Texas Books

The author never jumps to conclusions, but slowly, gathering the clues to lay out a history of the Mayan calendar. It is up to you to decide whether his logic is correct, I could not find any flaws. As the book goes you pick up plenty of astronomical, geographical and historical facts. Very engaging.
The book has gone out of print, but is now posted in a digital format on the author's website. Still it is sad that it did not get wider attention.

Vincent Malmstrom has written a wonderfully entertaining book stuffed full of facts on the Mesoamerican systems of calendrical accounting. I had no idea the history of their calendars went so far back, nor that they were so widely used by such a great number of civilizations. His theories fill in where the facts leave off, as most studies on ancient cultures must, and the facts support his hypotheses. Malmstrom's theories on the origin of the calendar are quite different in some aspects than those of scholars before him -- one major difference is that he does not believe the Olmec developed the calendar. I don't want to ruin any surprises for a reader -- and there are some for those who accept the commonly supported theories of the Olmec as the "father" of all subsequent Mesoamerican civilizations -- so I will stop with just one more comment: If you have any interest in Mesoamerica or the cultures of the Zoque, Olmec, Zapotec, Maya, Mixtec, Toltec or Aztec, GET THIS BOOK!

this was a gift for a friend of mine....book was in excellent shape and had shrink wrap around it

I gave this book as a gift. Dave is a fanatical Dallas Cowboy fan and he takes this with him where ever he goes. His wife says it has become his new bible for Cowboy trivia

As a 25 year resident of the Dallas Fort Worth Metroplex, I must say this man knows his stuff. His ratings of the restaurants are dead on and his discriptions of the cities is not only factual but also amusing. There are things he found I didn't know about and are dying to check out. This is a must read for anyone who wants to know some little known facts about this great metroplex.

As a 25 year resident of the Dallas Fort Worth Metroplex, I must say this man knows his stuff. His ratings of the restaurants are dead on and his discriptions of the cities is not only factual but also amusing. There are things he found I didn't know about and are dying to check out. This is a must read for anyone who wants to know some little known facts about this great metroplex.

A Dark Night In Texas is based in a small but real town in Texas. The places featured in the book are real but the story IS NOT. Just so you know.
Ranger O'Malley is called out to investagate a death and finds out that it is an old friend. As Ranger O'Malley searches the death of Jack Weatherby, he grows in love with Jack's kid sister, Sara. Read the book and find out if you can solve the murder before Ranger O'Malley does. But beleive me it is a great book.

Great characters in this book. Very suspenseful. An ending I totally did not expect! I would love to see Ranger O'Malley continue in other stories!

With so much publishing money funneled into Chick Lit and the next mass market success, it is more than just a little refreshing to find a book of poems of such caliber. Wright, with his dark, lyrical style is the sort of poet who is the real deal. His sensibilities, reminscent of Roethke and Dickey, materialize in his masterful images and his language; while his approach to nature (especially a blue crab) is fresh and unique. His perception of the South denies the current trends of focusing on the "redneck qualities" and instead, revisits Southern landscape and relationships in a tone both comically horrific and heartbreakingly beautiful. Wright is an emerging enchanter to enjoy.

Give this book a chance, and see why the University Presses are putting out the best work right now.

It's hard to remain sedate about a book that shows such promise: I was one of the few who had access to the manuscript of William Wright's Dark Orhard before it was selected for the Texas Review Breakthrough Poetry Prize. For a first time book, Wright's poetry strikes me as masterly; he has a inherent sense of line break and meter, although most of his work is free verse. In addition, Wright's work synthesizes the sensibilities of preceding poets like Roethke, Dickey, Ammons, James Wright, Richard Hugo, and, in his more lyrically obsessive pieces, Dylan Thomas; Wright's style is definitely his own. My favorite pieces from the book include "Dreaming of My Parents," "Cruelty," "Benfield, Remembered," "Dead Dog," and "In Fear of Holiness"-- all of these poems interlace Wright's half-imagined, half-experienced childhood with interior exploration, really great stuff.

Nature and humanity coalesce in some of the best, freshest poetry that I've recently read, a welcome relief from the esoteric, propaganda fueled poetry that claims much of today's literary landscape.

Not a terribly sophisticated book, and somewhat star-struck in tone, but nevertheless a very interesting and thorough account of an early Galveston socialite.

