Lone Star ReviewsMichelle Newby, NBCC,
Contributing Editor
Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers
Hardcover, 978-1-5344-0896-8 (also available as an e-book and audio-book), 400 pgs., $17.99
March 27, 2018
Penny is eighteen, beginning her freshman year at UT Austin. She’s funny, smart, and curious (in both senses of that word). She’s an anxious introvert who “would rather eat a pound of hair than reveal her true emotions,” highly organized, and a bit of a germaphobe. Penny, “living in books until the exciting part of her life could begin,” can’t wait to get away from her mother and her hometown boyfriend and begin her life as a science-fiction writer.
Sam is twenty-one with “irresponsible hair,” managing the Coffee House where he’s famous for his mad baking skills. He wants to be a documentary filmmaker but had to drop out of college because he couldn’t afford it. A bit adrift, Sam is lonely, lives on a mattress upstairs at the coffee shop, trying to remain sober in the face of despair and “gutted” by a broken heart. Penny discovers Sam as he’s in the middle of a panic attack on 6th Street (“a Disneyland Main Street for day drinkers”), and they exchange phone numbers in case of emergency. >>READ MORE
Crown Publishing Group
Hardcover, 978-0-8041-3800-0 (also available as an e-book and audio-book), 336 pgs., $27.00
August 7, 2018
“The medical and engineering professions were like a couple who were profoundly ill-suited for each other but determined to work together for the sake of the children.”
Heart disease is the number one killer on the planet. It is the leading cause of death of both men and women in the United States, killing approximately 610,000 people in 2017 — one in every four deaths. Approximately twenty-six million Americans have heart disease; 2,150 of them die each day, an average of one death every forty seconds. The solution of choice is a heart transplant, but in any given year there are 2,500 hearts available for 50,000 patients on the waiting list. These are bad odds; and “the person who comes up with a way to replace a failing heart with an artificial one will save countless lives and change the future of humankind.” We are talking another Louis Pasteur, Jonas Salk, or Marie Curie. And, of course, whoever crosses the finish line first will become wealthy beyond most people’s wildest dreams.
Ticker: The Quest to Create an Artificial Heart is the second book from Texas journalist royalty Mimi Swartz. Texans have read her work for decades in Texas Monthly, where she is an executive editor. Swartz’s National Magazine Award–winning work appears in the New Yorker, Vanity Fair, Esquire, Slate, and the New York Times. In Ticker, she has impeccably woven science, history, biography, and engineering to create an improbably true account of cardiology’s pursuit of medicine’s Holy Grail — a fully implantable artificial heart. >>READ MORE
AUTOBIOGRAPHY
Bill Sarpalius, with foreword by Bill Hobby
The Grand Duke from Boys Ranch
Texas A&M University Press
Hardcover, 978-1-62349-657-9 (ebook also available), 336 pages, $34.95; April 2018
Under normal circumstances, it’s hard to get elected to the United States Congress.
Bill Sarpalius, who represented the Texas 13th Congressional District from 1989 to 1995, started out in life well behind almost all others who have served in the U.S. House. The tagline for Sarpalius’s new autobiography states simply: “From homeless to Congress….” Yet, as this ably written and informative book makes clear, his journey to Capitol Hill actually was long, convoluted, and tough.
As a small child in the Houston area, he had polio. Then his father abandoned his mother and left her penniless with three young children to raise. Sarpalius’s mother became an alcoholic and substance abuser who repeatedly tried to kill herself. But Honey, as her kids knew her, also tried to take care of her family, even when they were homeless or living illegally in abandoned houses. Sometimes, she managed to sober up and work. Other times, Bill, her oldest son, dug food out of trash cans to help his brothers survive. At one point before he was a teen, Sarpalius had two paper routes, and that was his family’s sole income. >>READ MORE
Texas ReadsGlenn Dromgoole
>> archive
Author ranks top 50 Dallas Cowboys players
Fans of the Dallas Cowboys can have fun reading — and debating — The 50 Greatest Players in Dallas Cowboys History by Robert W. Cohen (Lone Star Books, $24.95 hardcover).
