Customer Reviews

Taos: Landmarks & Legends

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For anyone who is an expatriate Taoseno (as I am) or for those who are just interested in this fascinating little town, Bill Hemp has written and beautifully illustrated a coffee-table-type book that one can read all the way through without getting bored and return to often to enjoy the sketches and re-read specific chapters.

In it, you will find the history of the three cultures (Indian, Spanish and Anglo) that put Taos, New Mexico on the map as a place like no other place in the world. The ancient Anasazi settled around Taos in 1000 A.D. and Taos Pueblo (dating from about 1350) is the oldest continually occupied pueblo in the Southwest. When the Spanish arrived in 1540, they set their seal on the ancient community, building churches and missions and farming the land. Then Mabel Dodge Luhan "discovered" this magical place (it is said that Taos Mountain draws people) and an influx of Anglo artists and writers began, among them D.H. Lawrence, Andrew Dasburg, Georgia O'Keeffe, Ernest Blumenschein, Micolai Fechin...the list is too long to mention all of them here. Later, R.C. Gorman, John Nichols, Natalie Goldberg and many others who have achieved fame in the outside world made their home in Taos (which means, "place of the red willow").

Chapters are devoted to Kit Carson, Padre Martinez, the Penitentes, the Rio Grande Gorge Bridge and even the influx of hippies with a chapter on the New Buffalo commune in Arroyo Hondo north of Taos. There are maps, portraits, landscapes, architecture, quotes, reminiscences, stories of ghosts, little-known facts and even recipes (one for green chile stew) in this rich, very readable and delightful work. I found no inaccuracies but did find a great deal of information that I hadn't known about before. Highly recommended.

pamhan99@aol.com

We took this book to Taos and read through it together every night by the kiva fireplace of the casita we were staying at...the stories were so well-written, so colorful, and full of so many bits of historical antedotes from 500+ years of Taos life, that we were just completely swept away! It was the perfect companion to a first trip to Taos, and it really gave meaning to the things we saw and the experiences we had. The sketches are folksy and well-done. This book is HIGHLY recommended!! The only tour book (that isn't a tour book) you'll need.

Very cool book. One of my favorite NM books. And I have alot.