After visiting Ashton Villa in Galveston, October 2003, I decided to learn more about its famous former inhabitant- Bettie Brown. The book was actually suggested to our group as we walked through the old house. The tour whetted my appetite, and when I finally bought the book, I devoured it in one sitting. Bettie lived a fabulous life of luxury, and was a truly modern woman. There are several pictures of Bettie and her family in the book, and of Ashton Villa which is just as important as Bettie herself. The book covers the span of Bettie's life, her family history, a very long family tree, and even the life of the house after Bettie died. The 1900 Galveston storm is a prominent event in Bettie and Ashton Villa's life, and it was very interesting to read about how it affected even the very rich way of life. I recomend this book not only as a peek into Galveston history, but also as a valuable biography of a true Texas woman.

A non-stop read. Some of the most eerie and interesting characters I've ever read. My mind wrapped around the story and wouldn't let me put it down until the end. Couldn't wait until volume 2.

Dead and Dying Angels

by James A. Mangum

The first words you read after the title page is...."Please Excuse Me, I'm Killing Myself".
It's an ominous start to this well crafted gritty "novel noir" set in the south Texas sunshine.

Jamey Maxwell, a depressed, retired custom officer lives in Dos Cruces, a hot dusty town..... "forty miles from Laredo and light years from anywhere else.....where both sides of the tracks are on the wrong side of town." He has moved to the town to get away from a downturn in his life. His wife and daughter were killed in a car wreck in Houston and Jamey believes he is at fault. He sees no reason for living.

Then strange things begin to happen in Dos Cruces....a brutal rape and murder is blamed on an innocent local and Jamey is drawn into a labyrinth of mysterious events with twist and turns reminiscent of Raymond Chandler's 1930's hard boiled detective novels. Chandler with a hint of the supernatural

The first person writing style of Dead And Dying Angels is conversational and personal.....revealing sometimes embarrassing details about the main character's life. The easy prose moves the plot along giving us plenty of backstories for character development. Jamey Maxwell is a good and ethical man to whom bad things have happened and that continue to happen. His ultimate reaction to all this is violent and we find ourselves applauding.....cheering him on while at the same time knowing that we are condoning a crime. A good writer like James Mangum can pull this off with grace and style. It's the stuff of good literature.

I put the book down after reading it in one sitting and wished I could start on the second book of the projected trilogy. Hurry up James, a lot of us are waiting.

Tim Saska
Santa Fe

Too many texas children know nothing about the heroes of our state. This is a book that every responsible parent (who call themselves Texan) should read to this little ones. Don't let the stories of people like Deaf Smith die due to the incompetence of our schools or the ignorance of our media. Take up the torch for your family yourself.

A good friend's fourth grader selected this book as a gift from me while visiting my new home. She was completely absorbed by it and stimulated to remember and relate to me the Texas history she'd studied in the past year. I read it, too, and found it a good tale, well told and well illustrated.

Compiled by true crime writer and newspaper journalist Carlton Stowers, Death In A Texas Desert is a very highly recommended anthology of seventeen crime stories taken from the pages of the Dallas Observer. These were horrific cases of notorious events that range from the search for alleged murderer Ira Einhorn, to the legacy of racist killer bobby Frank Cherry, to the last, angry days of George Hennard who opened fire in Killeen's Luby's Cafeteria killing 23 patrons. These are stories of human experience at hits darkest as exemplified by Andrea Yates who killed her five children and the impact Rusty Yates, her husband and the father of her children whose life was irrevocably shattered in a few short hours. Other stories are about missing children, a rest home murderer, and murders solved almost a century after they were committed. Through each and every story, Carlton Stowers takes his readers seriously and provides them with stories that are devoid of gossip and exaggeration as we explore the darkest sides of criminology as they played out in the lives of real people with real consequences for themselves and their communities.

I have always enjoyed Carlton Stower's books, and this is one of his best. It is a collection of true crime stories that have been published previously. The "Death in a Texas Desert" stroy is genuinely creepy. He does very good research and is a very entertaining writer.

I went to serveral book stores looking for the book I needed - to no avail. I came home and looked through the phone book to obtain book stores who might have the book I needed - to no avail. I went on line to Amazon.com and what to my wondering eyes - the book I needed. I received it in two day's time and lived happily ever after. Thank you Amazon!

This story details how people suffer and die from the repressive labor practices of pesticide-addicted agribusiness. It should give pause to people eating foods produced and harvested in places whose labor practices are known to be repressive. It should spur support for "fairly-traded" foods and also should spur investigations into the activities of agribusinesses using pesticides but probably won't because the power these corporations have over people and political systems continues to increase.

This should be considered essential reading for anyone working in the areas of public health and occupational health. It is a modern but 'classic' occupational health story, which illustrates again, that when workers are repressed, forced by economic circumstances to accept their working conditions as their employers dictate, significant health problems follow.

And the long screw of history keeps on turning...