Cogan’s Reviews A Mexico book by Paula Heusinkveld This is a very useful book for explaining Mexicans to the rest of us North Americans. Professor Heusinkveld has set out to cover Mexican attitudes to business relationships, social interactions, culture, customs and values and has largely succeeded in describing our neighbors in understandable ways. I would […]
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Cogan’s Reviews A Mexico book by Harriet Doerr Only a sense of duty got me through this boring novel. I know that it comes with all kinds of recommendations and wonderful reviews from all the best sources. Harriet Doerr won the American Book Award in 1984 with her novel “Stones for Ibarra.” And “Consider This…” […]
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Cogan’s Reviews As novelist and travel writer Tony Cohan says in his narrative about San Miguel de Allende: “My editor wanted me to write about life here in the region where we live. At that time, San Miguel de Allende, Guanajuato and Querétero ranked a page or two each in the guide books, day stops […]
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Cogan’s Reviews I’ve been heard to complain lately about the way a lot of books come to us laden with reviewers’ glowing comments and overblown descriptions of the contents. I picked up a paperback not too long ago that had eight pages of reviews inside the covers and a bunch more on the outside covers, […]
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Cogan’s Reviews This is a two-part Review as Camille Collins joins me in reviewing this work. There’s a statement on page 98 of this book, as follows… “The key to understanding the ‘Mexican Way’ of doing business is to recognize that business management in Mexico has traditionally been an application of cultural attitudes and customs […]
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Cogan’s Reviews If one were to believe that this is really a novel in nine stories, as the author and publisher claim, then one would have to say it was a failure. It simply isn’t a novel. And stringing some short stories together doesn’t make it a novel either, just because a few of them […]
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Cogan’s Reviews Here’s an interesting collection of stories of nineteen women who came on their own to Mexico in recent years to settle in the Lake Chapala area. The book consists of eighteen interviews plus the story of the author herself. The women range in age from their 40’s to their 80’s. Their backgrounds and […]
Continue ReadingCogan’s Reviews “Mexifornia,” to quote the author, “is about the nature of a new California and what it means for America – a reflection upon the strange society that is emerging as the result of a demographic and a cultural revolution like no other in our times.” Thus Victor Davis Hanson opens his close examination […]
Continue ReadingCogan’s Reviews What a wonderful book this is for explaining some of the mysteries of Mexico. It’s not pretty stuff but one emerges with great admiration for the Mexican people and their ability to survive in a plainly rotten social and economic system. Ms. Hellman, who is a Professor of Political and Social Science at […]
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Cogan’s Reviews What on earth is one to make of this big sprawling exuberant novel? There were times when I enjoyed it and other times when I wondered if I would even finish it. For my taste, it’s just a bit too sprawling and exuberant. It’s as if Sandra Cisneros just had too much to […]
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