Guadalajara International Book Fair

We just spent a few days over at the Feria Internacional del Libro in Guadalajara. It’s said to be the largest such event in the Western hemisphere (and second only worldwide to the Frankfurt book fair), but I’ve heard that the book fair in Buenos Aires makes the same claim. Anyway, I guess I’ll just have to take the Guadalajara folks’ word for it. It was all slightly overwhelming, all the displays and people. There wasn’t a lot of pulp literature presence, though there were a couple of booths of antiquarian book dealers.

The view on the bus ride to Guadalajara

Tropical atmosphere at our hotel, the Puerta del Sol

 


We went via a bus line called PrimeraPlus, very cheap and actually quite luxurious, comparatively speaking, but a seven hour bus trip is still seven hours. I think I’m basically an air traveller at heart. Our accommodation was the Puerta del Sol, a nice midrange hotel along the lines of an American travel lodge, located about a half mile from the Expo. Its pluses included the pool and spacious rooms. Unfortunately the short time in Guadalajara allowed us minimal opportunities fort sightseeing, so notable attractions like Tonala and Tlaquepaque went unexplored. Next time.

Vamos a comer!

  This past week saw visits to two restaurants here in Mazatlán Centro, the Jade Chinese restaurant and the Molika Bakery. The Jade is truly an institution here; it's been open since 1955, and it's our favorite Chinese restaurant in all of Mexico (not that we've been to that many). The Jade is located at the corner of Morelos and 5 de Mayo, near Zaragoza Plaza. The prices are quite reasonable and it has a nice atmosphere and friendly staff.

The sweet and sour shrimp is yummy

  The Molika of course is a favorite of seasonal visitors and expats from Canada and the U.S. Our visit today just happened to be a birthday lunch for Bryan. Theirs is among the best food in all of Mazatlán; I would describe their menu as a combination of California Cuisine and International leaning perhaps to Mediterranean. They are also a bakery and sell fine breads and desserts. Molika is located at 1503 Belisario Dominguez in Centro.

The Chilean salmon was excellent

The vegetable quiche was sabroso

The pesto pasta was perfecto

  

Mexico Deco 3 : Condesa-Roma

Mexico Deco 2 : Mexico City

In a prior post I cited the Palacio de Bellas Artes as the ultimate jewel in Mexico City's formidable architectural pantheon. But that leaves plenty of other riches to savor, and one of my favorite styles is the Arte Deco, which is well-represented in the city. In particular the Condesa-Roma district has a concentration of Deco buildings which rivals the best in the world and thus will receive its own posting in the near future. But for the moment here is my sampling of the Deco riches which Mexico City has to offer.

Mexico City 7 : Bookstores

It’s a feast for the bibliophile on Calle Donceles in the Centro district. Located in one of the older sections of the city, Donceles is only about a block from the Zocalo, and it has imposing old buildings, cobblestones and wrought-iron lampposts. Happily, the book shops are clustered together as is the fashion in Mexico City -- there’s a street for perfumes, a street for jewelry, a street for lighting and electrical fixtures, and so on. Even more happily, the Bookstore area on Donceles Steet was not very far from our hotel, maybe ten short city blocks.

These are my kind of bookstores [1], i.e. they are stocked with old, used and musty books, which are varyingly piled on tables; spilling out into the streets; or stuffed onto very high shelves, some which take a 12 foot tall stepladder to reach. The ones piled on the tables are my faves because they are the cheapies!.

But the pick of the lot may well be a little store in a location not on Donceles Street. The bookstore is the Méjico Viejo, and it’s smaller than the typical used bookstore in Mexico City but much tidier and with a classier, more professional look with two floors of tightly packed antiquarian volumes. Its unlikely location is the Pasaje Iturbe, a commercial indoor mall that runs from one street to another (there’s a Starbuck’s nearby at the corner of Gante and Madero and that was our point of reference which eventually led us to the Méjico Viejo). 

Librería Méjico Viejo. Pasaje Iturbide local 11, sobre calle Gante 6, entre Madero y 16 de Septiembre, Centro Histórico, Del. Cuauhtémoc, México D.F

See also : Kurt Hollander, “Mexico City's Literary Circle,” L. A. Times, 8 Nov 2009; and Browsing the Bookshops on Calle Donceles.

  [1] In Mexico, at least in Mexico City, the bookstores don’t seem to have much of an online presence, not yet, anyway. A few spot searches in ABEBooks limiting the results to a Mexico location yielded nothing. One of the happy results for the collector is that there are bargains to be found in certain specialty areas like pulp fiction and (non-Mexican) antiquarian.

Statue of Augustine de Iturbide

Pasaje Iturbide shops. The Mejico Viejo is 
about half way down on the left.