Texas Books

Beautifully written collection of stories. The author is able to bring you in to the lives of characters from all different walks of life, and capture you with their struggles. These stories will leave you thinking and questioning human nature and the place you come from.

I loved this book of stories so much that it's difficult to know where to begin. Kelly Magee's characters are wonderfully complicated--strong, flawed, compelling, often brutally insightful, almost always sympathetic, and entirely believable. The American landscapes in which these stories take place--the Grand Canyon, New Orleans, the thick heat of Florida--manage to feel both fantastic and utterly recognizable. Perhaps best of all, this book is a tour de force of language. Magee's writing is vibrant, clear-eyed, imagistic, and original--hers is a voice you will want to return to again and again.

This book is amazing! The collection of stories won the Katherine Anne Porter prize in short fiction for a good reason - Kelly Magee's skill as a storyteller. Her characters are complex and live complicated lives. Their world is harsh and beautiful, painful and magical, exhilarating, authentic, and accessible throughout this collection. Magee's language is sticky and sharp. Her prose utilizes the economy of words, keen sense of detail, and imagery of poetry. These stories are about being - being southern, an outsider, queer, subversive, and human. The stories make me think of Flannery O'Conner and William Faulkner but also of the photographs of James Agee and Diane Arbus. Magee tells you a story so vivid not only can you see it, you can feel it, too. I can't wait for more....

This woman is fearless. She crafts people, topics, and points-of-view with an empathy few possess. The characters in this book are fighters--literally and figuratively. As they seek connection, words fail, and they rely on fists and lips (the body's language) to speak their desires and their fears. They fight lovers, gentrification, weather, neighbors, and themselves to carve out a space to call home. From them, we learn again and again to recognize the hope, dignity, and grace that continue to thrive in unlikely circumstances; we recognize the common needs that connect us all.

This excellent road journal by Texas Rock and Roll icon Joe Ely is an enjoyable, refreshing read. It would make a great gift for anyone interested in music. This year Ely was selected for a lifetime acheivement award by Americana. You can go to NPR.com and key word Joe Ely to hear an interview with the author about this book. There are also songs, of course. I absolutely promise you that you will love this book!

Johnny Hughes, author of the Lubbock novel Texas Poker Wisdom.
Texas Poker Wisdom

Joe Ely has written an epic poem of life on the road, full of wisdom and insanity, that careens from Austin to Denmark, youth to age, and the bright noise of backstage to the profound silence of the stars. Ely has seen it all, done it all, and lived to sing the story in this fine feast of a book. Nibble it or gulp it down, but read it and let it feed your soul. "When a man knows not his next destination, any road he takes will get him there on time," Ely says. With this book, the veteran singer/songwriter arrives in fine style.

I am very pleased with "Bonfire Of Roadmaps" by Joe Ely. It is a book to savor over the years ahead and to take on long road trips when I travel. And, if I stay home, then it is a book that can take me on Joe Ely's road trips.
I feel blessed that I was able to sit in the front row at Joe Ely's multimedia presentation of Bonfire Of Roadmaps at the Texas Book Festival held in Austin on November 3rd and 4th, 2007. The audience was packed and enthusiastic. A line formed at the book signing following Joe's readings and songs and video. I was very pleased to have Joe sign my book for me. Later, Joe Ely and Joel Guzman and Joe's band filled the space around the Texas Capitol steps with their magical music and lyrics. Joe was deep into his songs and making every effort to fill each listener with the unique blend of country, roots, wisdom, adventure, personal challenge, disappointments and triumphs of which his music is composed. Much of the time he sang with eyes closed as he drew from deep down the well of his own life experience. I will always remember this concert and I have the book to bring back the feelings of the road, feelings that Joe Ely was kind enough to share with us all.

Joe Ely is a first class musician. Once you start listening to him, you can't stop, and now he gives us a poetic glimpse at life on the road. Bonfire of Roadmaps delves into the hard life, triumphs, and trials of life as a modern day troubadour, and it is a great read. The chapters flow rhythmically along, bursting with memorable characters, stories, lyrics, and a first hand account of what its like to crisscoss the map playing in dingy bars, auditoriums, hotel rooms, and foreign countries. Joe just keeps going. Do yourself a favor: buy this book, listen to the spoken word cd that comes with it, and then start collecting Joe Ely's albums. He's the best. It's as simple as that.

