T H I S+W E E K



Mondo Weirdo:

The strangest food in the world

By Don George, Editor


Praise the Titanic!

By Doug Cruickshank

Eighty-five years later, they're still going down with the ship


Above the volcano

By Robert Riddell

Blowing off steam at Mexico's newest volcano



> Books on Mexico

-Getting there



D E P A R T M E N T S



The Surreal Gourmet

By Bob Blumer

It's a cocktail! It's a fruit drink! It's -- Supermartini!


Postmark: Alvescot

By Amanda Castleman

Down and out at Watermill Cottage

-Getting there


Passages:

"Into Thin Air"

Inside the Everest disaster

By Jon Krakauer


Readers' Tips and Tales

Drinking and travel





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[Salon
Wanderlust Marketplace]

Your virtual travel agency




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L A S T + W E E K






Tuesday, May 20


If it's Tuesday,
I must be tipsy

By Jan Morris

Jan Morris drinks her way across Europe


A full list of all


Wanderlust articles









[Booklist]




               B O O K S  O N   M E X I C O







A NEW TIME FOR MEXICO




BY CARLOS FUENTES
| by digging deep into Mexico's psyche, novelist Fuentes examines why the country is continually plagued with civil unrest.  "A New Time for Mexico" shows how the country spins in its own cycle of oppression and rebellion; the Mexican Revolution and the Chiapas revolt are proof of that.  With philosophical tangents about the state of Mexico yesterday, today and tomorrow, Fuentes comes full circle in the end by answering most of the questions he asks.  The answer is to act, to wake from this slumber of decline and "take a definitive step toward full democracy in Mexico."  Only then will the cycle be broken, he writes, and Mexico will be able to move into the 21st century as one country, one people.





UNDER THE VOLCANO




BY MALCOLM LOWRY
| hailed as one of the most important books of this century, this novel, set in  Mexico during the Spanish Civil War, descends into the depths of one man's battle with alcoholism. Lowry vividly describes the way British Counsel Geoffrey Firmin shakes when he needs a drink; how loud the voices are in his head when telling him to drink or not to drink; and how blurred his surroundings are when he's in a stupor. It is a slow poison that kills Firmin, killing his will to live and his will to combat the notion of fatalism that pervades Mexican culture. Lowry's tale of cantinas, volcanic earth and alienation is still as provocative as it was when it was published in 1947.



UNDERGROUND RIVER AND OTHER SHORT STORIES




BY INÉS ARREDONDO
| in this compelling collection of 12 short stories -- the first time Arredondo's work has appeared in English -- the Mexican writer  focuses on women with insightful irony and pithy poetry.  "That was a blistering summer.  The last summer of my youth," are the first two sentences in one story, "The Shunammite," a tale about lust gone awry, sickness and death.  Most of the stories, although fictional, take place at a hacienda Arredondo remembers visiting as a child in the Mexican state of Sinaloa.  She unfolds tragic tales of the human condition -- set in Mexico, but universal in scope -- with astonishing eloquence and beauty.  




May 24, 1997











W A N D E R L U S T




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