Texas Books

Texas Sampler is a great cookbook filled with easy to prepare recipes that look like you really toiled over. The cookbook, produced by the Junior League of Richardson is a collection of the best recipes of a membership of over 500 members. The Texas Sampler won the Southwest Tabasco Cookbook award in its first year of publication and its recipes have been featured in Southern Living. A must for every kitchen. Try the Mushroom Baked Brie - a true crowd pleasing appetizer.

Texas Sampler is a great cookbook filled with easy to prepare recipes that look like you really toiled over. The cookbook, produced by the Junior League of Richardson is a collection of the best recipes of a membership of over 500 members. The Texas Sampler won the Southwest Tabasco Cookbook award in its first year of publication and its recipes have been featured in Southern Living. A must for every kitchen. Try the Mushroom Baked Brie - a true crowd pleasing appetizer.

Texas Sampler provides great recipes for the busy life in the 90s while still providing a "home cooked" feel. The recipes are easy to follow with bulleted directions, and many handy tips provided throughout. A great Kids section is provided in the back. Some of my favorites from Texas Sampler - Avocado Pico De Gallo, Fettucini with Grilled Chicken and Sun Dried Tomatoes, Ray's Poblano Shrimp, and Pecan Pie Squares. All simple, and everyone will love! Best of all, the proceeds benefit the community.

When I received this book as a gift and initially thumbed through the pages I was in awe. Though I was familiar with the work of Wyman Meinzer and was already a fan of his, I really didn't beleive that anyone would ever have the talent to put a book like this together. Truthfully, many of the photos made me swallow hard with emotion because the images elicited such special feelings. Though the photos could easily stand alone, the quotes are very well chosen and compliment each image well. John Graves is wonderful of course. When I escape to Texas Sky, I think about the pure exhiliration in being able to stand at each of the places in the precious few moments when the sky was so spectacular. Have you ever regretted not having your camera in your hand, or perhaps ran to get it but were too late, or even snapped the shot only to realize later that you didn't get it right? Well, all of our missed shots are captured flawlessly by Wyman Meinzer in Texas Sky. The only disappointment was that Mr. Meinzer didn't write more. Just read the preface, page 61 or the acknowledgment, you'll want more too. In my opinion he is the photographer by whom all others should be judged and the writer all writers should strive to be like. I will forever be envious. Everyone should own this book. PS I just got Texas Seasons...one of his most recent books....awesome again, Wyman.

I bought this book for my father, who is a friend and fan of the photographer. Now I have to go buy one for myself! The pictures in this book are incredible, and truly capture our magnificent Texas sky. Way to go Wyman!

Texas is my home. One doesn't have a home somewhere in Texas. Once you claim it the entire state is home. I wasn't certain exactly why that was true, until I received this book as a gift today. The Texas state of mind has as it's roof the Texas Sky. Wyman Meinzer has captured through his impeccable lenses the beauty that makes us hurry home. It is a book with a catch in it's throat on every page. I'm purchasing a new easel to do it honor.

I'm more and more impressed with each cook book I receive from this series. The recipe directions are easy to follow, the food is great and the pictures are almost National Geographic like. I really liked this one because I'm more familiar with the types of recipes, being that I'm a resident in the U.S. I'm looking forward to more cooking with this wonderful book!

I now own four books from the "Beautiful Cookbook" series. This is by far my favorite. The food stylists and photographers for this particular book have raised the bar to a dizzying height. This melange of simple and upscale recipes is presented as down-to-earth...Texas-style. You can almost smell and taste the beautiful food. The stylish photos are works of art.

The recipes range from the traditional basics to "new Texas cuisine." Try to imagine a chilled "Cream of Tomatillo Soup" served in a bowl of ice...with edible flowers and herbs encased in the ice. (The ice bowl is easy to make!)

Does "Hot Crackered Texas Crab with Pecans" sound good? Or "Chili-and-Cheese Corn Husk Muffins with Pumpkin-Seed Topping"? What about "Chorizo-Stuffed Poblanos with Mango Salsa" or "Texas Hot-Pepper Shrimp with Avocado Salsa"? And for dessert, how about "Churros with Cinnamon-Pecan Ice Cream" or "Blueberry Creme Brulee with Rose Geranium"?

