Texas Books

Sherman brings history to life, and paints a scene the way an artist would approach a canvas. Perhaps the best of modern Western lore. Sherman is at his best in this one. A compelling story, with dimensional characters you hate to leave

In a way only Jory Sherman can fulfill, he takes you on an incredible journey, through a raging storm in the Gulf of Mexico, to settle the vast, arid, Apache stalked land of Texas. A fantastic read!

After reading Grass Kingdom, I waited for this addition to Sherman's series on a historical look at the early Texas years and found it to be another great Jory Sherman saga. The character of Martin Baron and his effort to build his own western kingdom was great. The flavor of Spain the character Miguel Fuentes added was wonderful seasoning.

Growing up in California, I became a Texan as soon as I knew better. Having missed all of the Texas history and trivia growing up, it was pure delight to read "The Bathroom Book of Texas Trivia". It's a gem for those with little nuggets of time to snatch a quick read. From the snippet about the "Pulpwood Queens of East Texas" to discovering how the Lone Star became Texas' state seal to "The Games People Play", it's a fun and informative read.

Often hilarious, intriguing, or just plain interesting fun quick facts about the Lone Star state. If you know someone who plans to visit or move to Texas (or recently arrived), this will orient them. It will also delight Texas natives and Texas ex-patriates who get homesick. Highly recommended.

I found the "Bathroom Book of Texas Trivia" a very enjoyable read. As a native Illinoisan I learned much about my adopted state of Texas. If you are a fan of trivia, or just want to learn more about the Lone Star State, you will enjoy reading this book.

Go discussion of the non main stream battle of the War Between the State well research.

Jim Lynch

I really enjoyed Alberts' well researched account of the climactic battle that doomed Southern ambitions in New Mexico and Confederate ambitions in the West. The book is well written and easy to read. Alberts is very familiar with the battlefields and uses maps to show troop positions and movements in the battles in Glorieta Pass. The book includes a good introduction of the campaign and troop movements to the area as well as the aftermath and southern retreat to Southern New Mexico. An Order of Battle and extensive end notes are helpfull and he even gives brief accounts of the fates of the major players in the campaign.

Before taking the battlefield tour at Pecos National Historical Park, I read the other book on the battle because this one had no reviews. The park ranger recommended this one as having a lot of detail, and he was correct. Edrington and Taylor's book is good for a quick once over and for non-specialists. However, if you want to read about this battle in detail and/or you read a lot of Civil War books, this is the book to read. For non-specialists, he provides reviews of basic army organization and weaponry.

The author lives in the area and has spend many years researching the battle and the field including locating the sites of specific actions by the use of metal detectors and analysis of the materials found.

The book concentrates on the two-day battle and its immediate aftermath which have to be considered a Union victory. Although the Union forces retreated at the end of the both days, they were not driven off the field. Plus, a Union flank maneuver put these forces onto the lightly guarded Confederate wagon train, which the Union forces proceeded to destroy. With the destruction of their train in this poor area, the Confederate advance into New Mexico was effectively ended. The final chapter reviews the subsequent careers of the major participants.

The endnotes are excellent, and the maps are standard format (unlike in the other book).

This collection of stories was wonderful. Every story was different and the book features a wide range of stories and emotions. I felt transported to a different time and place.

This is a great collection of stories ranging from family tales to folktales.Among my favorite were:John Henry Faulk's "Mrs. Fanny Rollins and her fake rubber bosoms," an old celtic legend of Finn McCoul is quiet but very powerful, Jay Stailey's stories jumped off the page with humor as did Finley Stewart's four offerings.Sometimes sad, often wildly funny the book gives us a glimpse of who we all are as human beings. My husband and I keep it by the bed for a quick reread f a story every now and then.Where can I find more like this?

I found this a WONDERFUL book! The stories are new and great. Perfect for adults and children, these are great stories to read to your kids before they go to sleep. But after they do, you'll keep reading for you!

James Griffin has launched a new Texas Ranger series (although related to his previous one) featuring Ranger Cody Havlicek, who is called on to investigate a series of murders in the Big Bend country. This is a little closer to whodunnit territory, with Havlicek and the reader both trying to figure out who is behind the killings and why. As with Griffin's previous novels, this one has action a-plenty, with gunfights and at least one literal cliffhanger. It is a western as they used to be done, not an "adult" western with sex scenes added but what was once seen as a traditional western, the kind it's hard to find these days.

