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| Author: Richard Grant
Publisher: Free Press
Category: Book
List Price: $15.00
Buy New: $8.75
You Save: $6.25 (42%)
New (30) Used (12) from $7.76
Avg. Customer Rating:  30 reviews
Sales Rank: 12833
Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 304
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.6
Dimensions (in): 8.3 x 5.5 x 0.9
ISBN: 1416534407
Dewey Decimal Number: 917.210484
EAN: 9781416534402
ASIN: 1416534407
Publication Date: March 4, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Shipping: International shipping available
Condition: BRAND NEW
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| Customer Reviews:
 God's Middle Finger September 7, 2008
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
Really a good read on a violent part of Mexico that is creeping into America. The most frightening part of this new generation of smugglers and thieves is the complete lack of reason for anything they do. Mainly because they are too drunk or stoned to care, and sadly this even extends into their religious rituals. I recommend everyone read this to see just where our society is heading from the influence of illegal drugs and illegal aliens pouring into our country.
 Hmmm.... August 30, 2008
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
Although I enjoyed reading this book I am left feeling a little bit annoyed. I have travelled many times into the areas Richard Grant writes about and have had very different experiences.
We have had picnics at the side of streams high in the Sierras, have sat in the square in San Bernardo drinking beer scores of times, drank whisky on the river bank in Chinipas, drove hundreds of miles on dirt roads and camped in a tent. We even went down into Batopilas on our 1969 Lambretta with our dog in a basket on the back and spent the night down there.
Although I don't dispute what he is saying, I think that there is also another aspect to this beautiful area. If you go to seek out the danger in any part of the world you will find it, whether it's a city or wilderness. This area is definitely worth a visit and I would hate anyone to miss out because they have read this book.
intelligent, exciting book August 29, 2008
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
Grant's confident, well researched narration of his travels through the Sierra Madre gave me insight into a culture I had known nothing about before. He imparts a lot of information on Mexican history, indigenous ways of life, folklore, customs of the Sierra Madre and narco-trafficking. Rather than slowing the book down with a lot of dry facts, Grant's research adds to his firsthand accounts and observations and makes them pop with the authority of history and truth. It was clear to me that although Grant was drawn to the Sierra Madre because of the its strange incongruities, lack of culture and lawlessness (among other things), he usually takes a measured, moderate tone to critique the violence and machismo in the region. This was an extremely interesting book.
"Nothing happens in Mexico until it happens." August 26, 2008
2 out of 3 found this review helpful
A few years ago, I picked up Grant's American Nomads after judging it by the cover (and subtitle), and I really enjoyed it. I figured I couldn't go wrong with another book by him.
Of course, I did go "wrong." So did Grant, more so than I could ever dream of doing myself. I'd call it a "true novel"-- it reads a lot like fiction, both in style and substance, but it's a true story. Grant gives a glimpse into a world south of the border that has little in common with standard American life: American Mormons growing marijuana under the coercion of drug smuggling gangs, mafiosos protecting tourist passages in order to avoid unwanted attention, police seeking bribes, the army burning down opium fields and drug lords taking hostages as a substitute source of income, aggression and cocaine and cheap beer everywhere, hostile Native tribes that still live by the old ways. There is a lot going on here, and while there are the occasional bright patches, most of it sounds pretty bad.
The title I gave this review is a line pulled from the book. Before going, Grant got one piece of advice over and over: Don't go anywhere alone. Of course, once advice is ignored, it gets easier to ignore it again. And again. Until something happens, like being hunted for sport by a truckful of hillbillies hopped up on cocaine and booze, for example.
One thing I can say about the book is that the last chapter gave me the most intense state of fear and edge-of-my-seat panic that I've ever gotten from reading anything, in spite of the fact that he must have survived to write a book about his experience. If that's not a recommendation, what is?
 An okay read....... August 21, 2008
4 out of 7 found this review helpful
It's difficult trying to decide how to review this book. It's a good enough read but completely disjointed. I've read a bit about the area in the past so nothing here was completely new. The writer's attitude and premise gives me a problem. There is too much of the "I can only live if I'm living completely on the edge" here. Pretentious? Is that the word? He spends most of the book impressing on the reader how dangerous the Sierra is to the extreme! This is stressed on almost every page. And when he is faced with it first hand he puts his tail between his legs and scrams for the border. So much for living on the edge! It's an okay read, I guess, but there is something of the childish amateur about the writer that will put me off reading anything else he writes or has written.
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