As an historical writer, I strongly recommend this finely crafted novel. Mr. Johnson has created a Civil War Drama that readers of the Western genre will thoroughly enjoy. It is cleverly constructed with full-dimensional characters and events that will linger long after the last page. A great read!

From the back cover of the novel: "The author knows firsthand the locale of this action-packed and fast-paced story. He owned and operated a cattle and horse ranch in the Texa brushland wilderness,in the land known as la brasada . . . . the ranch bordered the Rio Grande for nine miles . . . During the Civil War, wagons loaded with cotton left deep ruts while traveling across the ranch into Mexico. The tracks are visible to this day."

From these roots comes Brasada by Don Johnson, a western novel that is interwoven with some fascinating Civil War History - in particular, how the South financed the War by smuggling its cotton into Mexico and getting paid in gold.

This is a real page-turner that has everything a fan of Westerns and Civil War Novels could ask for, and then some. Just a great introduction to the Western genre for new readers. I strongly recommend it for anyone who likes to read good fiction.

Jerry Patterson, thebuffalokid@aol.com

The characters are as vivid as those in Lonesome Dove. I hope there is a sequel as the opportunity is there with the gold missing and the key characters still young.

In the tradition of great Western writers such as Louis Lamour and Elmer Kelton, Don Johnson brings the old West to life in vivid detail in his new novel Brasada. Johnson's knack for storytelling and colloquial style transports the reader straight to the harsh brushland of Civil War-era Texas. Unlike many modern western authors, Johnson has chosen not to blur the line between good and bad, creating the most dispicable of villains in Santiago and effecting sympathy for the story's hero Lance Morgan. But these characters, while morally black and white through most of the story, still manage to develop throughout. The story's intriguing plot and colorful characters make Brasada hard to put down and a must for fans of classic Western novels.

The author does and excptional job on cleaning up some of the objectionable language, and brings to the readers a truly enjoyable book on early "African safari" type activities. Something that young readers as well as old can enjoy.

November 2000, p 554 History of Science & Technology

38-1532 QL61 99-86898 CIP

Buck, Frank. Bring 'Em Back Alive: The Best of Frank Buck, ed. by Steven Lehrer. Texas Tech, 2000. 248p bibl index afp ISBN 0-89672-430-1, $28.95

In many ways, this is a delightful book. Buck was a familiar and heroic figure to many growing up in the 1930s and 1940s; the numerous illustrations recapture those days. The great zoos of the day owed much to him, partly for the specimens he obtained for them but even more for the publicity he generated and shared. His exploits could not and should not be repeated today, but that should not detract from the sense of adventure his stories evoke. His persona was mirrored in the white hunter in King Kong (the Fay Wray version), but his real life adventures were even more thrilling. The comments by Lehrer (Mount Sinai School of Medicine) are interesting and useful, and his choices of episodes from various of Buck's books are well done. All in all, this is an extremely entertaining book, illustrating a different time and written in a way that brings that time to life. General readers. -F W. Yow, emeritus, Kenyon College

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A timeless classic of adventure and daring for anyone who 'likes to sit on the edge of his chair and gasp for breath.'-New York Times, 1930 In 1930, the publication of Bring 'Em Back Alive, an instant best seller, made its author, Frank Buck, an international celebrity. These animal stories told by the intrepid Texas animal collector and jungle adventurer enraptured generations of boys. Buck spent his life capturing alive every kind of animal, from birds to snakes to elephants. Because there were no tranquilizer darts in those days, he learned to build traps and snares in ways that prevented injury to the animals he caught. Buck always accompanied his animals on shipboard to America to be sure they were well treated, and refused to sell to anyone who did not have an impeccable reputation for animal care. The creator of the Dallas zoo in the 1920s, Buck was a hero ranking with Lindbergh, Ruth, and Dempsey. The dashing and powerful Buck leapt easily from Simon and Schuster's published pages to the silver screen, portraying himself in Wild Cargo and Fang and Claw. This edition, expanded and edited by Steven Lehrer, captures not only the best of Frank Buck, but also the excitement and glamour of an era and lifestyle that still hold readers spellbound.

...

Between 1910 and 1940, when Frank Buck, the big jungle man, did most of his work, cruelty toward wild animals was generally condoned in the name of "hunting" or "sport."

