​2025 Book Club
​

Please join us to listen to authors and presenters discuss books about Santa Fe and New Mexico that include historical readings and current topics with others interested in our area's unique present and past. Stay updated by signing up to receive OSFA email blasts, ​or email us to receive direct updates. The group is free and open to all.

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Friday, May 9, 2025 • 4:00 pm to 6:00 pm
at the Travel Bug Bookstore
839 Paseo de Peralta

​Early Churches of Mexico
​An Architect's View

​​featuring author Beverley Spears

Following the Spanish conquest of Mexico in the early 1500s, Franciscan, Dominican, and Augustinian friars fanned out across the central and southern areas of the country, founding hundreds of mission churches and monasteries to evangelize the Native population. This book documents more than 120 of these remarkable sixteenth-century sites in duotone black-and-white photographs.

Virtually unknown outside Mexico, these complexes unite architecture, landscape, mural painting, and sculpture on a grand scale, in some ways rivaling the archaeological sites of the Maya and Aztecs. They represent a fascinating period in history when two distinct cultures began interweaving to form the fabric of modern Mexico. Many were founded on the sites of ancient temples and reused their masonry, and they were ornamented with architectural murals and sculptures that owe much to the existing Native tradition--almost all the construction was done by indigenous artisans.

With these photos, Spears celebrates this unique architectural and cultural heritage to help ensure its protection and survival.
 
The book is still in print and available in bookstores or on-line.

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​• PAST BOOK EVENTS •
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Friday, December 13th, 2024
at the Travel Bug Bookstore 

​The Santa Fe 1912 City Plan:
A "City Beautiful" and City Planning Document
by Harry Moul and Linda Tigges

Featured discussion with John Pen La Farge

This "book" is actually an article and available for free at:
https://digitalrepository.unm.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=3213&context=nmhr
(or click the image to the left)

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Friday, August 16, 2024
at the Travel Bug Bookstore 

​A History of Spirituality in Santa Fe
by Ana Pacheco

Featuring a discussion with the author

Book available for purchase via Ana Pacheco's website:
https://historyinsantafe.com/santa-fe-art-history-and-culture/

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Friday, May 10, 2024
at the Travel Bug Bookstore 

​A Nuclear Family: Coming of Age in Oppenheimer’s Secret City
by Ellen Bradbury-Reid and E. Marshall Wilder 

With Special Guest:
Ellen Bradbury-Reid, the author

This book is a collection of remembrances and stories about the early days of Los Alamos, NM and the development of the first atomic bombs. It is primarily told through the eyes of Ellen Wilder, a 6-year-old child whose father was sent by the Navy to a secret city in remote New Mexico and was directed by Robert Oppenheimer to help with the development of the explosive lens system that was needed to detonate the highly radioactive plutonium core of the weapon that was named Fat Man. There are numerous sub stories and histories told in the book concerning the people in and around Los Alamos, including the local Indians and Hispanics, as well as the scientists and engineers that did the work. Ellen, her father and family were fortunate enough to be able to closely interact with many of these key people that were able to develop the bombs in secrecy, given an essentially unlimited budget, but not knowing if the task was even possible and especially not knowing when the weapon had to be ready.

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February 23, 2024
at the Travel Bug Bookstore 

​New Mexico: An Interpretive History
by Marc Simmons (1937-2023)

​Originally published in 1977 to commemorate the bicentennial of American Independence, Marc Simmons comes to an understanding of the state's character. An interpretive, sensitive, individual and personal account of our state's complex history.

For the February 23rd meeting, please read as much of the book as you are able, but especially Chapter 6 and the Epilogue. It does not matter which edition of the book you read.

If possible, and In support of local business, consider purchasing books at a local bookseller.

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​August, 2023
at the Travel Bug Bookstore 
​
Turn Left at the Sleeping Dog:
​​Scripting the Santa Fe Legend, 1920-1955
​
​featuring the author, John Pen La Farge

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June, 2023
at the Travel Bug Bookstore 

A Tale of Santa Fe:
​Betty Stewart in the City Different

featuring a discussion with the author,
​Mark H. Cross