Texas Books

The best progressive writing and independent journalism in the Great Lone Star State. Like The Nation, the TO is beholden to none of the corporate interests that taint most of the corporate news.

Remember what journalism used to, and should, be.

The Texas Observer has a well-deserved reputation for asking the tough questions which our state government (still famous for a 'good-old boy' reputation) wishes would just be quiet instead.

As an investigative journalist myself, I always have looked to the Observer for inspiration and comfort. Their own perserverance reminds me that our job is often thankless, but a passion for justice is one of a journalist's most effective tools.

For all of my frustration with the current status of Texas/National politics, these pages remind me times were once much worse in Texas. When segregation was still considered matter of fact, the Observer pushed ahead with the 'radical' idea that all people deserved human rights.

Finally, the Observer produced such now-nationally recognized figures as Jim Hightower and Molly Ivins. Ivins continues to cheer me up today with her right-on commentary that George W. Bush is a danger to the world, and not all Texans approve of him (or had even wanted him involved with any kind of government).

If you've ever seen the magnificent, nationally famous Texas A&M University Band perform during half-time, you will want to own this fine volume. It offers a comprehensive history of the first 100 years of a college organization that has become, literally, a state institution. Being in the Aggie Band is not simply membership in a music outfit; rather, it is a comprehensive, fully consuming Way of Life. Rich with details about how the present-day Band evolved, the Powells' account also grandly illuminates other facets of Texas Aggie history - the Corps of Cadets, A&M athletics, campus development, memorable faculty folks and general local color (in native lingo, "good bull."). Numerous photos trace Aggie traditions from their earliest days to the present. It was startling to this reader how some campus/Corps images are practically ageless. Many of the pictures - fish standing on the wall, Elephant Walk, Ags working on the Bonfire, meals in Duncan Dining Hall - could have been taken in 1930 or 1950 or 1975 OR 1995, since the traditions, and the scenes they propagate, are so firmly embedded at A&M.

This book definitely needs to be made into a movie. Not only would it offer remarkable settings, dramatic events, dynamic characters, stupendous role models, intricate Band drills and tantalizing college-life plots, but it would feature, without a doubt, the very best film soundtrack in the history of the world.

I was the drum major at my little high school in Louisiana a long long time ago, and I never heard anything about the Texas Aggie Band until almost three decades later, when I saw them at a parade in San Antonio. Soon after that, I visited the A&M campus one football weekend and got to see them rehearse their pre-game Saturday morning drill performance. They are absolutely stupendous, the best in the world. No one else compares or even comes close. I found this book at A&M's Memorial Student Center and bought it immediately. You simply MUST go see the Aggie Band.

One of my life's greatest regrets, now, is that I knew nothing about this organization when I was eligible to march in it. Musically, and personally, I can imagine no higher achievement. Everything about this precision machine exudes excellence, from their music, to their marching, to the striking friendly politeness of all the members I was fortunate to meet. These fine kids are motivated beyond belief, and they welcome you into their world -- they know they are a part of something special, and they generously share with you the admiration for their Aggie heritage.

Their drum cadence (I was a drummer) is absolutely captivating. It has five "verses," and is militarily simple but, once you've heard it, the beat stays with you wherever you walk, any time you are walking -- you wish that you were marching with the Fightin Texas Aggie Band, every time you put one foot in front of the other.

I got to see the film, "We've Never Been Licked," a 1943 World War II story, and became a permanent Aggie "groupie." From now forward, I will always be a Texas Aggie in my heart. As Pop Lambert said in the movie, "God bless the Aggies." The Spirit of Aggieland is now an forever. World Without End, A&M.

Gig 'em. And Beat The Hell Outta t.u. !!!

Lee Morgan is an oddity among women. She is no Southern Belle, but a horse rancher, tough and strong as any man. Determined to prove her capability, she agrees to race her stallion against a neighbor's, despite her misgivings about the wisdom of gambling and horse racing.

The races have brought danger and a low element to Burnt Rock, making Marshall Ben Flood's life harder. It also endangers both him and Lee. The wildness evolves into murder. It is too late to stop the race though, and it will take every resource in Lee to win it. Faith and courage are key elements to proving herself.

***** This innocent novel will appeal to fans of Louis L'Amour and Zane Grey. It shows that faith can carry into every aspect of life, even those not traditionally thought of as requiring it. Both parents and children can share this book as a family read.

This was an excellent western novel. The author wove an interesting fictional story with accurate horse information and christian values.

As usual Laurie Moore does not disappoint the reader with her exceptional sense of writing style. This book like all of her stories shows Ms. Moore's quick witt filling her books with tongue in cheek humor as she weaves a great who done it. I am anxiously waiting to see what comes next! Keep them coming!

Tarrant County Constable Jinx Porter panics as the clock is running down on his chances to persuade Raven not to marry her fiancé Tommy Greenway who is incognito somewhere in the Sudan or a similar locale. The office is working on retrieving a five years old girl Magick whose mother died and father Fleck is a satanic cultist; her maternal grandparents want the child with them. Raven especially worries because she fears the youngster will be sacrificed in an upcoming summer solstice ritual.