Griffin introduces Blawcyzk's successor, Cody Havlicek in a rousing mystery/adventure yarn. That's what Jim writes; Yarns. He's a whale of a storyteller, and they get better in plot and execution with each time out. (Although, I think this one was written before his latest Blawcyzk book) His characterization, plotting, pacing and dialogue improve by leaps and bounds. Confidence in his skills is more apparent with each book and it's a joy to behold from my standpoint as the constant reader. Even if Jim wasn't a member of this group, I would eagerly look for his books. They are that good and that enjoyable.
In Blawcyzk and Havlicek, Griffin has created characters that are more than just plot devices or genre shortcuts. They are living, breathing people that you care about. Little touches like going to church, praying, the constant mints for the horses, and not liking certain parts of the job yet realizing they have to be done, all add up to memorable characters that you look forward to encountering again.

BIG BEND DEATH TRAP Big Bend Death Trap: A Texas Ranger Cody Havlicek Story is a mystery story full of traditional Western action. The hero, Texas Ranger Cody Havlicek, is a God-fearing family man, loyal to his wife and son, but he is not afraid to use his fists and guns to bring justice to the far reaches of the state of Texas.

Tommy Mashburn, a young man Cody rescues on the way to his assignment, makes a wonderful sidekick for the Ranger.

BIG BEND DEATH TRAP will keep you on the edge of your seat as Cody, Tommy, and even Cody's horse Yankee battle against tremendous odds in their efforts to find and bring to justice a gang of diabolical criminals terrorizing the Big Bend Region of Texas.

BIG BEND DEATH TRAP is highly recommended reading for just about anyone.

Finally a book that is an easy read and answers questions about the area of Texas known as the Big Bend. This book takes you several steps beyond the Roadside Geology of Texas book. The book has excellent maps, is well organized, and has many photographs to help you get your orientation. I also recommend a companion book that he has written about the Davis Mountains area.

I love this book! In Chapter I, Setting the Scene, MacLeod provides a concise geologic history, explaining difficult concepts in language easily accessible to the layman. The following chapters interpret the landscapes along various local routes. The maps, photos and sketches nicely complement the text. I like to read the appropriate chapter the night before a road trip and then take the book along in the car. It certainly adds interest to the trip.

Use Big Bend Vistas to get an overview of the region or just to look up that mountain that catches your eye. Easy to read descriptions of the geology with lots of pictures, illustrations and a glossary to help the average person understand and appreciate the landscape yet detailed enough for the more geologically astute. Vistas makes the trip to Big Bend National Park more fun!

In The Big Picture, Jones brings us the third act of her Katie Parker Production Series. Katie's given her life to Christ, but that doesn't mean everything is all sunshine and happiness. Between the return of her ex-convict mother, the romantic trials of her foster grandma Mad Maxine, and being drawn to her not-sure-if-he's-a-boyfriend Charlie, Katie's got a lot going on in her life. Jones writes with humor and a heart for teens. She never speaks down to the young people who will read this book. But this isn't just a young adult novel. Even if you're old enough not to get carded anymore, I guarantee you'll enjoy this story of family ties and trust.

I really enjoyed this book by Jenny, and I am happy to say that even though this is book #3 in the Katie Parker series and I have not read the first 2... I didn't feel left out at all! Jenny does a great job keeping you in the loop as the book goes on so that it is not a necessity to have read the books in order, although after reading The Big Picture I would like to go back and read the first 2.
Katie is a fun heroine, one of my favorite types - her heart is in the right place, but she's human and has flaws (and they show, alot!). She is surrounded by quirky characters who support and love her and then the unthinkable happens... her messed up, druggie mom gets out of jail and wants Katie back. Katie struggles to leave behind her wants and needs and be a good daughter and tries to find God in the middle of such a mess. Such an original story and Jenny's writing style made it so fun too! I would highly recommend this book - especially for the teen set, so if you are looking for good reading for your teen - then check out this series!

The Big Picture is the third book in the Katie Parker series. I fell in love with Katie Parker on the first page of book one. Book two was even better. Now, The Big Picture is my favorite of all three. You'll laugh and cry, sometimes both at the same time. Filled with characters that will steal your heart, you'll hate to tell them goodbye on the last page.
Katie Parker's struggles touched me deeply and filled with me a sense of hope and purpose. Try this series, you will not be disappointed.

