Must-reads for Guatemala and/or Belize

The first thing that springs to mind is Ronald Wright's excellent Time Among the Maya, which chronicles his travels in Belize, Guatemala, and Mexico at the height of Guatemala's civil war and during the build-up to the Zapatista uprising in Chiapas. It's a wonderful travelogue, but what really sets it apart is Wright's impressive knowledge of Maya ethnographic and archaeological literature (as it stood in 1989, of course some things have changed since then), which lend his observations a degree of richness, cultural sensitivity, and historical scope that most travel writers simply can't produce.

If you're interested in archaeology, Michael Coe's The Maya (8th ed., 2011) is an accessible introduction and it's compact enough to travel with.

Incidents of Travel in Central America, Chiapas, and Yucatan by John L. Stephens is a classic of travel literature. He and the English artist Fredrick Catherwood traveled extensively in the area in the 1840s and wrote the first European accounts of some now-famous Maya ruins. The books are worth picking up for Catherwood's wonderful illustrations, but you can read the text online for free: http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Incidents_of_Travel_in_Central_America,_Chiapas_and_Yucatan

There's a great book shop in Antigua on the west (right-hand side when you're looking at the volcano) of the plaza. They have a huge and well-curated selection of travel, anthropology, and archaeology books in English.

And before anybody else tells you to read the Popol Vuh, here is the best, most recent, and most authoritative translation available in any language (English, fortunately for us). You can buy the book if you want, but translator Allen Christenson decided it would just be easier to make the whole thing available for free:

http://www.mesoweb.com/publications/Christenson/PopolVuh.pdf

...including a running line-by-line translation if you want to learn 16th-Century K'iche':

http://www.mesoweb.com/publications/Christenson/PV-Literal.pdf

these are good suggestions. I am partial to the Tedlock translation of Popul vuh. From what youve given me, I think Night by Elie weasel might be up your alley. On VENUS ON THE HALF SHELL (Kilgore Trout) now. And I object to the construction, "must-(whatever)". No one can mandate such things. It is a matter of personal preference.

Here's a great bibliography of Belize books:
http://belizefirst.com/BibliographyofBelizeBooks.htm

Some favorites of mine that give a sense of the country are Last Flight of the Scarlet Macaw by Bruce Barcott, Beka Lamb by Zee Edgell, Jaguar by Alan Rabinowitz, and How to Cook a Tapir by Joan Frye.

Here's an old thread with Guatemala book ideas:
https://www.lonelyplanet.com/thorntree/forums/americas-central-america/topics/guatemala-maya-books-any-additional-suggestions

Paradise in Ashes by Beatriz Manz is a powerful read and I recently enjoyed the novel The Long Night of White Chickens by Francisco Goldman.

BOOK MARK
because I am unable to read all of this now.

Allen Christenson decided it would just be easier to make the whole thing available for free:

http://www.mesoweb.com/publications/Christenson/PopolVuh.pdf

...including a running line-by-line translation if you want to learn 16th-Century K'iche':

http://www.mesoweb.com/publications/Christenson/PV-Literal.pdf

Essential book to read, the great : Unfinished Conquest: The Guatemalan Tragedy by Victor Perera (or any book by him for that matter) http://tinyurl.com/l222nco I had read this book prior to a trip to Nebaj. Inside one of the churches. up in a nondescript corner, was a small primitive painting of Indians being shot at and they were raining tears of blood. It was a deeply moving experience for me because I understood that this now peaceful town had an undercurrent of fear still, many years later of the tragedy of evil that men do.

Thanks for that, Paul. There are still tiny places to hide in the hills surrounding Nebaj, especially around Cocop - seeing them was really sobering.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/staceyholeman/1438821038/in/set-72157602156541263

The Martin Prechtel books are interesting; Secrets of the Talking Jaguar is 1.

The TT list of books that Hopefulist links to above has some good suggestions. Tedlock's Breath on the Mirror is quite good, and it's in a travel-friendly size.