This book is a gem! A treasure! I've given away countless copies mostly to women - my mother, sisters, daughters and some very close friends. I've given it as wedding presents, engagement presents and as a token of love. IT is very special - a grassroots kind of find. The writing is poetic and evocative. The story simple and alluring. It reads like music. I've just started making necklaces to pass along with this book, my own gauchadas. Thank you Drew Lamm for writing this stunning book.

It's unusual for books like "Gauchada" to see the light if day, & the fact that [other companies], in their pursuit of the mediocre, have chosen not to carry this title, is proof that beauty of spirit is difficult to find in the world these days. This is what "Gauchada" is about; it's about beauty of spirit, it's about the unselfish act of giving a gift out of love & seeking nothing in return. The prose is rich, poetic & we follow the gift as it is given & passed on til we return to where the story begins, on the grasslands of Argentina. Ms. Lamm's poetry & intricacy of language is beautifully complimented by the stylized art of Mr. Negrin. This is not an "easy" book, it isn't "see spot run", the language is dense & there is an air of mystery & magic in the act of creating the gauchada, & the journey the gift takes. The book is something to sit with & savour, & like anything you treasure, it is something to return to again & again.

This is a wonderful book set in Argentina about the endless joys of giving. The book is set around a gift of love given in the form of a homemade necklace by a gaucho, or cowboy. You will learn lots of new Argentine words which are explained in the preface of the book by the author. TeacherFeatures.com is going to be writing a lesson plan for this book. The class will create something special from them that they can give to someone they love with instructions for the gift to be passed on and on. What an important lesson for todays youngsters to learn that giving doesn't always have to mean getting something physical in return.

a comprehensive guide to argentina, very well researched and not overly cumbersome. It fits nicely with the rough guide series as a whole, which tends to be slighly more informative and gives you more background history ect. Not a complete guide to argentina, its a big country, but certainly the best of the lot

I travelled through Argentina for 2 months with this book as my companion. The book is a very good general purpose travel book for Argentina, with good information about national parks but also but also about the cities and everything else.

Danny Aeberhard, Andrew Benson, and Lucy Phillips have successfully collaborated to produce a definitive travel guide to Argentina. Indeed, The Rough Guide To Argentina features coverage of all the attractions of Buenos Aires; vivid accounts of spectacular and varied landscapes ranging from the jungles of Misiones to the windswept vistas of Ushuaia (the world's southernmost town); comprehensive reviews of the best places for every budget level to stay, eat, and drink; and background information on Argentinean history and culture. The comprehensive and "user friendly" text is profusely illustrated with color photography and more than seventy maps. If you are planning a trip to Argentina, start your travel planning with a copy of The Rough Guide To Argentina!

You'd have to expect that mothers of children who were willing to be activists during an opressive military dictatorship would be strong women themselves and they were. These courageous women were willing to risk their lives to bring the world's attention to the junta's human rights abuses and to find their lost grandchildren. They even stood up to the Catholic church which sat by while these abuses occured. I particularly enjoyed how Arditti brought out the importance of identity and connecting with your roots. This explained the urgency in reuniting these stolen children with their rightful families.

Very well researched, this book is a must for anyone concerned about human rights. It raised my level of social consciousness 5 notches. It was heart wrenching to hear how much the victims who disappeared suffered and the mental anguish of the defient grandmothers who still hold their viligent marches to pressure the Argentine government for answers to the disappearences. Ms. Arditti has really opened my eyes and the facts she presents about how the Catholic Church reacted to the grandmother's is absolutely astounding! Her style in telling this horrible tragedy by hearing from the grandmother's in their own words is very effective.

The history in this book is amazing. I can't believe that this was only 22 years ago. Very well written....you feel the grandmothers pain. Throughout, you have actual quotations from both the grandmothers and the survivors of this terrible time in Argentinas history.

Aime Tschiffley, the most resiliant and capable of Buenos Aires' schoolmasters, wrote this truly astonishing story of his ride from Argentina to Washington, DC. South and Central America before WWII was still in many ways as the old Spanish had left it - some of it deliciously civilized, much of it as wild as can be imagined. With his two remarkable Creole horses, Mancha and Gato, Tschiffley journeys through a world that no longer exists today and seems remote and ancient to the modern reader. Tschiffley's prose is somewhat matter-of-fact, but in some ways this serves to emphasise the very strangeness of the countryside and its peoples, and underscores the author's own courage. Tshiffley is a product of his times, and some of his sentiments are out of place today, but this too places this book within a time and place long past. From "Don Roberto's" oddly moving introduction to journey's end in the United States, one grows to admire Tschiffley and love his horses, the two friends Mancha and Gato.