That his trademark motto, "Bring 'em back alive," made him famous, however, indicates that even in his day human consciousness was high enough to appreciate his respect for animals. Today this consciousness is so widespread that no one could become a hero of his stature by trapping jungle animals for profit.

But he understood animals and respected them, even displayed toward them the care of a mother for her child. When they were injured or sick, he personally tended them, a risky business. A 600-pound tapir he was treating almost killed him. A python saw him as a meal, and a cobra spewed deadly venom in his eyes. Attacked by another cobra, he threw his coat over the snake and pounced on it. He held it beneath him as it wriggled to get free until aides could get a grip on its head and pull it out, like a bird extracting a worm from the ground. The python that had him in its grip was one of the very few he had to kill. He managed to get one arm free enough to reach his sidearm; then he put three rounds in the giant reptile's brain.

From his headquarters at the Raffles Hotel in Singapore, he operated a collecting network that spanned the lush jungles of Malaya, Borneo, Sumatra and India. Over the years, he brought back hundreds of thousands of birds and animals of all kinds for sale to zoos, circuses and private collectors. In 1922, he provided Dallas with an entire zoo of more than 500 specimens. In 1948, he returned to his hometown of Gainesville, Texas, to dedicate the Frank Buck Zoo and the Frank Buck Zoological Society.

From Mr. Buck's eight books, Steven Lehrer has selected the "best" of the material. He has fine sensibilities as an editor. However, the books are so full of good, old-fashioned, movie-serial-type adventures in wild, exotic settings, that Mr. Lehrer could have closed his eyes and picked 19 chapters that would make a good collection. The surprising thing is that, until now, no one else has.

What few could have done better, however, is write the illuminating introduction summarizing Mr. Buck's early interest in animals and birds as a boy in Plano and along Turtle Creek, and his brief dalliance with crime, marriage and other enterprises before setting out on his lifelong search for "the source of the wind, the mouth of the river, the oceans to which the fish swam, and the far lands to which the birds flew."

Free-lance writer and reviewer Tom Dodge lives in Midlothian; his new book is Tom Dodge Talks About Texas.

For years, Bobby Bridger has been presenting the story of Buffalo Bill in a musical act called Pahaska, a one-hour series of enthralling songs that tell the story of Bill Cody. Now, Bridger puts down the guitar and period garb from his act to show the history behind his art. In this historical tome, Bridger shows the serious academic side of his art. This book is a must read for anyone interested in the history of the West. Bridger's look at how the modern romantic vision of the American West was created is intriguing and as captivating as his music.

For years, Bobby Bridger has been presenting the story of Buffalo Bill in a one-hour musical act that tells the story of Bill Cody in a series of enthralling songs. Now, with this historical tome, Bridger has completed the circle. This is the history behind Bobby Bridger's art. Bridger puts down the guitar and period garb used in his musical drama to show readers the serious academic side of his personality. If you want some intriguing inquiry and suggestion about how the modern vision of the romantic west was created, this book is a must read.

Bridger, decendent of the reknown Mountain man, Jim Bridger, has written an outstanding book on two of history's most colorful and enduring icons of the American west and the dynamic process that each dealt with during the late 19th century America. Bridger is one the best entertainers in American today and this book only shows a small example of his profound abilities. Years of research and documentation of historical events pays tribute to truth, justice, and injustices, of the American West. This book should be a standard fare for all collegiate history classes and for the general public at large. History is always multi-sided and Bridger illustrates that to perfection. This is a must read. It will impress both scholars and the general public. BRAVO MR. BRIDGER! We look forward to the next! Sing on Great Spirit!

For years, Bobby Bridger has been entertaining audiences musically with his Ballad of the West. One of the hour sets, Pahaska, tells the story of Buffalo Bill in what Bridger describes as Homeric ballads. Now, Bridger puts aside the guitar and period garb to show his serious academic side. "Buffalo Bill and Sitting Bull: Inventing the Wild West" is the history behind his music. This book is a must read for anyone interested in the old west and is an intriguing look into how the popular vision of it was created.

The authors received 138 responses to a survey about favorite photography books. The verbatim replies and brief commentaries are arranged by respondent; a bibliography lists the respondents who cited each book. A special page is devoted to "The Americans" by Robert Frank, and another special page to the 10 other top vote getters. Some of the choices were idiosyncratic (e.g., some authors touted their own work which no one else mentioned), but overall this book is indispensable. I especially liked the selection of books ABOUT photography (as opposed to BY photographers), such as "Camera Lucida" by Barthes. Although I would agree with the other reviewer below that books on non-artistic genres (e.g., news, sports, nature) are underrepresented, that's not an important issue for me.