I could go on and on about the food and the presentation. These tempting and colorful dishes can all be made by the novice cook who enjoys the preparation.

I LOVE this book! Highly recommended. Great pictures and food. Very authentic to the region. Great for the home or professional chef. A nice addition to anyone's collection.

Came across this book at Gonzales, Texas book fair in Dec. 2006. A great gift for friends and loved ones who have a sincere appreciation for small-town Texas. Very unique.

If you don't smile several times, feel nostalgic several times, and maybe even get a tear or two, while reading and studying the photos in this book, then you must be too young or just arrived from the former Soviet Union.

Page after page in this book called out to me, "You've got to go there," or "Haven't you been there?" Since the book is a compilation of work over a number of years, many of the subjects in these photos are gone. Many more will be gone. Small towns in Texas, and the Southwest in general, are being transformed.

Buy this book. Read it. Go to the places photographed in it while you still can.

"Texas Towns And The Art Of Architecture: A Photographer's Journey" by architectural photographer Richard Payne is a photographic survey of small Texas towns. Payne embarked on this project as a part-time activity -- something to do in his spare time out of nostalgia, curiosity, and taking pictures of places that reminded him of him own hometown. The 'golden age' of small town Texas architecture ran from 1880 to 1930 and reflected all of the early American architectural styles and influences including Greek, Roman, Italian, Egyptian revival, Spanish Colonial, Victorian, Art Deco, Moorish motifs, and a great many idiosyncratic oddities that defy classification. "Texas Towns And The Art Of Architecture" showcases architectural examples drawn from around two hundred towns throughout every region of Texas. Payne carefully documents his beautifully detailed images, many of which rise to the status of art as reflected through the lens of his camera. A unique addition to personal, professional, and academic library collections, "Texas Towns And The Art Of Architecture" is a very highly recommended reading for students of Photography, Architecture, and Texas History.

Favorite scene with Vida-
The whole scene of caring for Taylor when he's ill.

Favorite scene with Taylor-
His first meeting with Honor.

Together-
Before their wedding, realizing they belonged there, willing to give up the new job.

What did you like about Vida-
Her strength and stubborness. Never giving up on Taylor. Telling him they won't be taking the detective job because they should stay where they are and be with family. I can't believe Buck survived. Yeh!!! Vida told Taylor family's more important than a job. Her easy goingness with the cowpokes at the saloon.

What didn't you like about Vida-
That she felt she didn't need to tell Taylor when she went back to New Orleans to get info. on Celeste. They're partners, and yet she felt like she could do what she wanted without his permission. She took risks-esp. with Pierre and Derek. It's not her per se, but sometimes her vulnerability and hurt feelings don't fit her tough cookie, detective persona. She wears her heart on her sleeve and shows her feelings and it doesn't quite fit.

What did you like about Taylor-
Loving Vida. Never giving up on his dad. Reconciling with Cal and Honor, although it was hard for him. Telling Celeste off. His mother-son affection with Doc Maggie. And his affection for the ranch hands.

What didn't you like about Taylor-
It's not him per se, but the drunk act. It made him look bad in people's eyes. He might not have been able to tell people the truth yet, but still- He was too stubborn about reconciling with Cal and Honor. Glad he did.

If I had to cast Vida, I'd cast Catherine Zeta-Jones.
If I had to cast Taylor, I'd cast Cameron Mathison.

The best way to read this trilogy is from the beginning. While 'texas triumph' is the best of the 3 because it wraps up all the loose ends and has all the characters together, it is much more enjoyable having read the story of Cal, Honor and then Taylor. If u only pick one of the trilogy, this would be the one to choose. Story itself is as reviewed by HK.

In 1850 New Orleans, Buck Star seduced his friend's wife. She is willing to give up everything for Buck, but the handsome lothario deserts her leaving behind the broken Gannon family without a look back or feeling the slightest of remorse.