The Big Picture by Jenny B. Jones is the third book in the Katie Parker Productions series. Katie, 16 and living with her foster parents in In Between, Texas, has adapted to her life there. She has great friends, a crush on her best guy friend, and is working on creating a future in acting. But then she gets word that her mother has been released from prison and is seeking the return of custody. She has to hold on to her faith and trust that God has a plan when everything she's worked so hard for slips away. I hadn't read the first two books in this series, but it was easy to quickly become comfortable with Katie and her family, including crazy foster grandma Maxine. Katie surrenders herself to God and goes through some pretty tough stuff for a teenage girl, but she's a strong, extremely likable character. This is a young adult book that never talks down to its readers and is equably enjoyable for adults. One of my favorite parts of this book is how well Jones incorporated pop culture into the story. In many YA Christian books, the kids only read Christian books and listen to Christian music. That's not realistic with the teens I know, and only pushes those readers farther away from reading other YA books. Katie and her friends listen to Fall Out Boy and her ring tone is Fergie. Jones' message of faith isn't crammed down reader's throats either. Katie believes in the GOG (grace of God), but in a realistic, questioning manner. This is a terrific book that's fun to read.

I am in the process of reading the book. It is very interesting. I just bought a Black Mouth Cur puppy and the book was recommended on the American Black Mouth Cur website.

I grew up in East Texas and have lived around the Big Thicket all my life. As a child, I heard my grandfather and his brother tell tales of the bears and "panthers" they had hunted in the early 1900's. I picked this book up one afternoon and began to skim it, and I was hooked within minutes. I couldn't put it down. In the 60's and 70's the authors interviewed many older residents of the Big Thicket area, allowing the old-timers to simply relate their rememberances, from the 1860's on up into the oil boom and logging days of the early 20th century. The dialect is distinct, and the authors do a good job of conveying the pronunciation. The stories these people tell of the hardships and yet the wonder of living in a true wilderness is simply fascinating. If you have any interest in the Big Thicket area of Texas, or if you just enjoy tales of life in the "wild and wooly days", then you will certainly enjoy these stories. It's truly a wonder that these folks survived the hard life and wild animals! My wife and I were so enthralled with these stories,that we found time a few days later to drive over and visit some of the remaining thicket, near Saratoga, TX.

Collaboratively compiled and co-edited by lifelong naturalists Campbell and Lynn Loughmiller, Big Thicket Legacy is a compendium of engaging and informative anecdotes about life and living in the Big Thicket country, which is a nearly impassable area of Texas territory that only a few pioneers dared to brave. In those days, only the heartiest of individuals and families could call a place within the heart of the Big Thicket home; their tales have become a part of Texas folklore, and in Big Thicket Legacy are preserved to available to the general reading public, thereby recounting a very special experienced wisdom for new generations of Texans.

It is such a pleasant escape to go to Job's Crossing, Texas, and spend a little time with Biggie and J.R., to go down to the tea room and schmooze with the patrons--maybe have a piece of chocolate pie. The plot isn't too much, as mysteries go, but who cares? The characters and the atmosphere are what a reader needs after all the bloody violence of mysteries that top the best seller lists. I'm not usually a great fan of "cozy" whodunits; still, from time to time they are the perfect antidote. Nancy Bell knows her place and people well, and I enjoy going with her.

When J.R.'s father died and his mother proved unable to care for him, Biggie took him into her heart and home in Job's Crossing. He's going to take his best friend to the school dance but before that can happen, some excitement comes to the small bucolic town. Biggie's first love, Rex Barnwell and his young wife open up a camp for overweight girls. In all good conscience, Biggie is forced to tell J.R. and Rex they are grandson and grandfather, respectively.

When the duo visit Rex, they are forced to stay overnight due to a bad storm. That same night somebody shoots and kills Rex. Biggie is determined to find out who the killer is and Officer Red Upchurch is reluctantly getting used to her involvement in homicide investigations. He encourages her to see what she can find out.

BIGGIE AND THE DEVIL DIET is the perfect cosy to snuggle up with on a cold winter's night. Biggie, her grandson, and the small Texas town where the story takes place will beguile readers. J.R. narrates the tale so everything is seen from his perspective. This makes for a pleasant change from books that are told from an adult's viewpoint.

