South of Yesterday: A True Story by Virginia Downs Miller

Cogan’s Reviews The simplest way to describe this tale is to quote from the author’s preface. “South of Yesterday” is the story of my mother’s life as a bride coming to a strange land. The book flows through the charmed life of an American living in Guadalajara in the early nineteen hundreds, into the violence […]

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A Mexican Odyssey: Escape to Paradise by William Reed with Sylvia Garces de Reed

Cogan’s Reviews Where on earth do you start with William Reed? It’s as if he’s done everything in his first 75 years. His career beginning makes him seen quite unlikely for what was to follow. For example, he closed that first chapter on November 30, 1967, when he quietly retired from the U.S. Navy after […]

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Mexican Mornings: Essays South of the Border by Michael Hogan

Cogan’s Reviews Here’s an interesting and entertaining collection of essays, mainly about Mexico, but also covering a surprisingly wide range of other topics that reflect Michael Hogan’s many and varied interests. The Mexican entries include items like “The Crawling Things of Paradise”, a small tribute to all the crawling, flying, buzzing, poisonous, and non-poisonous insects […]

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December in Mazamitla by Ralph Rodriguez with Alan Cogan

The following article is essentially a letter which a friend of mine, Ralph Rodriguez, a resident of Guadalajara, wrote to his children some years ago. It concerns an annual festival which is held in the town of Mazamitla, Jalisco, every December. It’s a pretty interesting time to visit and make the 90 or so minutes […]

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Good man comes home to Mazamitla: La Troje restaurant

Point your car (or take the bus) along the south side of Lake Chapala, past San Pedro Tesistan and San Cristobal Zapotitlan and San Luis Soyatlan and San Nicolas and Tepeguaje to Tuxcueca. Make a right turn and keep your eyes wide open. You may encounter official Mexican soldiers conducting inspections. Sometimes they just look. […]

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