Rating: 
Summary: Entertaining
Review: Being a regular visitor to San Miguel I was delighted to see that it was the subject of a new book. I found it entertaining and generally consistent with my impression of the town and the kind of people an expatriate or traveler would meet there. The real joy of the town to me is in its eccentricities and beauty, and both of these were captured. Unlike some other reviewers I don't think it should be interpreted as a critique of Mexico and Mexicans but rather a loving memoir of someone who established a lifestyle in a wonderfully different culture.By the way, Tony Cohan and his wife Misako collaborated on another book, Mexicolor, which is a beautiful photographic study of Mexican design and folk art. Many of the pictures are from San Miguel.
Rating: 
Summary: I loved it!
Review: Being the armchair traveler that I am, and the fact that my husband would rather visit Mexico more than any other spot on Earth, I picked up this book to read why we gringos north of the border are so fascinated with life south of the border. I was not disappointed. Mr. Cohan describes the good along with the not-so-good, the people, the culture, the climate, and the richness of life that one can enjoy when one steps out of the materialistic and secular rat race of life in the States. This book makes me want to learn Spanish, sell my house, and move to San Miguel de Allende!
Rating:
Summary: A vicarious journey to the central highlands of Mexico
Review: More than other parts of Mexico I have visited, San Miguel de Allende and its environs are where I have especially imagined spending time beyond just the brief week or two of a touristic sojourn. This book helped me more than just relive memories of my short trip there. Tony Colhan avoids lapsing into the belabored genre of expatriate dispatches from a charmed existence in a bucolic, exotic setting. Spanning about fifteen years of his life in San Allende with his wife, Colhan?s book weaves a tapestry of sights, sounds, smells, history, characters, and autobiography into an immensely readable paperback. Selective extracts best convey how the author ably sprinkles the text with evocative imagery of la vida y sabor mainly of San Miguel de Allende, but also of its environs, the countryside, and also Mexico City, which is just a ride several hours away. Markets, restaurants, foods, and flavors pervade the text QUOTE a squash flower soup, flor de cabeza, which arrives in a deep brick red bowl, a color as pure and soft as the soup?s flavor?.fried sugar twists called churros?.fresh fruit drinks called licaudos in fat soda glasses?a necklace of garlic hangs from a nail?.a bowl full of dried red chiles sits on a tiled counter?among a pile of green calabaza squash topped by orange flowers, a flopping red fish?s glassy eye looks balefully up at me?happy eaters gather around a sizzling grill of carnitas, ender cooked pork parts?we discover ensalada chicharron, a mixed vegetable salad garnished with low-rent fried pork rinds and a squeeze of lime to become a delicacy?.drip-sweet strawberries in plastic cups with lethal dollops of whipped cream?UNQUOTE The book has a natural rhythm through its flow of seasonal changes QUOTE Since January the hillsides have mutated from ocher to moss green..the summer air holds new fragrances: jasmine, tuberoses, citrus?. UNQUOTE The unique historical position of San Miguel de Allende is injected in small doses in between culinary references and characters descriptions QUOTE The emperor Maximilian was slain in Querataro an hour away?It was here that the priest Hidalgo hoisted aloft a painting of the Virgin of Guadalupe and cried Death to the Spaniards! Igniting the revolution against Spain?. UNQUOTE But what the author does most compellingly is to weave into what might otherwise be a travelogue his own personal motivations and evolution, from the time he and his wife sell their Los Angeles and move across the border into this quiet Mexican town in the central highlands which changes over fifteen years QUOTE [Describing their married existence in L.A.] Tangled in adulthood?s web, pumping out the tasks: we?ve barely had time to look up?.[describing early days in San Miguel] Each morning, exempt from whatever unconscious semiotics guided our choice of appearance in urban America, we choose a short or blouse out of pure whim, eat what and when we wish, speak whatever comes to mind?.UNQUOTE As the years pass, the author portray the changes from the few transient foreigners, old retirees, and aging bohemians in the scenery of their early years to the droves of baby boomers buying up old houses, starting businesses, to the two Internet servers that the authors finally acquire. In short, a very pleasant read that will bring you closer to the culture, history and people of this sensuous country.