FROM BUENOS AIRES TO WASHINGTON DC IN TWO AND A HALF YEARS ON HORSEBACK. A.F. TSCHIFFELY RODE TEN THOUSAND MILES FROM THE SOUTHERN CROSS TO THE POLAR STAR AROUND 1930. HE MORE THAN LIKELY WAS THE ONLY MAN EVER TO DO THIS AT ANY TIME; CERTAINLY TO WRITE ABOUT IT. REMOTE CITIES AND SEAPORTS, BACK TO THE PAST AND ON LONELY TRAILS DID THE MAN TRAVEL. TOUCHING FROM TIME TO TIME ON HARDSHIP, SOLVING PROBLEMS, CONFRONTING THE CURIOUS, HE AND HIS TWO HORSES HAD A GREAT ADVENTURE.

It's a bold undertaking by a man who learned to live very closely with two horses. The horses were the resource that enabled him to succeed in this adventure of 10,000 miles from Buenos Aires to Washington DC. It's a page-turner!

I just returned from Argentina; I also read Imagining Argentina. This one is the best. It creates a world of magical realism in which you are drawn into each & every character. Not to be missed.

The lyrical power of Thornton's prose gets better and better with each new book. In this book, he follows the trail of the missing "adopted" children and the determined search of the grandmother from the time when so many people disappeared, either killed or kidnapped by the Argentinian military - stories that began in his wonderful, earlier books: Imagining Argentina and The Naming of the Spirits. There is a truthfulness to his writing that bypasses logic and goes straight to the heart. I couldn't put this book down. From one novelist to another, I want to congratulate Thornton on producing some of the most powerful literature I have read in the past few years.

I'm so glad I read this book. It satisfies on many levels. The senseless tragedies of the "disappeared" is made personal in a well written tale. The community of grandmothers who marched every Thursday is the foundation for an incredibly constructed story that, at its core, embraces two boys raised in a family not their own.

I didn't expect this book to teach me about the holocaust and world war II. I was curious of the role of Mr. Peter Malkin in capturing Adolf Eichmann. After reading the memories and looking at the woderful paintings in the book, I realize how important life is. And how woderful it is I live in a free country where things like this do not happen. I enjoyed reading the narratives and the paintings in the book, trying to imagine how it was done over 40 years ago.........it is such a good book that I would recommend it. This book is very unique, the narratives about the paintings brings the entire capture of Eichmann to life.

I didn't expect this book to teach me about the holocaust and world war II. I was curious of the role of Mr. Peter Malkin in capturing Adolf Eichmann. After reading the memories and looking at the woderful paintings in the book, I realize how important life is. And how woderful it is I live in a free country where things like this do not happen. I enjoy to digest the narratives and the paintings in the book, trying to imagine how it was done over 40 years ago.........it is such a good book that I would recommend it.

Tomas de Elia great photographs capture not only the european architecture of the Argentine houses and gardens but also the romantic atmosphere of the pampas. The book is impeccably designed and lavishly illustrated and allow us to wander into a part of the Argentine private world closed off to all but the most adventurous.

I found this Rizzoli hard bound book a delight to read and look through. The pictures are of outside & inside views including landscapes & gardens. I never knew anything about Argentina before I bought this book. About 22 properties photographed. Text is clear, specific and inviting. Also have FAZENDAS - THE GREAT HOUSES & PLANTATIONS OF BRAZIL which is just as good. If you are a visual person and see a 1,000 things in a photograph, this book is for you. Certainly made me realise that not the great buildings are in Europe or USA.

