Rating: 
Summary: Read it Only if You Must
Review: If you love Mexico, as I do, or are moving down there, as I am, then, sure, read this book. But if you are after some good travel writing, look elsewhere. The author tries SO HARD to sound flowery, impressive, artsy and cultured that I frankly found it disgusting. He was always trying to impress the reader with his words rather than just tell his story. One example: "Out here on the Mexican road, I have veered into the realm of casual anarchy, where the instruments of recourse may be worse than the problem that occasioned them." Huh? Another example: "The scene is Fellini, Jacques Tati--or Luis Bunuel." If that describes a scene well for you, then maybe this book is for you! Personally, I found his prose very irritating.
Rating: 
Summary: Tony Cohan pulls the reader into colorful Mexico
Review: Having just read "On Mexican Time" for the fourth time, I felt compelled to add my comments here. If the fact that I've read this book four times since 2001 doesn't fully express how I feel for it, allow me to continue. I was captivated by the very first pages and found that I couldn't put this book down. I usually read it during the long, cold Kentucky winters to bring a little warmth. Tony Cohan's style of writing speaks to me. He has a way of bringing San Miguel to life right there on the pages. This book evokes a deep need that I have to live an adventure. Each time, I read the last page with mixed emotions: happy to have finished the book, sad that I can't go on "living" at the house on Calle Flor. Tony and Masako seem the perfect couple with whom to enjoy a five hour dinner!
Rating:
Summary: Relax and Enjoy It
Review: I am not a critic, just a reader. Perhaps that is why I found this book captivating while so many others did not.
On Mexican Time takes the reader on an unplanned journey through a life adventure in another culture. It is something of a journal of the author and his wife's lives, their daily activities, their friends, their accomplishments, and their disappointments. I found the descriptive writing enchanting and the overall story worthwhile.
I enjoyed the book so much that I am here searching for another by this author. If you read to be transported to another place and time, you will enjoy this book.
Rating:
Summary: Self centered and not fulfilling
Review: I am going to San Miguel next week and got excited about reading this book, as I live in LA and the author lived here too and moved to San Miguel. I got hooked into reading it and must admit I finished it, but soon realized that it was a silly little book. There was virtually nothing about San Miguel and the characters about whom the author wrote were distant and seemingly figments of one's imagination. The dialogue was ridiculous. I'm not sure what the point of the book is, but it isn't enough to be a diary and certainly not even close to giving one a feeling of life in San Miguel de Allende. It pretends to be erudite literature and the author never lets you forget that he knows this person, and that person, etc. It is a boring, drolling piece of work that drags on, but at least the type was fairly large and it didn't take long to finish it.
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: 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: 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: "Why I am Better than Almost Anyone Else," A Summary, March
Review: "Why I am Better than Almost Anyone Else," A Summary, March 11, 2003
Reviewer: A reader from San Diego, CA This review reminded of a bigot with all manner if ill-conceived notions about Mexico. The book in question was not only one of the more well written ones on the subject of living in Mexico but was most accurate. I know because after reading the book my wife and I went there to the city, San Miguel de Allende and verified it for ourselves. We've spent time in the country studying the language and culture. The book was good. The author was good. You should go and see it for yourself.
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