Harriet Klausner

Nancy Bell never disappoints. This cozy muystery series is so charming, but if you haven't read the preceding books , please postpone this one until its turn comes around. You'll probably find yourself reading these books in a Texas drawl which will make the whole experience even funnier because Bell's humor is southern and her turn of phrase is just perfect. These books are such relaxing and pleasant reads that you'll hate when the last page comes. J.R., the 12 year old narrator, is well ajusted despite being taken from his mother, " a nervous type", after the death of his father who was Biggie's son. His adventures with the warm, wonderful and clever Biggie are just plain old fun. Biggie's cook/housekeeper Willie Mae and her husband Rosebud add tremendously to the stories, and Willie Mae's menus will have you drooling all over yourself. Then, of course, there's J.R.'s best friend,the spunky Monica Sontag, who only has half a head of hair because she was set too close to the fire when she was a baby. On top of all that, there are the townspeople of Job's Crossing, all of whom are diverse and quirky. This series is a real winner, and I hope it continues for a very long time.

Biochemical Individuality was first published by Dr. Roger J. Williams in 1956. It has just been reissued with a new introduction by Jeffrey S. Bland, Ph.D. Dr. Bland explains that Dr. Williams was the first to recognize all humans differ biochemically from others. He says that Dr. Williams was also the first to recognize that "nutritional status can influence the expression of genetic characteristics."

Dr. Williams conducted his own studies, as well as drawing on the work of others, to show that each of us is different. One chapter describes differences in anatomy, outlining how even such vital organs as hearts and stomachs vary in size, shape, and physical location from person to person.

The chapter on pharmacology explains how, even though the chemistry of each is known, drugs effect people in different ways, due to differences in body chemistry. That's why what works for one person doesn't necessarily work for another.

Dr. Williams says that "while the same physical mechanisms and the same metabolic processes are operating in all human bodies, the structures are sufficiently diverse [that] the sum total of all the reactions taking place in one individual's body may be very different from those taking place in the body of another individual of the same age, sex, and body size."

His observations led Dr. Williams to theorize that each individual also had unique nutritional needs, and that determining and meeting those needs would help combat disease.

Although written in academic language, Biochemical Individuality is of interest all readers who recognize "there is no such thing as a truly 'normal' individual" and that people have "unique biochemical profiles based upon their own genetic structure, nutrition, and environment."

Roger Williams was a professor of Medicine at the University of Texas - Austin, who wrote this book about the differences that pathologists and other doctors routinely find in human beings.

Unless you have a rather uncommon interest in anatomical or biochemical trivia, the literal contents of this book will probably not interest you. After all, how many people are interested by how many different stomach shapes there are, and how common they are? But if you are -at all- interested by medicine, and the more philosophical questions that medicine raises, the implications of the contents of this book will probably be of great interest to you, and quite likely prompt you to reconsider some of your beliefs and understanding of medicine.

Williams' exhaustive lists of all the differences in the human body is in stark contradiction to the reductionistic medical thinking, where diseases are often diagnosed by checklist-based symptom clusters and then treated with one size fits all "blockbuster" drugs. After having read, perhaps at times even slogged through, all the differences that Williams lists, you are left with no room to doubt that the differences among human beings are so great that medicine ought to be geared towards noting the differences among humans, and devising individualized treatment regimens that take advantage of these differences, rather than forcing human beings into "one size fits all" "production line" medicine, as often happens when medicine is reduced to standardized treatment algorithms that (sometimes) flowchart into one of a handful of "blockbuster" medications, based on studies reported by researchers oftentimes wearing the rosiest of sunglasses. If you base an endeavor on flawed or inadequate premises, the results of your efforts can only transcend these flaws through serendipitous (and unlikely) errors.

Medicine, as Hippocrates already wrote, is ultimately an art, and not a science; this book provides a timely and useful reminder of this fact of life to anyone with a true interest in or passion for medicine. Heartily recommended.

This is one of the most important books written in the history of nutrition. A must for everyone who wants to appreciate how one diet, one supplement regime, and one food pyramid do not fit all. We all have greatly differing needs, and Dr. Williams documents all of this eloquently and convincingly. This book should be read by everyone who cares about their health. It will make them realize that only when they understand their individual nutrition needs and meet them can they have optimal health. Thank you, Keats, for reprinting this timeless book!