Cohen, who has written several sports collections of the fifty-best variety, ranks the Cowboys from 1 to 50 and then adds fifty more honorable mention selections for a 424-page retrospective on the team’s greatest stars.
Number 1? Roger Staubach.
Number 100? Duane Thomas.
In between, Cohen’s top 10 includes Bob Lilly, Emmitt Smith, Randy White, Michael Irvin, Larry Allen, Mel Renfro, Troy Aikman, Tony Dorsett, and Jason Witten.
Bob Hayes came in at 20, Tony Romo at 25, Don Meredith at 40, special teams standout Bill Bates at 48.
Each of the top fifty selections receives a six or seven page spread, including a biography, career highlights, and notable achievements. Cohen also offers his all-time Cowboy offensive and defensive teams, position by position. Plenty to read, and argue about.
Super Bowl MVP: Philadelphia Eagles quarterback Nick Foles, who played his high school football in Texas, writes about the highs and lows of his pro football career in a spiritual autobiography, Believe It: My Journey of Success, Failure, and Overcoming the Odds (Tyndale Momentum, $26.99 hardcover)
Foles enjoyed early success with the Eagles before being traded to the St. Louis Rams. After a bad year in St. Louis, he nearly quit the game but came back as a backup quarterback and eventually took the Eagles to their first Super Bowl championship.
Foles, a devout Christian who is taking seminary courses online, writes, “Now that God has placed me in a position of influence, I want to share my own journey — warts and all — with people. I love football, but football isn’t my first love. God is, then my family. Football comes after that. And because I have that perspective, I’m a much better player than I was before.”
By the way, another 2017 pro quarterback hero from Texas — Abilene’s Case Keenum (The Minnesota Miracle) shares his story of faith, family and football in an upcoming book, Playing for More, due for release on Sept. 4. I’ve read an advance reader copy and it’s very inspiring. More on that later.
Cowboy Barbecue: Fire & Smoke from the Original Texas Vaqueros by Adrian Davila (with Ann Volkwein) is a cookbook as well as a celebration of his family’s history through Davila’s BBQ in Seguin (The Countryman Press, $24.95 paperback).
Before getting to the recipes, Davila offers a chapter on cooking techniques, including “smoking meat the Davila way.” Davila’s recipes get right to the main ingredient — meat — to start with, followed by sections on tacos and tamales, soups and chilis, vegetables and sides, tortillas and breads, and sauces and salsas.
Meat recipes include mesquite brisket, smoked beef tongue, beef jerky, whole pig asado style, smoked pulled pork, tinga de pollo, brined and smoked whole turkey, smoked fresh oysters, and glazed barbecued salmon, to mention just a few.
* * * * *
Glenn Dromgoole writes about Texas books and authors. Contact him at g.dromgoole@suddenlink.net.
>> Check out his previous Texas Reads columns in Lone Star Literary Life
10th annual Texas Teen Book Festival author lineup announced
Thirty-six YA authors will be featured at the tenth annual Texas Teen Book Festival (TTBF) on the campus of St. Edward’s University in Austin on Saturday, October 6, 2018. The lineup includes Ebony Adams, PhD (History vs Women: The Defiant Lives That They Don’t Want You to Know), Adib Khorram (Darius the Great Is Not Okay), David Levithan (Someday), Samantha Mabry (All the Wind in the World), and Lilliam Rivera (The Education of Margot Sánchez).
The keynote speakers this year are Nic Stone and Neal and Jarrod Shusterman. >>READ MORE
Twig’s Top Ten Bestsellers
July 2018
What are Texans reading these days, you ask? Lone Star Lit’s newest regular feature is a monthly list of trending titles at the Twig Book Shop, a leading independent bookseller in San Antonio. Click on any title for the Buy link. And we’ll also include a hotlink to related content in Lone Star Literary Life.
