Published By

EyeMuse Books

Date

August 2009, Edition 1

June 2011, Edition 2

March 2018, Edition 2

December 2023, Edition 3

Category

Books

Information

Hardcover
5.5 x 7 inches
224 pages
978098204971630 (Current Edition)

I wrote "New Mexico: A Guide for the Eyes" after living in Japan, where I badly needed a simple cultural primer to help me decode the unfamiliar. Originally, I thought I'd begin the series with Japan, but soon switched to a destination that was more accessible to me. New Mexico, after all, was another area that could use a little explaining. The book came out in 2009 and has become a classic, still sold in museum shops, boutiques and bookshops across the region.

Single Project

About the Book:
Visually focused, packed with cultural insight, and sized for portability, Guides for the Eyes celebrate the local traditions and visual vernacular that surround us. While traditional travel guidebooks focus on where to eat, sleep, and visit (setting up the travel experience as a mere checklist of things to see and do), Guides for the Eyes introduce, explore, and beautifully illustrate the details that create the magical sense of place that travelers seek.

As one of the most unique and colorful regions of North America, New Mexico is the first subject of the Guides for the Eyes series. For thousands of years, the state’s striking landscape has inspired the art, design and traditions of its three dominant cultures: Native American, Hispanic and Anglo/Western. These distinct groups continue to blend and evolve, infusing the rustic land with a compelling vibrancy, unrivaled in its beauty.

More info at www.eyemusebooks.com.

Here's what people have to say:
“Like a secret decoder ring for the state—Parhad's approach is a genius way of sharing New Mexico's unique culture. No guidebook (not even mine) is both so focused and so informed.”
—Zora O’Neill, Author of "Moon New Mexico"

“I highly recommend this ‘blue corn, blue door, blue sky’ delight, not only as a guide for travelers, but as a book on teachers’ desks, here at home and around the world. Somehow this writer takes us across centuries of cultural landscape while leaving that green chile taste on our lips and that vast blue sky in our hearts.”
—Marth Becktell, Interim Museum Director of the Indian Pueblo Cultural Center, Albuquerque, NM

"I have never read a book in which photos actually have their own "voice." I have spent time reading and looking, again and again. Even though I live here and love our landscape, this book deepens it. Full of photos and color, it is in fact a history book, an art study, and an insight into Native American culture. Well done!"
—Patricia Eger-Herz, Happy Customer

"This is EXACTLY the kind of guide a person like me wants. It's like a cultural dictionary of the location that points out what's important in brief, one-page descriptions that are packed with rich detail. I probably would have passed up all the dreamcatchers I saw for sale, assuming they were hokey tourist stuff, but the accessible format of this guide allowed me to enjoy it cover to cover, and so I knew a dreamcatcher, when hung above a bed, catches all the bad dreams, only letting the good ones through. So guess what I brought home to all my friends and family? That's right, you guessed it. I honestly wish there were a guide like this for every city."
—Patty B, Happy Customer

"This book made me breathless...I found myself moved to tears by the poetry of the photos and prose the book contains. It is as if the pictures are music and the words, lyrics; the author truly has a gift for sharing her understanding of the "Land of Enchantment." Read this book with your heart and your eyes, and you will come away from the experience deeply touched and illuminated yourself."
—Disa Lindgren, Happy Customer

Single Project

Single Project