I have read the Piazzolla biography Le Grand Tango and came away with a great deal of knowledge about Astor Piazzolla and his music. But it was not until I read Astor Piazzolla: A Memoir that I felt that I came to understand Piazzolla.
I like this format. Natalio Gorin's interviews with El Troesma are not the chronological, blow by blow account of Piazzolla's life I expected. Gorin asks some questions, but in a series of interviews generally allows Piazzolla to warm to whatever topic develops and then expand on it as the spirit moves him. He only prompts Piazzolla at times when he wants to steer the conversation in a particular direction, such as Piazzolla's politics or his love life.
This is really a tremendous work. One can feel Piazzolla's struggles as he describes his many clashes with the tango establishment and his constant fight to make a place for himself in Argentine and world music. Particularly interesting is the chapter in which he talks about numerous well-known musicians and those who influenced him, and those for whom he felt contempt. Particularly poignant is his relationship with the great bandoneonist Anibal Troilo who would often criticize Piazzolla's work, but at the same time express great affection and admiration for him.
I am amazed at the passions of his audiences whenever he would introduce new elements into his work. That people would actually riot and threaten a musician with death boggles the mind, but I am sure that reactions like that only more firmly convinced Piazzolla of the rightness of his course. Piazzolla was a fighter and he answered his critics not only with his fists, but with one musical masterpiece after another.
After Piazzolla is through talking, the book winds up with Gorin tying up loose ends and analyzing some of Piazzolla's greatest triumphs and greatest disappointments. He also takes a number of swipes at Aldo Pagani, a man Gorin considers to be Piazzolla's Rasputin. Gorin's conclusion is then followed by a couple of short commentaries by some of Piazzolla's collaborators and a discography of Piazzolla's recordings.
I highly recommend this book both by itself and as a complement to Le Grand Tango as a guide to understanding one of the greatest and most complex musician/composers of the 20th century.

Superbly translated, annotated, and expanded by Fernando Gonzalez (who as a music critic for The Miami Herald and The Boston Globe reported extensively on Astor Piazzolla's career), Astor Piazzolla: A Memoir by journalist Natalio Gorin (Astor Piazzola's friend from their first meeting in 1971 until Piazzolla's death in 1992) is an unforgettable remembrance of the brilliant tango musician and composer Astor Piazzolla (1921-1992), whose work was so unique that he even dared to create some tangos that were not for dancing. Astor Piazzolla offers the reader a fascinating glimpse into a musical genius' life, times, and inspirations and is brilliantly presented biography as well as being an impressive contribution to Music History studies.

Although now out of print and quite difficult to find this book is a rare gem. Beautifully photographed and rich in historical text concerning the Estancia system in general and 20-odd Estancias in particular. The reader is taken on a journey from Argentina's north to the Pampas outisde Buenos Aires, to Patagonia and finally to the Southern most tip where Argentina meets the icey waters of the South Atlantic. Over all a great "Coffee Table" box and a wonderful read too.

A coffee table book filled with exquisite photographs and detailed historical and cultural insight on Argentina's premier properties -- the estancias. Through this book we catch a glimpse of the Argentine estancias that rivaled the great homes of Europe and also formed the backbone of the Argentine economy.

A must see for anyone interested in all things Argentine. In no other publication can you find such a profusion of photographic, historical and cultural information on Argentine architecture and society.

Additionally, this book is a steal when purchased in the United States -- I have seen it retail in Buenos Aires for up to $140.00 US.

Prior to the publication of this book there were important gaps and inaccuracies in our understanding of the battles for the Falkland Islands. Did Argentinian troops intentionally fire upon a British officer attempting negotiation under a white flag at Goose Green? Were Royal Marines successful in their ambush of Argentinian armored vehicles during the initial invasion? Was the Argentinian Air Force commanded by a fanatical maniac out to establish his service as the dominant domestic political force? The surprising answer to all these question is No, and in a careful and touchingly human review of the activities and decisions of Argentinian forces Middlebrook reveals the tragic gap that developed between Argentinian political leaders and the troops and officers given the difficult task of defending the islands without adequate support as winter closed in. The junta's colossal mistake of assuming the UK would not fight for the Falklands led to the isolation, suffering, and defeat of the occupation forces and, while ultimately setting the stage for democracy in Argentina, seared a painful wound into the soul of a country already carrying conscious of past failures. Middlebrook's access to Argentinian commanders, troops, and families helps reveal the complex social and political landscape of a country which still sees the "Malvinas" in terms of classical European colonialism. It also reveals the operational planning and situational understanding of air and land commanders at critical points in the conflict. Students of this subject will recognize the author as a highly accomplished battle historian.

Martin Middlebrook has once again shown why he is one of the best British authors covering military history. His masterful account of the Falklands, 'Operation Corporate' now has a companion volume, this time covering the war from the Argentinian point of view. The book is well told and is a delight to read and only one of very few covering this war from the 'other side'. You really have to give it to the pilots flying their aircraft against the Britsh Fleet, they had guts, they knew what they were in for but continued with their mission. This is a great story, if you can get a copy do so, you wont be disappointed!