Lawrence Wright, God Save Texas, 978-0-525520108
Shari Lapena,The Couple Next Door, 978-0-735221109
Neil GaimanNorse Mythology 978-0-393356182
Andrew Sean Greer,Less, 978-0316316132
HBR’s 10 Must Reads on Mental Toughness, 978-1633694361
Margaret Atwood,The Handmaid’s Tale , 978-0385490818
Jen SinceroYou Are a Badass: How to Stop Doubting Your Greatness and Start Living an Awesome Life 978-0762490547
George Saunders,Lincoln in the Bardo, 978-0-812985405
Rupi Kaur,The Sun and Her Flowers, 978-1449486792
HBR’s 10 Must Reads on Emotional Intelligence (Hbr’s 10 Must Reads) 9781633690196
LONE STAR CLASSIFIED LISTINGS
FEATURED: PRIZE COMPETITIONS
6.3.18 The 2018 Julia Darling Memorial Poetry Prize
A prize of $750.00 and publication in The Ocotillo Review Winter 2019 will be awarded for a poem of up to 65 lines. Carrie Fountain will judge. Revenue generated will be donated to cancer research. Details: www.kallistogaiapress.org
6.3.18 The 2018 Chester B. Himes Memorial Short Fiction Prize
A prize of $750.00 and publication in The Ocotillo Review Winter 2019 will be awarded for a short story up to 4,200 words. Antonio Ruiz-Camacho will judge. Revenue generated will be donated to Parkinson’s research. Details: www.kallistogaiapress.org
>>READ MORE CLASSIFIED LISTINGS
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RECENTLY ON TOUR: FICTION
The Edge of Over There by Shawn Smucker
COMING IN AUGUST
The Hope of Azure Springs by Rachel Fordham, August 4–5
That One Moment by Patty Wiseman, August 14–23
Justice Betrayed by Patricia Bradley, August 15–22
The Grand Duke from Boys Ranch by Bill Sarpalius, August 21–30
The Theory of Happily Ever After by Kristin Billerbeck, August 22–31
Lone Star Literary Life Facts and FAQs
• Event and resource list policies
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2018 Kids’ Summer Reading NEW BOOKS ADDED!
sponsored by Blue Wilow Bookshop
From read-to-me books to early readers, chapter books to middle readers to YA, you’ll find these terrific new titles at your neighborhood bookshop or online. >>READ MORE
WHAT TEXANS ARE READING
LONE STAR LISTENS interviews >> archive
Author interviews by Lone Star Lit staff
8.5.2018 Dr. Norma E. Cantu waxes philosophical on life stories and new projects during the dog days of summer
Texas — and the rest of the nation and world — is undergoing a rich resurgence of literature in all genres by Latino/Latina writers. One major contributor to this renaissance is Dr. Norma E. Cantú, who has written eloquently from creative and academic perspectives. She shares her long view with us during the “dog days” when the stars of Canis Major dominate the summer skies and professors take time to reflect before a new teaching year begins.
LONE STAR LITERARY LIFE: Dr. Cantú, you published Canícula: Snapshots of a Girlhood en la Frontera in 1995, and it won the Premio Aztlán Literary Prize from the National Hispanic Cultural Center. You’ve referred to Canícula as a “fictionalized memoir” and an ethnography about your childhood in South Texas. Please tell us about Canícula and the 2015 update.
DR. NORM E. CANTÚ: I wrote Canícula in the summer of 1993 in Albuquerque during a break from teaching at what is now Texas A&M International University, where I taught English from 1980 to 2000. It was a watershed moment for me as I gathered pieces I had been writing all along. My intent that summer was to finish a book on the matachines tradition, but instead the stories of my childhood nudged their way in. Working on a rental computer—we had no laptops back then—I worked nonstop day and night taking brief breaks to walk to Old Town for a breakfast taco and to pick up some fruit for my evening meal. I published a few pieces in what was then the Texas Humanist, a publication of the Texas Committee for the Humanities, so I suppose I reverted to that format and structure out of habit, for I had been working with photographs as an exercise for my students. In 2010, I held a literary quinceañera for the book and in 2015 published a twentieth anniversary edition with added photos and stories.
