Owens Books

Great way to learn about the Diaconate and its growing place in the world of ministry.

These are Owen Wister's first western stories, written for Harpers Monthly in 1894-95, and published together under the title "Red Men and White" in 1896. Lovers of his novel "The Virginian" will recognize some of his themes in this collection and an early version of The Virginian himself in the character of Specimen Jones, who appears in three of the stories, first as a drifter and prospector, then as a soldier in the U.S. Army.

The Easterner who narrates much of "The Virginian" appears here, too, in a long story that takes him on a journey across Arizona in the rough, disreputable days before statehood. Wister's concern for the American character, which he finds much eroded among civilians in the West, crops up in this story, "A Pilgrim on the Gila." By contrast, we see his sympathy for young men on the wrong side of the law, only after it has been first lampooned in the satiric "The Serenade at Siskiyou," where the genteel ladies of the town attempt to lighten the hearts of two prisoners held for murder.

That story also explores the tensions between men and women in a frontier world where gender roles are rigidly different. This and one other story concern themselves with the occurrence of lynching alleged lawbreakers. Both of these themes emerge again dramatically in "The Virginian."

Many stories reflect Wister's respect for the disciplined men of the American Army on the frontier. Meanwhile, Indians figure in two stories: "Little Big Horn Medicine" and "The General's Bluff." The title story, "Salvation Gap," is a mining camp melodrama, involving the murder of a woman and the hanging of her lover. "La Tinaja Bonita" is a long story in a similar vein, involving a man's long journey across an arid Arizona desert, driven by jealous love and ending in death. Finally, "The Second Missouri Compromise" tells a humorous story of unreconstructed Southern politicians at odds with the Territorial Governor and his Treasurer, both northerners, in Boise, Idaho.

Wister was already a good storyteller in these early pieces, capturing in vivid detail the western terrain and the mostly squalid life of frontier towns and mining camps. While fascinated by the West, he does not romanticize it. He observes the excesses of unbridled independence there, while lamenting the absence of good sense and ethics among Easterners, especially politicians in Washington. He sees glimpses of character in a few men, mostly in uniform, and they will come together finally in the shining example of The Virginian some half dozen years later.

Title: Scientific genius and creativity : readings from Scientific American / with an introduction by Owen Gingerich.
Publisher: New York : W.H. Freeman, [1987], c1982.
Edition Date: 1987
Language: English
Notes: Includes index.
Physical Details: 110 p. : ill. (some col.) ; 28 cm.
Other Authors: Gingerich, Owen.
Other Titles: Scientific American.
Subjects: Scientists--Biography.
Creative ability in science.

This was a gift from a friend, eventually I picked it up to take a look at it. I never put it down for three hours, it is a great story. The author has done a fantastic job of pulling in the reader and painting a picture. This should be turned into a film you can picture the scenes as you read it. Plenty of action and adventure to submerse yourself into. A great book and new original storyline.
I hope to see more from the author.

Recalling a northeast Texas Baptist revival, William A. Owens takes us with him to the sawdust-floored tent where a missionary revivalist is leading the congregation in the old hymn "I Shall Not Be Moved." As the music ends, an old woman observes with conviction, "That song sure gits to the gizzard!" (I suspect that the adverb sounded more like "shawr" than "sure," and "gits" is exactly how she would have pronounced the verb.) In the spirit of that unnamed woman from early-twentieth century Lamar County, Texas, may I say that A SEASON OF WEATHERING is one book that "sure gits to the gizzard"?

Taking up the author's life where it was left at the end of the first autobiographical book, THIS STUBBORN SOIL, this book shows us a young man entering his second decade with many of the same struggles that we witnessed in the first--continuing his education and finding a job. In the chaotic, often-interrupted process, Owens is also trying to "find himself," that is, to find out what direction he should go, what goals he should set, what purpose he should make of his life. Recall from the first book that Owens' young life so far has been formed by hoeing fields, picking cotton, and going from one poor one- or two-room country school to another as his fatherless family moves here and there trying to find work. He has never been formally educated beyond the seventh grade. He has never had the benefit of a guidance counselor and has never heard of such a thing as a vocational aptitude test. He knows from experience only that farming on shares (i.e., giving most of one's crop to the land owner as rent for the fields) remains a path to poverty and, at times, near starvation. So, when I use the phrase "trying to find himself," I am essentially speaking of physical and spiritual survival, not of social status or of self-gratification.