In 1869, an ailing Buck's past has come home to roost (see TEXAS STAR and TEXAS GLORY). Several people have the motive to want Buck dead for the havoc he caused and left behind two decades ago. His son Pinkerton Agent Taylor Star returns to the family spread to investigate a murder. He is accompanied by his partner Vida Malone, who Taylor quickly realizes is the only person he trusts to include blood relatives. As the two agents investigate and protect each other's back, the attraction they already have for one another but deny explodes into the open. While danger mounts from an avenging unknown culprit, Vida and Taylor fall in love, but first must uncover who wants anything remotely Star dead.

The last Texas Star tale is an enjoyable historical private investigative romance as the lead couple investigates who wants to destroy Buck even while falling in love. Taylor and Vida make a wonderful pairing as the Agents have avoided their growing attraction until the danger turns personal and they fear for their partner. The final of this fine trilogy is a triumph for fans of Reconstruction Era Texas romantic mysteries as Elaine Barbieri star will shine with glory.

Harriet Klausner

Being an avid paddler, I was initially dissappointed to move from Georgia to Texas and leave behind the whitewahter rivers of the southeast. I was happy to find that there are some credible paddle spots in the Lone Star state and this book helped me to find them. It is well organized and easy to read and the information provided is very thorough.

If you like Texas Whitewater, this book is a must

This book has identified all the information you need to locate true whitewater in the state of Texas.

Writer Davis is a master of humor and no one can beat illustrator Stacey at funny facial expressions---just look at the longhorn. These two have created a great book!

My daughter and I read this book over the weekend and thouroughly enjoyed it. She was really taken with the humorous story and "funny" animals. Zeke and the Longhorn are quite the characters. The ending is very satisfying.I am looking forward to rereading this one.

David Davis has done it again: a laugh a second picture book with amazing art by Alan Stacy. This is a Texas-flavor retelling of The Old Woman and her Pig. And, Boy Howdy, this book will steer you right--An Absolute Award-Winner and Bestseller!