If you could dive through a wormhole in the space-time continuum, what advice and inspiration would you offer the child Norma as she weathers the dog days?
The child Norma spent the lazy days of the canícula in a four-room frame house in Laredo, Texas, where the dog days are particularly brutal. She would scavenge the local dump, or cascajera, with her siblings and neighbors in the morning when it was not so hot and spent the afternoon playing with the treasures they found and telling stories, making up fantastic tales. >>READ MORE
Texas’s only statewide, weekly calendar of book events
Bookish Texas event highlights 8.5.2018>> GO this weekMichelle Newby, Contributing Editor
SPECIAL EVENTS THIS WEEK
- Harry Potter LeakyCon, Dallas, August 10-12
- Texas Sports Hall of Fame 2nd Annual Book Festival, Waco, August 11
- 3rd Annual Literary Libations Week: a Lit Crawl Austin fundraiser, Austin, August 12-15
Ongoing Exhibits
- Oliver Jeffers: 15 Years of Picturing Books, Abilene, June 7-September 30
HOUSTON Mon., Aug. 6 Brazos Bookstore, Michael Arceneaux – I CAN’T DATE JESUS, 7PM
HOUSTON Tues., Aug. 7 Houston Public Library, Mimi Swartz discussing her latest book, Ticker: The Quest to Create an Artificial Heart (in conversation with Maggie Galehouse), 6:30PM
ALSO READING IN AUSTIN Wed., Aug. 8 BookPeople, 7PM
ALSO READING IN SAN ANTONIO Thurs., Aug. 9 The Twig Book Shop, 5PM
SAN ANTONIO Tues., Aug. 7 The Twig Book Shop, Dr. Ed Dramberger discussing and signing The Destination Diaries: How to Travel For Life, 5PM
AUSTIN Thurs., Aug. 9 BookPeople, COLLEEN HOOVER speaking & signing All Your Perfects (moderated by blogger Vilma Iris Gonzalez), 7PM [ticketed event]
HOUSTON Thurs.., August 9 Brazos Bookstore, Ben Koush presents CONSTRUCTING HOUSTON’S FUTURE, 7PM
DALLAS Fri., August 10 Half Price Books – Mother Ship, meet New York Times bestselling paranormal fiction author Laurell K. Hamilton and pick up your signed copy of the new Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter novel, Serpentine, 7PM
FORT WORTH Sat., August 11 Fort Worth Community Arts Center, Art House Dallas Awaken Creativity writers workshop with Kimberly Willis Holt, 9AM
GALVENSTON Sat., August 11 Galveston Bookshop, Frontier Forts of Texas (Images of America) book signing with Bill O’Neal, 2PM
HOUSTON Sat., August 11 B&N – River Oaks, special story time event with Astronaut Clayton Anderson, which will include a reading of A is for Astronaut, a Q&A event for aspiring future astronauts, and a book signing to follow, 11AM
HOUSTON Sat., August 11 Blue Willow Bookshop, Brian Smith will discuss and sign his book LIFTOFF!: THE TANK, THE STORM, AND THE ASTROS’ IMPROBABLE ASCENT TO BASEBALL IMMORTALITY, 3PM
News Briefs 8.5.18
TBF’s Literary Libations celebration begins August 12
The Texas Book Festival’s (TBF) Literary Libations celebration, an annual event benefiting Lit Crawl Austin, will be held August 12–15, 2018. TBF and its partners plan three art and culture events around Austin. This year’s partners are the Austin Film Society, American Short Fiction, and Chicon Street Poets. >>READ MORE
Inprint Houston announces 2018–19 authors for its Margarett Root Brown Reading Series
On Monday, July 23, Houston’s creative writing organization Inprint announced authors for its Margarett Root Brown Reading Series’ 2018–19 season during a special happy hour at Night Heron.
The new season kicks off September 24 with Esi Edugyan, author of Half-Blood Blues, which was short-listed for the Man Booker Prize, and Meg Wolitzer, whose newest New York Times best-selling novel is The Female Persuasion.