The Texas Photographic Society cornered 100 people who have a connection to the photography world and said "hey, what are your 6 favorite photo books and why?" The result is this nice little book, a compilation of all those lists with a handy bibliography of all the books mentioned at the end. It's a great little reference. It would have been nice to have a few more selections from the world of documentary photography (important photographers such as James Nachtwey and Eugene Richards are barely mentioned, or even not at all), but I guess that's a reflection of the tastes of those who were surveyed for this book.

This book is a great compulation of over 100 recognized photographers and the books that they go to for inspiration. It's also a great buying guide for any photographers on your list that might be hard to buy for.
A great book, great ideas and a very interesting and unique concept in photographic book publishing.

This book is a great gift for anyone interested in any aspect of photography--and as a general reference book for a seasoned photographer or the apprentice photography student. The editors surveyed famous curators, gallery owners, photo journalists, photo teachers, art photographers from all over the country and compiled an exhaustive list of must-have books along with clever and informative annotations.

A very inexpensive and invaluable resource with a handy index. Buy it. You'll be glad you did.

I found this book to be a compelling page turner. The characters were complex and believable, the story one of redemption and rebirth. Much of what New Mexico is about. While there were some loose ends to the characters' lives, they were really peripheral. This is a book that fills you with hope about the greater community of man.

This is a must have book for anyone with any intrest in the Southwest, in the journey of the heart, in the journey of the soul, or in the occuurance of miricles! This book is about all of these, and so much more. Leslie makes both the people and the landscape come alive for the reader. It is a book that brings tears and laughter, and an incredible feeling of expansion to the heart and soul. Bravo!!

Frustrated Santa Fe artist, Whitney Slope, escapes the political games of the Santa Fe art world by heading into the mountain community of Mi Ojo ("My Eye"-a fictitious community representing the real communities that can be found around Santa Fe). He finds his soul in the authentic, rural community and his story is woven with that of his new landlord, Dominga Garcia de Jesus. Slope is brought to a refreshingly honest new way of life as he becomes involved in the stories of other people outside of the affluent community in Santa Fe.

The characters in this book are deep and well developed. The plot carries the reader through a world that is realistic to the area. I especially enjoyed the descriptions of the Santa Fe art gallery community contrasted with the rural Hispanic communities in the mountains. The high quality of the writing and the storyline make this book a must read for anyone who is looking for an excellent work of Southwest fiction.

A book that touches the heart and soul and bring the New Mexico culture, people and land alive.

I love all the Hank books, and this is a great one for the Christmas season. These books are hilarious and more important to the young reader, fun to read. I'd also check the rest of the series.

Author of "Hobo Finds A Home" editor "Of A Predatory Heart"

I ordered the book for my sons ages 13,12, and 10. They really enjoy reading "Hank the Cow Dog" books. We highly recommend them all!!

This Hank story is standard Hank fare, with a slight retread of previous scrapes, but still enjoyable. The antics of the humans are as funny as ever, with Loper and Slim sparring and blowing up ranch equipment and so forth. The story line doesn't move as far or as fast as several other Hank books, but it is still a pleasant outing with the Hank crew.

According to the grandchildren 10 & 13 the characters are delightful and draws you into picturing the situation in your mind. Thank goodness the author who is also the narrator is terrific and is in full stride for enjoyable listening. The tones and inflections easily identify the characters. I purchased a sequence of books that was read by somebody other than the author and then this particular author decided to be her own narrator and believe you me it sure destroyed the stories. Stay with what works.

Charley Sunday's Texas Outfit! is a most unusual American western, for it is set in the modern twenty-first century! Following the journey of a longhorn cattle driver as he herds his animals on a 1,000 mile journey across 21st Century America, it is a parable of faith, courage, and hard work pitted against forces of greed and corruption, and hearkens to the notion that honor is just as important now as it was one hundred and fifty years ago. An upbeat, enthusiastically gung-ho western read.

Steve Lodge has created a superb story with an unusual plot and unforgetable characters.This is a moving story with plenty of laughs mixed in to the drama. A fine job by an excellent story-teller.

