Lyn Fuchs

Fuchs describes his travels in Mexico. There are some interesting tales, interspersed with rather dry details of the area. I wanted to like this book as I usually enjoy travel books and it sounded pretty fun and funny, but it just didn't click for me. Just when a story got interesting, the switch was made back to boring descriptions. Also, I don't mind sex and violence in my reading, although not necessary together, but this book has a lot of adolescent sexual silliness that did not appeal to me. Some editing might make it more readable. Not recommended.… (more)

In “Fresh Wind...” Fuchs takes us on a journey through rural and small-town Mexico, with its fiestas, interesting cuisine, beautiful architecture and quirky characters. All in all I did enjoy the book, but also found it quite uneven. Beautiful detailed and inspiring descriptions of places are mixed with some very unlikely macho stories and not-to-my-taste humor. Like the previous reviewer, I thought the sexual-nature digressions were unnecessary for the most part and could be a bit annoying. I did however like the parts about the local foods and the sketch on history of ancient mesoamerican cultures.
I received a free copy of this e-book from the publisher as part of the LibraryThing Early Reviewers Program in an exchange for an honest review.… (more)

I think I must have been mistaken, as I thought I had only entered to review paper copies of books, and won two e-books. This was the first to arrive. I specifically entered to win it as I wanted to get a feeling for the area described: Mexico.

However I found the book difficult to follow as an ebook, despite the fact I am writing books on my computer. Perhaps this was merely because I had not read a book like this before, and I found it did not always turn the pages when I tried to go to the next page.

I did feel a map or maps would have made a great difference to getting to grips with it.

Despite all this, I found it unsatisfactory at a basic level. Lyn Fuchs is described as a travel writer, but for me the book did not go anywhere. I did not get any feel for the places described, as there was a lot of fact interspersed with a lot of what struck me as schoolboy sexual innuendo. This grated so much I really had to make a great effort to continue reading.

Definitely not my cup of tea.… (more)