As they search for the child other events interfere with Raven's wedding plans. Her elderly neighbor dies, bashed in the head; a gypsy she arrested ate her engagement ring; and the DEA is investigating the florist while the caterer is simply dead. Then there is Sigrid the new investigator in her life, and finally a groom whom has remained incommunicado for the past five days. Wedding blues seem too trite.

The Constable police procedurals are some of the best on the market today. The latest one is the typical amusing yet serious mystery as Raven gets closer to marriage, but her groom is somewhere in the middle of nowhere surrounded by terrorists. The missing child cult subplot adds depth to a strong tale. Fans will want Moore Jinx-Raven and ilk tales from this wonderfully entertaining author.

Harriet Klausner

This is a great book, especially if you love ghost stories and mysteries but don't like to be scared too much. =)

In Six Gun, Texas, author Alice Carpenter has worked out the rules of sharing her home with ghosts. However, her cousin Katy Gueydon is not doing quite as well dealing with spirits and begs Alice to help her with Sir Gary Gavin. Katy's plea changes when she finds a corpse in her swimming pool at Esprit d'Chene estate. Alice calls her former spouse Detective Jack Carpenter, who works near her cousin's home, while she drives the two hours to help Katy.

Alice quickly learns that the victim is Bucky Wilson-Jones, son of a state senator. Though Bucky was a reprobate, Alice realizes that the prime suspect is her cousin, a steal magnolia who has lost her metallic backbone. As Alice investigates the current killing, tries to solve Gary's two century old "undeliberate" murder, and works with settling down a bewildered and angry Bucky, she needs help. Jack don't believe in ghosts so she turns to her mentor Twila Brown and their neighbor Granny to form the ghosthunter amateur sleuth team trying to resolve the three related scenarios.

This is a fabulous holiday investigative tale that hooks the audience the moment that readers learn of The Alice and the Howard Ghost Agreement of co-living rules. The women especially Alice and the ghosts own the plot, but readers will commiserate more with Jack the non-believer; he copes with ghost hunting females, a real murder with political implications, and some paranormal phenomena that makes him wonder what to accept as truth. Even without the Ghostbusters, readers will believe in ghosts as Alice and company act like it is a normal phenomenon, all this supernatural phenomena resides inside a delightful who-done-it.

Harriet Klausner

Midori Snyder's range as a story teller continues to astound me. In this story, mythological elements from Irish, Native American, and Old West sources are woven together into a unique tale of a man on the run. Whether he's running from something or to something is a question both the main character and you keep asking, not to mention wondering what in the world is going to happen next. Another excellent read from an author who simply doesn't publish books fast enough as far as I'm concerned. But given the choice, I'll take quality over quantity any day!

Midori Snyder, who has done wonders with her traditional fantasies, has decided to blend two rather contrary styles. She takes the traditional, down-to-earth stylings of a western novel, and throws in some sensual, and occasionally bizarre, touches of magical realism. Along the way we also get a healthy dose of urban fantasy, as Snyder tells the tale of a young man growing up in 19th century New York who discovers that he has a much richer and more magical heritage than he had assumed. Snyder takes a classic plot -- a mortal sired by faeries -- and makes it shine

I was in the CBI for over 2 years and this is the most accrate account of any books I have read on the subject. If they had 6 stars I would vote for that.

This book gets a 10 for two reasons: the author scoured hundreds of books and articles and created a perfectly sized introduction to the Hump CBI history that should whet appetites of all military aviation buffs. Second, and most important, this is the ONLY WWII book I've seen that was honest about the women in these mens' lives. No beating around the bush in this book, although there was plenty of that in the CBI! An excellent book that touches on all the challenges of flying the highest mountains on the planet.

This was a powerful and sad story about a young boy growing up in Syria, and about the hardships in a person's life due to culture and geography. Most people don't know much about Syria, let alone the Middle East. The story does a superb job of revealing the agony of hunger, sickness, poverty, the marginalization of women and the poor, and it brings up the excesses of our own American society. It becomes obvious that Syria lacks the infrastructure to realistically support its people. Thus, they are forced to live day by day, barely avoiding injustice and death. It's a miracle that the author survives to tell his story. Sickness and poverty take on a new meaning in this book, showing how death can be much more humane than life itself, and how God can be ruthless, how begging can be dehumanizing. There are just so many elements of the human experience compacted into this story. If anything, after reading this book, I gained an appreciation for the relative comfort and security of my life. Lastly, I think this book shows how work and the ability to work give value to a person's life. A truly worthwhile read.