Rating:
Summary: Written from the heart.
Review: I REALLY liked this book very much. I read a lot of travel books, but I liked this more than any other I have read for a long time. It left the "Provences' and 'Tuscanys' for dead. The reason is this.......Tony Cohan manages to show the sense of excitement in finding a new place that you really love so much that you can't get enough of it. I too have a place like this, though mine is not in Mexico, it's in Indonesia. And unfortunately I don't have a way to live there all the time. But this book made to want to go San Miguel de Allende (and, yes, I have been to Mexico) and it reminded me of how I felt when I found my special place in Indonesia. It also reminded me of the things I've done there and the characters I've met, and of learning Indonesian & the satisfaction when yet another cultural mystery is unravelled.
Rating:
Summary: Entertaining, insightful, rich
Review: Tony Cohan brings most of your senses into play with his descriptions of life in and around San Miguel de Allende - smells, tastes, colors, the changes of the seasons, and so on. There's also a cast of local characters that seemingly changes as often as the seasons, and a fairly significant chunk of the book is devoted to their experiences in buying, renovating and adding on to an aged, practically falling-down hacienda, with the inevitable experiences with various workers, handymen, etc. If you're already interested in Mexico, and particularly San Miguel de Allende, this is probably a good choice. If you're squeamish about reading about getting 'turista' or killing scorpions, this is too 'bohemian' for you. :^)
Rating: 
Summary: Ex-(clusive) Patriotism
Review: I picked up a copy of "On Mexican Time" recently in Sayulita, Mexico. Being in Mexico for the first time and utterly charmed by the difference in the way of life there as opposed to the rest of North America, I wanted to read something that would give me insight into the cultural sights, sounds and colours that I was newly being exposed to. Overall, I found the book an enjoyable read and an entirely sympathetic view of Mexican life as a contrast to the urban chaos and fear that has marked major U.S. and Canadian cities in recent years. Poets and writers worldwide have a historical tendency to seek romance in agrarian and pre-industrial societies and Tony Cohan succumbs to this not new longing in his charming account of life in Mexico. However, the author himself notes that in American literary circles, the tendency is to place a pre-eminant position to Americans and their interpretation of the world through the lens of an American worldview. Sadly, I noted several alarming indications that this is also true of the author's biases regardless of his efforts to put U.S. prejudices behind him. The most jarring examples of this are a number of references to "North Americans" in a way that is obviously refering to Americans only . To quote from page 281: "Mexicans, unlike North Americans, consider technology a convenience, not a faith or a metaphysic." I can only presume that he also excludes Canadians too, as the majority of Americans have an appalling lack of knowledge about their northern neighbours. Furthermore, the statement itself is a sweeping generalization that the book could have done without. This is not the only time the author slips into this type of language. Perhaps unintentional, it still clearly displays an attitude that Americans of all persuasions take on when dealing with the "lesser" nations of North America. Need I explain that Canada and Mexico are also part of North America? I can't help but get the sense that as a literary type married to an artist, Tony believes he is somehow a superior class of expat. Sorry, that doesn't wash here and I imagine it doesn't in Mexico either or frankly with other Americans doing business with Mexicans that is actually leading to a growing middle class in Mexico with expanded educational and work opportunities for the previously disenfranchised. That being said, I think he is right to be concerned about Americans and other foreigners importing their attitudes into the charm of Mexico. He'd best look at his own first as they may be subtle but are definitely present in his account. Let the Mexicans decide what the future of their country holds - good, bad and/or indifferent. Change is inevitable and it is not for the rest of us North Americans to dictate what that change looks like, however well-intentioned our ideas and attitudes may be.
Rating:
Summary: Written from the heart.