Inprint will also present two events in its Cool Brains! Series for younger readers. Sylvia Acevedo, Girl Scouts of the USA CEO and a rocket scientist, will read from her memoir, Path to the Stars, on September 16 at the Meyerland Performing and Visual Arts Middle School. Newbery Honor winner Jason Reynolds will read from Lu, (Track Book 4) on November 4. >>READ MORE
4th Annual Permian Basin Writers’ Workshop set for Oct. 13-14
Now in its fourth year, the Permian Basin Writers’ Workshop annual event will feature writing coaches, agents, and publishers from around the country, October 13-14, 2018.
The two-day workshop event will be held in Midland, at the Marie Hall Academic Building at Midland College.
The workshop will feature ten speakers, including Margie Lawson, Christie Craig, Manning Wolfe, David Farland, Reavis Z. Wortham, Kristen Marten, Stephen Graham Jones, Donna M. Johnson, B. Alan Bourgeois and Arlene Gale. >>READ MORE
Texas Sports Hall of Fame to hold second annual Book Festival August 11
WACO — The Texas Sports Hall of Fame has announced its second annual book festival for August 11, 2018, starting at 10 a.m.
Presented by Waco City Cable Channel, the festival will feature authors and athletes from across the state. A limited number of VIP tickets are available (email jay.black@tshof.org to reserve). VIP ticket holders are entitled to preferred seating and signed book drawings.
Featured authors include:
• John A. Wood, Beyond the Ballpark: The Honorable, Immoral, and Eccentric Lives of Baseball Legends (Rowman & Littlefield)
• Michael Hurd, Thursday Night Lights: The Story of Black High School Football in Texas (University of Texas Press)
• T.G. Webb, Battle of the Brazos: A Texas Football Rivalry, A Riot and a Murder (Texas A&M University Press)
• Chad Conine, Texas Sports: Unforgettable Stories for Every Day of the Year (University of Texas Press)
• Jon Peters, When Life Grabs You by the Baseballs: Finding Happiness in Life’s Changeups (Author Academy Elite)
• Dr. Jorge Iber, More Than Just Peloteros: Sport and U.S. Latino Communities (Texas Tech University Press)
————— A D V E R T I S E M E N T —————
Lone Star Listens compilation available summer 2018, for readers, fans, and writers everywhere
The present generation of Texas authors is the most diverse ever in gender, age, and ethnicity, and in subject matter as well.
Week in, week out, Lone Star Literary has interviewed a range of Texas-related authors with a cross-section of genre and geography. To capture this era in Texas letters, we’re pleased to bring you
Lone Star Listens:
Texas Authors on Writing and Publishing
edited by Kay Ellington and Barbara Brannon; introduction by Clay Reynolds
Available in trade paper, library hardcover, and ebook Summer 2018
360 pages, with b/w illustrations and index
Featuring novelists, poets, memoirists, editors, and publishers, including:
Rachel Caine • Chris Cander • Katherine Center • Chad S. Conine • Sarah Cortez • Elizabeth Crook • Nan Cuba • Carol Dawson • Patrick Dearen • Jim Donovan • Mac Engel • Sanderia Faye • Carlos Nicolás Flores • Ben Fountain • Jeff Guinn • Stephen Harrigan • Cliff Hudder • Stephen Graham Jones • Kathleen Kent • Joe R. Lansdale • Melissa Lenhardt • Attica Locke • Nikki Loftin • Thomas McNeely • Leila Meacham • John Pipkin • Joyce Gibson Roach • Antonio Ruiz-Camacho • Lisa Sandlin • Donna Snyder • Mary Helen Specht • Jodi Thomas • Amanda Eyre Ward • Ann Weisgarber • Donald Mace Williams
As a collection of insights into the writing and publishing life, the book will be useful in creative writing classes (not just in Texas alone) and other teaching settings, as well as for solo reading and study—and a great Texas reference volume.
- Examination and review copies will be available fall 2017 in watermarked pdf format.
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