Fragments of Memory is a socio-historical novel that illustrates the characteristics of rural life in Syria at the time of the French Mandate. This biographical novel is particularly effective in illustrating issues related to the exercise of power and the role of the state. There will also be an analysis of the expectations of family life and the respective roles of men, women and children and the role of religion in daily life. The Novel offers considerable insight into relations of power and the role of the state in rural society. The vicissitudes of the author's family in al-Suwaydiya and the village of al-Akbar clearly show that the landowner and the village headman - mukhtar - held all the power, especially when the landowner was also the mukhtar as was the case in al-Suwaydiya. The first chapters of the novel describe the family's move from the administrative capital Latakiya to the coastal village of al-Suwaydiya. There the family virtually submits to a sharecropping arrangement with the mukhtar, Mr. Elias, who owns the land, which entitled it to earn a quarter of the income accruing from the cultivation of mulberry trees while the rest went to the mukhtar (p.19). The paramount characteristic of this arrangement, however, is the relationship of dependency that the family develops upon the assistance of the mukhtar that borders on slavery.

A book that is about making a family out of friends, living life to the fullest with a HUGE dose of Texas common sense. As a native born Texan, I recognize this woman who seems so much like my grandmother, strong as steel covered with silk, practical but teaches that to dream is a large part of life and death is not to be feared but not to be welcomed either! So much history in our own back yard.

I was visiting Galveston when I purchased this book. I loved the book & it was even mor interesting as I had been to many of the places she refers to in this book. It is a book I coul dnot put down & in fact finished in 2 days. I recommed this book, as a great summer read/

William W. Dunmire's book just published in October of 2004, Gardens of New Spain: How Mediterranean Plants and Foods Changed America, was much anticipated in the field of public history. Dunmire worked in the field of interpretation (writing and exhibiting scholarly data in an entertaining and educational format for the public) in various park sites and administrative positions for the National Park Service for over thirty years. He now teaches at the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque. This stimulating work was supported and promoted by such noted historians in the specialty area of New Spain as Dr. Felix Almaraz, Dr. Rosalind Rock, and Dr. James Ivy. UTSA historian and Associate Professor, Dr. Kolleen M. Guy, used this work "hot off the press" for her fall 04 graduate seminar in Food and Drink and reported that,

"This book is generally being well received by scholars of Latin American history and borderlands studies. The book definitely opens up new areas of research. I think that we should take public historians and the work that they do quite seriously." (personal e-mail reference)

Dunmire argued that it was "one agricultural society colliding with another (Spanish and native inhabitants) over the last 350 years that forever reshaped the land and the people of America." He restated this argument in other ways: "the proliferation of Old World Foods...ushering in the grandest blending in history of international cuisines," "...the illustrious plant way from Spain had provided the grandest migration of plants, agriculture, and foodstuff in all of human history, and "the one-time clash of cultures has softened into a blend of people and ideas...."

His approach and argument was one of the so-called new methods of historiography, a different perspective, a definite departure from: the Boltonians standpoint developed in the 1915s, Carlos Castenada's Catholic view of the 1930s and 40s, and Habig's and Weddle's positive Catholic, pro-Spanish emphasis in the 1960s. Surprisingly, Dunmire blended the colorful and narrative details of Bancroft's collection and concept of destiny with a naturalist's passion for relating interactions between men, plants, and animals. His emphasis on foods crisscrossing the globe and the motives and technology associated with food's global influence and production gave this book a unique flavor (no pun intended). Weber, Chipman (who Dunmire greatly credits for his support and input on this work), and Dunmire all agree that the reader should look at New World events from all the players' points of view. Here is a yummy, 360 degree perspective that is fascinating to ingest. The tables, maps, and illustrations are one of a kind, accurate, and easy to absorb. This is a book you'll want to have in your kitchen and in your scholarly library!

Ever wonder where the tomato you are eating or the lemon you are squeezing really came from? This book has the definitive answers in an easy to read and enlightening format. It is for foodies and gardeners everywhere but focuses on foods that are central to the Mediterranean diet. Cherries, peaches, squash, coffee and chocolate all feature prominently in this food guide. It is a stomach's point of view of the Spanish colonization of the Americas with plenty of information about the natives and the foods that they were meeting. Gardeners will love the detailed descriptions of native gardening and irrigation techniques from the elaborate Aztec chinampas or floating gardens to Hohokam irrigation techniques.

My favorite part is the description of Spanish and Aztec feasts during the mid-16th century. The viceroy's banquet, "Course after course featured an abundance of meats: roasted goat kids, baked hams, and chickens along with native rabbits and venison, doves, and quail (but no turkeys). Heads of hogs, calves, and deer paraded in grand presentation featuring a musical accompaniment with trumpets, wind instruments, guitars and dulcimers...Contrast this repast to the Aztec feast...That one too, highlighted meat courses, but the Aztec selection seems much lighter, almost dainty: lobsters, sardines, frogs, tadpoles, salamanders, small birds, turkeys, winged ants, and locusts (to say nothing of the sauced gophers)."

If you access history through your stomach or are interested in how native Americans in the desert Southwest managed to water their gardens; you will really enjoy this book.