Tough, old former Texas Ranger Charley Sunday faces two problems: he's bored, living with his long-time chum Roscoe on his broken down ranch near tiny, dusty Juanita, Texas, west of San Antonio; and far more seriously, he's nearly broke, and is facing the foreclosure of his land. His beloved grandson Henry-Ellis comes to stay with Charley while his parents are on vacation. Charley and his grandson have always had a special bond, and Charley dearly wants to pass on his rugged-and rapidly vanishing--frontier values to the boy, who is growing up in our high-tech urbanized, confusing world. While watching the classic John Wayne film Red River, they see a commercial about a herd of 300 genuine Texas longhorns that is being auctioned in Golden, Colorado. This becomes an itch that Charley has to scratch, and he heads to his favorite pool hall to do some "serious thinking." The bar is owned by his sometime sweetheart, the wealthy Flora-Mae. It turns out Charlie and Flora-Mae were thinking along the same lines, and they form a partnership, financed by Flora-Mae, to bring the herd back to her ranch so she can get back into the cattle business.

Charlie, Roscoe, Henry-Ellis and their old dog Buster head to Colorado to the auction. They run into their first of many obstacles from a very evil, abusive meatpacker named Pike who intends to buy the herd and turn it into fast-food hamburger. Pike sends his attorney, a young Indian named Rod to the auction to make a pre-emptive bid. But it turns out Charlie and his gang win the bidding. Their celebration is short-lived and is replaced by despair when they find Pike has convinced the trucking companies to not do business with Charley: he can't get the longhorns back to Texas.

Or can he...how about an old fashioned cattle drive across the West? Charlie is just desperate enough, and perhaps crazy enough, to attempt it. So off they go, accompanied by beautiful TV reporter Kelly King who thinks the cattle drive makes a unique human interest story-and also Rod, who has had enough of his boss Mr. Pike and switches sides.

Charley Sunday's Texas outfit faces the usual hardships all cattle drovers did, the weather, potential rustlers, the rough terrain and brutally long work days. But this cattle drive also faces unique challenges: how do you get cattle across an oil company's fields? Through an Air Force Base? It is then we enjoy the central theme of Stephen Lodge's simple, elegant and pleasantly sentimental story; Charley Sunday's indomitable will, the same pioneer spirit that conquered the West, will not allow him to quit, will not permit him to fail-especially not in front of his grandson. This may be the last chance the old man has to show Henry-Ellis what kind of young man Charley was in his glory days as a Texas Ranger. And for Henry-Ellis' part, it is a wonderful opportunity for adventure across the great, glorious West-much more fun than surfing the Internet or going on a fancy vacation in Hawaii with his mom and dad. "Take them to Texas, gentlemen," Charley tells his men at the start of the drive, echoing John Wayne in Red River. And over the course of the cattle drive, Henry-Ellis sees that his grandpa can ride, shoot, brawl-and fight for what he believes in--just like Duke himself.

Through Kelly's TV reports, the whole U.S. gets caught up in the cattle drive saga-reality TV at its very best. Pike turns out to be a particularly vengeful foe, who uses all his resources and contacts to keep Charlie from succeeding. Charley's outfit gets the cattle back to Juanita, Texas-but not without some unusual allies including a biker gang and the President of the United States.

Author Stephen Lodge is a veteran Hollywood screenwriter and actor, and it shows in the wonderfully visual style of this novel. Mr. Lodge takes you right into the middle of the action. The scenes move along at the clip of wild horses galloping across the prairie. In fact you wish he would slow down a little and spend more time describing the wonderful scenery and vistas they are traveling through. I would also have enjoyed learning more backstory about Charley's undoubtedly fascinating life and times.

If you loved the old West cattle drive novel (and TV movie) Lonesome Dove, you will love the vivid characters, warm relationships and fast-paced action of Steven Lodge's novel of the New West, Charley Sunday's Texas Outfit.

Reviewed by Brian Hill, co-author of "The Making of a Bestseller."

A cross-country cattle drive complete with cowboys on horseback would seem an unlikely occurrence in today's west. Using this idea as the premise for a modern novel would seem equally unlikely, yet author Stephen Lodge crafts a convincing tale in Charley Sunday's Texas Outfit!

When a rich villain prevents Charlie Sunday from transporting his recently acquired 300 head of Texas Longhorn cattle by truck or rail, Charlie organizes an outfit of colorful characters to drive them home - the old-fashioned way. The trip also presents him with an opportunity to provide his 10-year-old grandson, Henry-Ellis, with a character building adventure. Existing "livestock right-away statutes" supply plausibility for what would otherwise seem an unrealistic plot, but the drovers still encounter plenty of other natural and man-made obstacles along the way.

