BOOKS OF THE WEEK
The top books of 2025
These are some of my favorite reads of 2025.
鈥淒ichos en Nichos鈥� by Sage Vogel, with oil paintings by Jim Vogel and repurposed frames by Christen Vogel (University of New Mexico Press).
This is a book that pulled me in and didn鈥檛 release me until I had read all 10 linked short stories and studied the accompanying artwork.
Dicho is Spanish for an adage, saying or proverb. Nicho is the Spanish word for what is often thought of as a recess in a wall where a statue is placed. In this book, nichos are oil paintings set inside individualized frames.
The frame and painting on the front cover are repeated in the second story; the frame was originally an antique trunk.
A dicho concludes that story in Spanish and in English: 鈥淐ompartir en amor,/enduza el sabor. A treat shared with your lover,/is sweeter than any other.鈥�
The images in the paintings are of human and animal characters that are the subjects of Sage Vogel鈥檚 stories. The stories are set in a fictional northern New Mexico village in the 1950s.
Jim Vogel is Sage鈥檚 father and Christen Vogel is Sage鈥檚 mother. Both are artists.
Sage Vogel wrote the stories 鈥� which are about love, loss and identity 鈥� as well as composed and translated the dichos.
鈥淭he Wire-Walker鈥� by James Janko (Regal House Publishing).
Amal, 16, is preparing to be a tight-rope walker. She is Palestinian and lives in a refugee camp in Nablus, Palestine, also referred to as Israel鈥檚 occupied West Bank.
The harsh circumstances of her life do not stop her from trying to achieve her goal.
She gets a chance to demonstrate her high-wire skills when she accepts an invitation to briefly perform with an Israeli kids鈥� circus in Tel Aviv. Its young performers are Israeli Jews and Palestinians.
Amal befriends Tali, a Jewish juggler in the troupe. Amal also develops a deep friendship with Tali鈥檚 mother.
The novel portrays a defiant Amal in a cramped refugee camp. It鈥檚 an existence on a shaky social tight rope.
The book is a voice worth listening for its advice, mostly from female characters. If a personal friendship can occur, then maybe a durable political peaceful coexistence is possible for the deep-seated Middle East conflict.
鈥淭he Crossing: El Paso, the Southwest and America鈥檚 Forgotten Origin Story鈥� by Richard Parker (Mariner Books).
This history book will get you thinking outside the box. It contends that El Paso, Texas, should be considered the source of the origin story of America, and that story is a multicultural one.
It begins with the first known humans on the North American continent.
They were living in caves at present-day Oro Grande, New Mexico, just outside of today鈥檚 city limits of El Paso. (If that鈥檚 the case, then maybe acknowledge New Mexico.)
Parker argues that these people predate the Paleo-Indians, whose forebears traveled over the Bering Strait ice bridge.
The book also claims that the first Thanksgiving in the New World was organized on Easter Sunday in 1598 鈥� 23 years before the Pilgrims dined with the Wampanoag Indians at Plymouth 鈥� by Franciscans traveling with the expedition of conquistador Juan de O帽ate.
The feast of duck, geese and fish was held on the banks of the Rio Grande at San Elizardo, 20 miles south of El Paso. In attendance were Spanish, local tribes, mestizos, and Indigenous warriors who helped the Spanish defeat the Aztecs and Europeans of various nationalities.
The book says O帽ate found a shallow spot for the expedition to ford the river and head north into what is today New Mexico. The book says the same riverbank location 鈥� the only year-round, snow-free passage 鈥� also connected the eastern and western halves of the continent.
The Spanish name 鈥渆l paso鈥� translates to 鈥渢he crossing.鈥�
Sadly, Parker died several days after 鈥淭he Crossing鈥� was published. Born in Albuquerque and raised in El Paso, Parker鈥檚 mother was Mexican and his father was Anglo. Parker was the Journal鈥檚 Washington bureau correspondent in the 1980s and continued to contribute columns until 1995.
鈥淭he Undiscovered Country: Triumph, Tragedy and the Shaping of the American West鈥� by Paul Andrew Hutton (Dutton/Penguin Random House).
Hutton asks the reader to rediscover the history of the West through a lens that intimately examine the lives of seven important figures 鈥� frontiersmen Daniel Boone and Davy Crockett, mountain man/army scout Kit Carson, soldier/bison hunter/showman William 鈥淏uffalo Bill鈥� Cody, and three Native American leaders, Sitting Bull (Hunkpapa Lakota), Mangas Coloradas (Apache) and Red Eagle (Creek).
Hutton convincingly argues that the conquest of the West built a new nation at the expense of the destruction of Native Americans and the land.
The book looks at the West as an expanding geographical region beginning when the western portions of Kentucky, Tennessee and Pennsylvania were the frontier.
The starting point of the book is 1755, and it ends in 1890, the year of the Massacre at Wounded Knee.
Hutton is curator of the Buffalo Bill Museum at the Buffalo Bill Center of the West in Cody, Wyoming. He is a distinguished professor of history emeritus at the University of New Mexico.
鈥淢ac Schweitzer - A Southwest Maverick and Her Art鈥� by Ann Lane Hedlund (Sentinel Peak/University of Arizona Press).
鈥淢ac Schweitzer鈥� is a long overdue biography 鈥� and with it long overdue recognition 鈥� of a female artist of the Southwest who, like Georgia O鈥橩eeffe, held a lifelong dedication to creating art. Unlike O鈥橩eeffe, Schweitzer did not achieve the fame during her lifetime that she deserved.
Born and raised near Cleveland, Ohio in 1921, her maiden name was Mary Alice Cox. She took her initials as her first name 鈥� Mac. Schweitzer was the surname of her first husband.
Her most productive years as an artist were in Tucson.
Schweitzer created art in many media 鈥� oils, watercolors, lithographs, serigraphs, ink and sculpture. She spent most of her life painting, drawing and sketching wildlife and plants of the Sonoran Desert.
Schweitzer also painted scenes of Navajo (Din茅), Hopi, Tohono O鈥檕dham and Yaqui life.
Married twice, she had two sons, one with each husband. Her second son, Tom White, is an Albuquerque restaurateur. She died in 1962.
