Texas Books

A few years back, my wife Leah and I decided to swing by a ranch I once managed for my father. The ranch is located in a remote part of West Texas between the tiny town of Bakersfield and McCamey. We turned right at Bakersfield after exiting I-10 and began driving north.

A few miles up the road, I saw a large object in the distance on the left hand side of the road. As we neared the object grew in size and I noticed it was moving. Barely moving, but moving.

I pulled over when I realized that the object was human; in fact there were two humans. It's quite uncommon to see hitchhikers on this desolate stretch of highway. There's very little traffic and the country is so harsh and forbidding that a person on foot faces the very real risk of losing his life to the elements. Paul Speir stands six and a half feet tall and weighs closer to four hundred pounds than three. He had a huge backpack and sleeping gear on his back; alongside stood a young man about a third his size. Both grinned. They obviously were out of place in the Bakersfield Valley of Texas.

Fate placed us on that road at the same time. Paul told me he was a writer on a spiritual quest. I confessed that I too write and had written a book about farming and dope smuggling set in that area. As it turned out, Paul was at that very moment trying to break an addiction to marijuana.

Paul's well-written and heart-felt depiction of his trip made me laugh, but also taught me a thing or two about life from his unique perspective. We live in a time when the young teach the old. When I read how Paul arrived at that spot in the road at the same moment I did, I realized that it was more than fate that put us there; we had been moved by the hand of God.

Allow me to introduce the writer, Paul Speir. This book may be his first, but it won't be his last.

Your desires can lead you to either the road of destruction or the road to a meaningful life. A desire for the wrong thing can ultimately bring you to a life of despair. One must first have the desires for a positive life and then let them prevail over any other desires. As a young man, Paul Michael Speir had struggled between opposite forces of desires as he dealt with drug addiction; even as he fell victim to negative desires, somewhere deep inside of him desired for a good and meaningful life, and in the end, his desires for positivity fired, leading him to achieving the good. Finding Pecos is his spiritual journey from an addict to a wise man whose heart has embraced God and the treasures He has to offer. Finding Pecos is much more than a memoir, it's a journey down a promising but rugged road of a young heart whose only quest was true happiness; it's about making mistakes and learning from them, of finding the value of life and listening to one's heart. Do not be fooled by the author's easy-to-read writing style; hidden behind the simplicity are words of wisdom to gently but firmly empower other souls to find the positive and the beautiful in life just as he has. The road to the good may be the harder of the two on which to travel, but it is the only road where the traveler can reap gold. Recommended for anyone who wants a gentle hand to lead them down their own road to a spiritual transformation.
--Shirley Cheng, blind and physically disabled award-winning author and motivational speaker, [...]

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.

With many books I read, after a couple of days I cannot remember anything about them, but with Joseph Flynn's it is almost total recall for me. His characters are as quirky as Carl Haaisen's and just as endearing. I mean it when I say I can't wait for Flynn's next book.

I loved this book! It reminded me of one of my favorite authors, Carl Hiaasen, with all of its wacky characters. The hero, Laddy Johnson, who may or may not be President Lyndon Johnson's love child,is a former stuntman in Hollywood who comes back to his hometown of Gasoline, Texas, where gas sells for 25 cents a gallon, to run for mayor. He runs up against the crooks already well established in the local government and the fun begins. Throw in Laddy's former girlfriend, the famous actress Joanna Wells and the twists and turns keep you reading non-stop. I finished this book in 2 days and felt like I lost some friends when it was all done. This would be a great addition to your favorite reader's Christmas list.