For perfectly good reasons, we tend to associate Cajun and Zydeco music with Louisiana, but for much of the 20th century, Cajun and Creole people moved West into Texas, usually for straightforward economic advantage - the towns and cities of Texas offered more employment and better living conditions - and they took their music with them. You are at least as likely to find people playing Zydeco in Texas as in Louisiana. In the introduction to this stunningly handsome book, the author makes the point that it was in Houston, not in New Orleans or any other Louisiana city, that `the folk music of black Creoles from southwest Louisiana first (underwent) a major synthesis with urban influences to create, document and codify that sound'. He goes on to make the claim (and as the book progresses, to substantiate it) that `several key innovations in the evolution of this music - concerning not only its name, but also its instruments, recording history, leading figures, and stylistic twists and turns - occurred initially in Texas'. He uses the phrase `Louisiana Lapland' to describe where `a large part of south Louisiana seems to have "lapped over" into Texas, and quotes John Minton to the effect that the music `first made its mark' in Texas, before becoming popular back in Louisiana. Later, he asserts that `Zydeco is a doubly syncretized musical phenomenon, a hybrid that required transplantation and cross-pollination to come into existence' - saying in effect that Zydeco, as we know it could only really have happened in Texas.
The book is a celebration of this music and its associated culture, marrying Roger Wood's text and James Fraher's photography. It is a marvellously successful combination. The photographs, of which there are a great many - on average, every other page seems to be given over to one - are beautifully reproduced in a monochrome of outstanding depth and clarity. Fraher is evidently as much an artist as he is a Zydeco fan, and he has captured the people, the instruments, the atmosphere and the context of the music with great skill, sensitivity and style. Almost any photograph could be singled out for special mention, but for just a few examples - Leroy Thomas with his stars and stripes accordion, Raymond Chavis almost in silhouette, the proud determination on the face of Sherman Robertson, Zydeco dancers at the Silver Slipper, Dora Jenkins in seductive pose and Vanessa David in action at a festival. There's an especially poignant portrait of L.C. Donatto Jnr, holding a photograph of his father and a rubboard that has been played so hard it has a gaping hole in the middle. This is black music, but Fraher's scope extends also to the white people who are and have been players in the scene, as club owners, collectors (including a fine shot of Mack McCormick), fans, dancers and even occasionally as executants.
The illustrations are so striking, and you could spend so long admiring them, that you might almost forget to read the text, but that would be a bad move. Wood's account of the music has to be the most definitive yet published. He is well informed and lucid on the subject of the music's history - the chapter `Chank-A-Chank and Social Change' tells the story of how the music came to be, and it is a measure of the thorough job he has done that it begins by noting a French presence in Texas documented as far back as 1682. A couple of pages on, he points out that Amadie Ardoin recorded in San Antonio in 1934, and that just over a decade or later, it was at sessions in Houston that the first two recordings were made whose lyrics included the word `zydeco' (or a variant of the word - the book goes into some detail on the etymology, variation and development of the term), by Lightnin' Hopkins and Clarence Garlow respectively. The music's history is thoroughly rehearsed, supported by what looks like meticulous research and plenty of fine oral history - an appendix giving the list of interviews carried out takes up more than three pages. There is a chapter devoted to Clifton Chenier, covering the introduction of the piano-key accordion and the invention of the rubboard (the first one was made by a Cajun welder by the name of Willie Landry, based on a design drawn in the sand by Clifton himself). This must be one of the fullest accounts of Chenier's life and music yet published, and it ends by quoting Wilbert Thibodeaux - `Clifton Chenier is the only zydeco man who ever really deserved to call himself the king'. Amen to that, but we're still only a little over halfway into the book.
The remainder covers the wide range of other Zydeco men and women - not kings or queens perhaps, but plenty with claims to the aristocracy. It also tells the story of how Zydeco's popularity grew and grew in the years following the king's death - he had benefited from the wider interest in the music, nationally and internationally, but it has been the last twenty-odd years (Chenier died in 1987) that has seen the music's greatest popularity. It has also been a time when, as Moore states, it: `went through a process of radically redefining itself according to a multitude of contemporary realities and new possibilities'. These change factors are covered here, and the story is brought right up to date, not only with the work of young radicals and experimenters like Li'l Brian Terry, but also with the reach back into the music's roots represented by Les Amis Creole (a recent Arhoolie CD). The story covers not only the musicians themselves, but also the role of the venue owners, the musical instrument makers, the recording companies and so on.
This book is a beautiful object to own for its own sake, but it is also of major significance in the documentation of Zydeco, and is highly recommended to anyone interested in learning more about this most extraordinary of music. (this review, by Ray Templeton, first appeared in Blues & Rhythm magazine, used by permission)

I could hear the Zydeco music playing as I read this book. Roots, if you want to know how Zydeco orginated, who played or stills plays Zydeco music and where to go to listen to this music, this is the book. Being a Zydeco music fan and actually attending zydeco events that are mentioned made this a very exciting book.

James Fraher's black and white photos highlight a solid story of the most influential players and history in Zydeco music past and present, and while the survey focuses on the genre's rise in Texas, any with an interest in Cajun or Zydeco music will find it incorporates facts and history from other states as well. Chapters chart the movement of black Creoles from Louisiana into Texas and the cross-influence of their music with other Texas forms. The seven-year collaboration between writer Wood and photographer Fraher provides powerful visual embellishment to the facts and biographies within.

Diane C. Donovan
California Bookwatch

This is the most profound book that I read as a child -- the only one that could be compared in its greatness to Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass. In its imaginative, symbolic, and numinous depth it is one of the most unusual, striking books I have ever read. Through the nature of its story, its characters, its language, and the encounters that the characters have with multiple layers of human experience, it is an imaginative feat on the part of the author, Walter de la Mare (1873-1956). Originally published in 1910 as The Three Mulla-Mulgars, The Three Royal Monkeys is in effect an Odyssey for children, telling the story of how three monkey brothers undertake a long and arduous voyage encompassing multiple adventures and encounters with diverse, deep, and mysterious aspects of life in order to arrive at a paradise-like land from which their late father originated. The richness, vividness, and numinousness of the story is conveyed not only by its content but by its partially invented language. That is, the English is liberally sprinkled with names and words in the language that the monkeys themselves speak, so that it conveys the sense of being inside of a mysterious, far-away, magical, animal world that is at the same time human in its resonance: as a child I had the sense of being transported to a place where I intuited things and experiences that were way beyond my years. In a way this book would be beloved of Jungians because of the way it captures "archetypal" experience. I was fortunate to have had an uncle and aunt who always gave me and other members of my family special, unusual presents, and I consider myself so lucky that they gave me this book when I was eight years old, although I don't remember if I read it then or somewhat later. It is sad that it is currently out of print. I hope that other children will be similarly blessed by having this book given to them or made accessible through the library.