During these years of confusion and desperation, Owens encounters the powerful call of fundamentalist religion. Having neither the education nor the experience to recognize the pervasive influence of superstition among the ignorant country folk such as himself, Owens falls, for a time, under the influence of local Baptists. His book gives us a frighteningly vivid picture of the unbending, strict, and oppressive nature of a doctrine that evolved more from ignorance than from theology. The specter of an innocent girl brought to ecclesiastical trial for the heinous crime of merely observing other young persons dancing tells more about the nature of such people than any mere description of their callousness could accomplish.

Owens wanted to be a country teacher, but, to get a teaching certificate in 1920's Texas, one needed to finish high school. To do that, he would have to go to a college that offered high school completion courses. To continue school, he needed money. To get money, he had to interrupt his schooling frequently to seek work in the fields or in the stock rooms of retail or mail-order stores. This cycle, where the necessities of life stood squarely in the way of achieving any sort of goal for bettering oneself, seemed unbreakable.

To make matters worse, the Great Depression was making itself felt even in the rural fields and along the rutted dirt-and-mud roads of northeast Texas. Jobs were scarce and never permanent. How can one worry about tuition for school when there's not enough food for supper?

Owens has not written a "Horatio Alger story." In the real life of which Owens writes, hard work and clean living do not necessarily reap any sort of reward. His is a story of hardship and of failure as often as it is of success. In fact, the failures often seem to outweigh the successes. Yet we know from Owens' later life that he will finally succeed. Somehow he will break the link that holds him to the impoverished and uneducated society into which he was born. We know that he will eventually escape from the cotton fields and the stock rooms into literature and into the ranks of academe. But that does not happen in this book.

The shining success of A SEASON OF WEATHERING is the detailed portrait that it paints of the society, the culture, the economy, the pervasive fundamentalism, the racism, and the struggle for survival that characterized the "working poor" (to use a twenty-first century phrase) in the early decades of the previous century in America's Southland. Having more recently come from that area of the country myself, I can also attest that many characteristics of that society and culture persist yet today in only slightly modified form, so the book remains more contemporary than one might suppose.

Offering a recommendation as to who would receive the greatest benefit from reading this book is difficult because it touches on so many areas of interest: sociology, poverty, country education in early 20th century America, fundamentalist religion, regional history of northeast Texas, the history of Lamar County and of Paris Junior College, and even a bit of folk dancing. The book is certainly worth searching out from used and out-of-print book dealers, but experience it after having first read THIS STUBBORN SOIL, for the two books are inextricably linked and should be perused in their chronological order.

To conclude with a "teaser," everyone will love the story of the gift of a reproduction Greek statue of male wrestlers to the new Paris Junior College. Talk about grist for preachers' sermons!

Anyone with a passing interest in writing or soldiery should read this book. Owen's passions, ambitions, times, the arc of his life, they're all here. Biographers analyze, novelists rearrange for dramatic impact, Owen wrote for no public audience and yet these letters beat them all. The equal of Keats' letters on poetry. Underappreciated and miraculous.

This is the best book written on the Oakes murder mystery.
The fascinating story has been the subject of endless trashy novels written by aspiring writers with no talent.
Finally an author who has researched the subject and covers the story and times from different angles and perspectives.
An excellent combination murder mystery and social history of a bygone era.

This book with it's poem called "Stepchild" and short story called the "The Girl" was one of the defining books of my youth. I found it at a book sale in the cheap bin and it was really a hidden treasure. While not all the stories are great the ones that are make an impression that lasts a lifetime.

This book with it's poem called "Stepchild" and short story called the "The Girl" was one of the defining books of my youth. I found it at a book sale in the cheap bin and it was really a hidden treasure. While not all the stories are great the ones that are make an impression that lasts a lifetime.

I've never read a Chris Owen book I didn't love, and SHADY RIDGE & NEON SKY is no exception. Hank is quiet and tough, Charlie is big and cuddly, and together they make a scorching hot couple.

The sex in this book is out of this world. The first sex scenes are between Hank and the guys of his "relaxation team" that he visits twice a year. The rest of the scenes are between Hank and Charlie, and they sizzle. These big switch-hitting alpha cops enjoy lots of rough, sweaty sex...whew. Sit in front of a fan while reading this.

This is a fun, sexy read. Like in all of Ms. Owen's books, there's an actual plot. The story revolves around Hank and Charlie exploring their sexual attraction for each other, dealing with the pressures of a co-worker relationship, enjoying each other in and out of uniform, and falling in love along the way. Best of all, it's a Chris Owen romance, so you can count on a great balance of sex and emotion and a guaranteed HEA.

This is fantastic rainy day entertainment. I read it just after a string of real stinkers, and it restored my faith in M/M romance authors. Worth every cent.