Review: I REALLY liked this book very much. I read a lot of travel books, but I liked this more than any other I have read for a long time. It left the "Provences' and 'Tuscanys' for dead. The reason is this.......Tony Cohan manages to show the sense of excitement in finding a new place that you really love so much that you can't get enough of it. I too have a place like this, though mine is not in Mexico, it's in Indonesia. And unfortunately I don't have a way to live there all the time. But this book made to want to go San Miguel de Allende (and, yes, I have been to Mexico) and it reminded me of how I felt when I found my special place in Indonesia. It also reminded me of the things I've done there and the characters I've met, and of learning Indonesian & the satisfaction when yet another cultural mystery is unravelled.
Rating:
Summary: Ex-(clusive) Patriotism
Review: I picked up a copy of "On Mexican Time" recently in Sayulita, Mexico. Being in Mexico for the first time and utterly charmed by the difference in the way of life there as opposed to the rest of North America, I wanted to read something that would give me insight into the cultural sights, sounds and colours that I was newly being exposed to. Overall, I found the book an enjoyable read and an entirely sympathetic view of Mexican life as a contrast to the urban chaos and fear that has marked major U.S. and Canadian cities in recent years. Poets and writers worldwide have a historical tendency to seek romance in agrarian and pre-industrial societies and Tony Cohan succumbs to this not new longing in his charming account of life in Mexico. However, the author himself notes that in American literary circles, the tendency is to place a pre-eminant position to Americans and their interpretation of the world through the lens of an American worldview. Sadly, I noted several alarming indications that this is also true of the author's biases regardless of his efforts to put U.S. prejudices behind him. The most jarring examples of this are a number of references to "North Americans" in a way that is obviously refering to Americans only . To quote from page 281: "Mexicans, unlike North Americans, consider technology a convenience, not a faith or a metaphysic." I can only presume that he also excludes Canadians too, as the majority of Americans have an appalling lack of knowledge about their northern neighbours. Furthermore, the statement itself is a sweeping generalization that the book could have done without. This is not the only time the author slips into this type of language. Perhaps unintentional, it still clearly displays an attitude that Americans of all persuasions take on when dealing with the "lesser" nations of North America. Need I explain that Canada and Mexico are also part of North America? I can't help but get the sense that as a literary type married to an artist, Tony believes he is somehow a superior class of expat. Sorry, that doesn't wash here and I imagine it doesn't in Mexico either or frankly with other Americans doing business with Mexicans that is actually leading to a growing middle class in Mexico with expanded educational and work opportunities for the previously disenfranchised. That being said, I think he is right to be concerned about Americans and other foreigners importing their attitudes into the charm of Mexico. He'd best look at his own first as they may be subtle but are definitely present in his account. Let the Mexicans decide what the future of their country holds - good, bad and/or indifferent. Change is inevitable and it is not for the rest of us North Americans to dictate what that change looks like, however well-intentioned our ideas and attitudes may be.
Rating:
Summary: Makes you feel at home.
Review: I bought my copy of this book in San Miguel de Allende. I was on a two week trip, working with a mission group in a nearby village, but staying in a bed and breakfast in San Miguel and attending church services in a small neighborhood church. I loved the place, and the people and wondered what it would feel like to actually live in the region full time. With great humor, as well as love for the place and the those who inhabit it, Mr. Cohan let me know. This book is marvelously full of color, both in the descriptions of places, and in the feelings it gives. He captures much of what I felt as a urbanite suddenly finding himself in a much more peaceful much less hurried place. San Miguel de Allende is a magical place. Mr. Cohan's writings capture at least a portion of that and allowed me bring it home.
Rating:
Summary: interesting
Review: This book is about how the author and his wife leave behind the crazy life of L.A. and move to the small and quiet town of San Miguel, Mexico. Through adventures in house-buying and remodeling to experiencing the life and culture of small town Mexico, this book was a joy to read. We all know about the bad parts of Mexico and how people are constantly fleeing the country to escape their bad lives. But this is a good view of the opposite side of the Mexican coin, the good life in Mexico that is not about drugs, corruption, and muggings.
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