FOR THE ART LOVER
Paired with an exhibition at Santa Fe’s Museum of Indian Arts & Culture that runs through February 2, Horizons: Weaving Between the Lines with Diné Textiles showcases a dazzling array of textile work, uplifting and celebrating contemporary Diné weavers and their designs, legacies, and futures. Edited by Hadley Welch Jensen and published by Museum of New Mexico Press, the coffee-table tome includes nine contributors who add their voices to lush, stunning images. FURTHER READING: Also from Museum of New Mexico Press, The New Mexicans: 1981–83 is a striking, celebratory, and haunting black-and-white compilation of old images from award-winning documentary photographer Kevin Bubriski that captures the unique, multifaceted beauty of our state.
FOR THE NATURALIST
In Water Bodies: Love Letters to the Most Abundant Substance on Earth (Torrey House Press), New Mexico PBS senior producer and reporter Laura Paskus brings together poignant, evocative essays and poetry from former Albuquerque poet laureate Michelle Otero, environmental filmmaker Christi Bode, journalist Daniel Rothberg, and 13 other writers to underscore the value of water. FURTHER READING: Moonlight Elk: One Woman’s Hunt for Food and Freedom (University of New Mexico Press) tells how Santa Fe–based landscape architect and artist Christie Green shifts her life significantly when she learns to hunt. She challenges assumptions and discovers her truer self in this lyrical blend of memoir and environmental study.
FOR THE CRIME SOLVER
Albuquerque police forensic photographer Rita Todacheene is back in Exposure (Soho Crime), the second book of this series from National Book Award nominee Ramona Emerson. Able to see ghosts, Rita is pulled in when a body is found in Gallup. Emerson’s cinematic, bone-chilling scenes are sure to keep you up at night. FURTHER READING: Lost Birds (Harper), the latest installment in the Leaphorn, Chee & Manuelito series by Anne Hillerman, is a riveting mystery underscoring the complexities around the adoption of Indigenous children by non-Indigenous parents.
FOR THE MEMOIR READER
Poet Tim Amsden and his wife, Lucia, left their Midwestern lives behind in 1998 and moved to northwestern New Mexico. They “were welcomed into a community where differences were more celebrated than criticized, and spadefoot toads sang of love in the land of the Zuni and the Navajo.” A heartfelt, vivid exploration of a new home, Love Letter to Ramah: Living Beside New Mexico’s Trail of the Ancients (University of New Mexico Press) also serves as a reminder of the timeless connections we make with each other. FURTHER READING: A finalist for the National Book Award in nonfiction, Whiskey Tender (Harper) captures Deborah Jackson Taffa’s search for what the American dream means to a Native kid growing up in Farmington.
FOR THE KIDS
In Marty Moose Makes His Way by Melissa Marie McEwan, something important (hint: it’s edible!) prompts Marty to descend from higher elevations to familiar spots throughout northern New Mexico. This based-on-a-true-story rhyming adventure provides kids of all ages with delightful scenes and illustrations that encourage exploration and wonder. FURTHER READING: Albuquerque-based painter and writer Zahra Marwan knows sunflowers from New Mexico and beyond. In The Sunflowers: Vincent van Gogh’s Search for Beauty (Feiwel & Friends), she uses the bright blossoms to highlight the friendship between Vincent van Gogh and Paul Gauguin, as well as the beauty that marks creative connections.