Read: New Mexico, Rio Grande, Other Essays

Tony Hillerman loved New Mexico which is why “New Mexico, Rio Grande and Other Essays” is both factual and personal. I so love this book. The book starts with a concise history of New Mexico, which is something I always love to revisit because I always learn something new. This essay is followed by pieces about the Rio Grande, something I’ve taken a keen interest in as of late. The story of the Rio Grande, the second longest river in American behind the Missouri/Mississippi, has been told time and time again, but for specifically this reason it interests me. What can I do with this story?

The book also contains several photo-essays, slightly dated by their transparency look and feel, but revealing in their locations and subject matter. The idea that Hillerman brings is the idea that New Mexico is unique in its history, people, and geographical and biological diversity. New Mexico is a contrast of edges. Right in the middle but mostly looked over. The centerpiece of colonization, a land of delayed invasion, indigenous life and a place with a very uncertain water future. Just the way we like it. Siempre juntos. Get it, read it.