Action packed scenes devoid of gratuitous language and violence create an enjoyable read for the entire family, but this doesn't mean that the story is bland. The author's flair for witty dialog keeps the reader engaged: "Used to be in Texas a man settled his own problems," Charley said. "But that was when due process was a bullet."

Reminiscent of a quality western in the style of Louis L'Amour, Charley Sunday's Texas Outfit! draws a clear distinction between the good guys and bad guys. Readers longing for a family tale where justice prevails will be thrilled with this modern day saga.

Child of Many Rivers: Journeys to and from the Rio Grande. By Lucy Fischer-West, Foreword by Denise Chavez . Lubbock: Texas Tech University Press, 2005. xvi, 190 pages. 32 b/w photos, index. ISBN 0896725561.

This Child won the 2005 Southwest Book Award and was a 2006 WILLA Literary Award Finalist. Lucy Fischer-West teaches English at El Paso's Cathedral High School, and her students are lucky that she does. You are lucky if you read the volume. It started with contributions on her father and mother to the Texas Folklore Society. In the "Epilogue" she summarizes that "Rivers for me are a continuum, linking not only each other but also past and present and most importantly all the people who belong to them and have touched my life."
Her father was a German sailor, her mother was the "youngest and most beautiful girl in a family of twelve" in Camargo, Chihuahua. As young girl, Lucy patted tortilla balls beside the Conchos River, and as a mature woman she washed her hands in the Ganges and received a blessing from Sister Teresa. Her autobiographical essays lure the reader through the gifts of cultures. Whether she's sharing the aroma of the El Paso market, the horrible auto accident near the River Clyde, French rocks with Paulette, touring India and Nepal on the Rotary trip "to improve international understanding," Lucy's waters mingle in a beautiful human stream. Un millon de gracias, Lucy.

Lucy Fischer-West's memoir, Child of Many Rivers, recounts the story of people whose lives predate the author's, Fischer-West's own herstory, and the story of life that will outlive hers (by way of her son and those whose lives have intersected with hers). In this story, Fischer-West introduces us to her father and mother, one with roots in Germany, the other in Juarez, Mexico, respectively; she describes their meeting, their courtship, and eventual marriage, quite unorthodox, considering the two are very much set in their ways, being older like they are. They move from one place to another, the author using rivers, both literal and metaphorical, to document the course of their lives. Fischer-West weaves in her own life from early on to very recent, and that of her son's. As much as a book of this length and nature can be, it is pure poetry.

It is such a pleasure to read a Mexican American memoir that does not stop simply at the cusp of adulthood or at the edge of the barrio. The author's love for El Paso and Juarez shines through these pages, which are rich in detail and dedicated to demonstrating how people cope with, manage and accept "difference" on a daily basis; Child of Many Rivers made me think how such books are sorely needed in this age of conflict and suspicion across borders and cultures.

As a member of The Texas Folklore Society I received this book as a bonus from TFS. I read it in its entirety over one weekend--slowly, taking time with Ms. West's rich detailing of what it means to straddle two cultures from birth to adulthood. Lucy F. West's ability to recall in almost photograph detail her unique childhood wherein she literally had a foot in Mexico and a foot in Texas makes this book a good read.

The child of a Mexican teacher and a German immigrant father, her cultural influences were too many to catalogue in this small space, but they resulted in a unique perspective on what it means to be Mexican and American.

Her writing style is lucid and not the least pretentious. When plain language makes plain the meaning and intent of her ideas, she uses plain language. When using Spanish terms or Mexican folk expressions that may be foreign to Americans, she takes pains to explain them, which serves to enrich her stories.

She switches style or voice occassionally as she moves between childhood and adult episodes. This vareity in tone is welcomed since it has the effect of refreshing our interest in the levels of her story.

Ms. West has published other articles and several chapters in anthologies which I have found to be instructive and enlightening. I am really pleased to hear her "voice" in the longer book format.

Straightforward, without pretension, lucid and thought-provoking. Ms. West's book reminds us that this nation has eternally struggled with the issues of diversity and assimilation. Some, Ms. West for one, manage the assimilation beautifully while preserving the diversity. Bravo!