcia (Professor of Languages, New Mexico Highlands University), Comadres: Hispanic Women Of The Rio Puerco Valley is a unique and ground breaking survey of Hispanic-American women and their manifold contributions to the evolving culture of New Mexico, especially during the first ten years of statehood. Ranch life, the evolution of Spanish dialects, the struggles to birth and raise children, and so much more are accessibly covered in this unique anthology of vignettes, anecdotes, and revealing glimpses into New Mexican daily life. Black-and-white photographs enhance this outstanding collection of brief yet personable tales, each of which is rendered in both Spanish and English. Comadres is a very strongly recommended addition to Women's Studies, American History, and Southwest Regional Studies academic reference collections and supplemental reading lists.

Platicas: Conversations With Hispano Writers Of New Mexico is a unique collection of interviews with six remarkable, contemporary Hispanic writers (Rudolfo A. Anaya, Denise E. Chavez, Erlinda Gonzales-Berry, E.A. "Tony" Mares, Orlando Romero, Sabine R. Ulibarri) that, taken together, represent a seminal and informative sketch of New Mexican Hispanic intellectual and artistic history. Nasario Garcia's interviews elicited candid commentary and spontaneous conversations that reveal much about life experiences, the creative process, and the unique role that culture, tradition, and geography play in the literature that these writers have produced. Platicas is an outstanding, highly recommended contribution to students of American literature, and Hispanic studies.

This elegant book with its 20-odd contributors from tiny villages on the Upper Pecos Valley is almost as attractive for the photos of the tellers, most in their 80's, as the meticulously transcribed Northern New Mexico dialect and excellent translations. The stories are commonly-told little morality tales and pieces of gossip that involve supernatural power, the intervention of the devil in our lives, or activities of local brujas. A chunk of American life that many of us cannot imagine actually exists.