If you like the Hobbit, you'll love this "children's" novel about three royal monkeys (or mulla-mulgars) who journey across a strangely wintery fantasy Africa so that they can live with their "Uncle Assasimmon, Prince of the Valleys of Tishnar". On the way, they encounter flesh-eating "minimuls," "mountain mulgars" who do battle with eagles, the deadly beast Immanala, a beautiful water-midden who tricks one of the mulgars and takes his magic "wonderstone", a lost "Oomgar" from England, and many other adventures. The tone of the writing is wonderfully poetic and evocative, the verbal equivalent of Arthur Rackham's paintings. It's a crime this novel isn't better known.

The Three Royal Monkeys is an old book- most little kids wouldn't want anything to do with it, but if you just read the first couple of pages, you'd fall in love with it. It's got a children's book idea, but it's written for older kids. It's kind of like Lord of the Rings- not the story line or anything. These simple little "mulla-mulgars" (monkeys) have magic, their father goes in search of Tishnar, his brother's kindom, and he doesn't return in seven mulla-mulgar years. So his three sons, Thumb, Thimble, and Nod go in search of Tishnar. They have interactions with Oogmars (humans) and learn how to speak their language. I'm a seventh grader, and I love it. I know some adults that love it. It's an enchanting book, you have to read it.

In this book, Erickson proves that his ability to tell a story is not limited to tales for children, but the real jewel is in the work of Bill Ellzey. I first met Bill as a young teenager, and new even then that he saw things that other people did not see, and that he could get what he saw onto film. As we drove across the hot Texas Panhandle in his blue Dodge (with the windows down!) his dimples danced and shown through an already graying beard, and he began to teach me how to "see" like an artist. Bill's photographs will remind you of what you have seen, or let you see what you always hoped was out there somewhere. Enjoy this book, and let Erickson tell you tales, while Ellzey lets you see the indescribable. What a great combination these two boyhood friends have become!

PS: Bill, I'm sorry that I didn't have enough sons to name one of them Ellzey.

In an overall sense, this is one of the best books I have ever read. Arguably, Erickson is the best author living in Texas. Over and over, I think children would definitely consider him a wonderful storyteller. And, who is a better judge of storytelling than kids. I don't generally read Hank the Cowdog books, but I was very fascinated with the idea of reading this book. It was outstanding. Erickson, a Perryton (Texas) rancher/author, has written a great book about the Canadian River valley. The author does a great job of taking the reader along the journey. Erickson, makes the reader understand the past events and people groups who have lived or live in the central to eastern Panhandle of Texas. I think many would agree that the Panhandle is not one of the most beautiful areas of our world. Afterall, it's not as popular as the European Alps, Hawaiian islands, or even the Chesapeake Bay region - but, it is distinctive. One thing can certainly be said about the Panhandle - the places and people are REAL. What you see is what you get, so to speak. I appreciate John Erickson for being a real writer and a real storyteller. I appreciate John Erickson for writing about something he has a great understanding of.

Erickson's story of traveling through the Canadian River in the Eastern Texas panhandle on horse back with photographer and childhood friend Bill Ellzey is a wonderful tale told by a true to life cowboy/yarnspinner. Once in the late seventies I took a photography course under Ellzey and his photos tell a pretty good tale of their own. The cast of characters introduced are all very real and I know(or knew) most of them. Some are still around and some have passed on to their reward. But John's story and his cast will always be interesting reading for anyone that has ever dreamed of time in the saddle and sleeping under the stars. It should be required reading for any Texan or those that wish they were a Texan. Do yourself a favor and get this one.