Texas ReadsGlenn Dromgoole
>> archiveStep-mom offers hope to blended families
Kristie Carpenter, author of The Blended Family Mom, has written a follow-up book, Blended Mom Moments: Weekly Inspiration and Encouragement for You and Your Blended Family (Tate Publishing, $14.99 paperback).
The 52 short essays (two to four pages each) deal with practical day-to-day matters facing step-mothers. “Each of these blended mom moments,” Carpenter writes, “grew out of experiences in a real-life blended family, one far from perfect and one that continues to grow in love and action.”
Carpenter cites scriptural references in each piece, such as this one titled “Back to the Basics of Love.”: “If you want to know about flowers,” she writes, “you go talk to a florist. If you want to learn about cars, you could get to know a mechanic. If you want to find out everything there is to learn about love, refer to 1 Corinthians 13: 4-8.”
Read more at her web site, theblendedfamilymom.com.
Horatio Hammer: Keith Pantalion, who teaches sixth grade math in Allen, sent me a copy of his rollicking tale, Horatio Hammer and the Pearl of Providence, intended for boys in the fourth to seventh grade (CreateSpace, $9.99 paperback, also an e-book). To give you a flavor for the book: “When Horatio Hammer’s head is plunged into a restroom toilet and flushed, he is transported to another world and must fight his way back home.”
Read more at facebook.com/horatio.hammer.
Hispanic Authors: Arte Público Press, based at the University of Houston, is a major publisher of contemporary U.S. Hispanic authors. Its imprint, Piñata Books, publishes titles for children and young adults.
New from the press is a collection of tweny-nine essays by Carmen Boullosa with the provocative title When Mexico Recaptures Texas ($17.95 paperback). The essays are presented in Spanish, with English translations, and deal primarily with the violent history in the border region.
Rolando Hinojosa’s Fair Gentlemen of Belken County, the fourth book in his Klail City Death Trip Series, is available in a new bilingual edition ($17.95 paperback). It was published initially in 1986. Hinojosa is a National Book Critics Circle Lifetime Achievement honoree.
San Antonio author Xavier Garza has written The Donkey Lady Fights La Llorona and Other Stories, a collection of creepy tales about witches, ghosts and other spooky characters, intended for young readers 8-12 (Piñata Books, $9.95 paperback).
Read about more Arte Público titles at artepublicopress.com.
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Glenn Dromgoole is co-author, with Carlton Stowers, of 101 Essential Texas Books Contact him at g.dromgoole@suddenlink.net.
>> Check out his previous Texas Reads columns in Lone Star Lit
Lone Star Literary Life to introduce new features, crowdfunding in celebration of first anniversary Feb. 2
On February 2, 2015, Lone Star Literary Life published its first issue of Texas’s only comprehensive statewide books-news coverage. We launched on Groundhog Day with a robust subscriber list of Texas booksellers, publishers, libraries, authors, and, most important of all, readers.
We pledged to deliver thoughtful reviews of new Texas books, first-person profiles and interviews of Texas authors, news and coverage of awards, festivals, and author tours, and the state’s only full calendar of book events — every week. And we’ve done so for almost 52 weeks now, bringing readers, writers, publishers, publicists, and librarians the latest in bookish Texas news and information.
We’re supported by advertising, providing a guaranteed vehicle to promote Texas-related books. And in our first year, we introduced such popular features as Lone Star Book Blog Tours, author podcasts, and Top Texas Bookish Destinations, which present editorial content around which publishers, booksellers, and authors can build paid campaigns.
We’ve got even bigger plans in store for 2016. Stay tuned over the next few weeks. And watch for details on our Indiegogo campaign — to learn how you can help Lone Star Lit grow and also earn unique perks.
Make a note of our hashtag: #LoneStarLit2016
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Bright Sky Press
Hardcover, 978-1-939055-91-0, 295 pgs., $24.95
November 4, 2015
Mica Mosbacher’s husband Robert, oilman and former United States Secretary of Commerce, died of pancreatic cancer in 2010. Newly widowed and casting about for purpose to get her through, she found inspiration in Godstone Ranch Motorsports, an organization involved in Formula One racing for charity. Because there is no “Widowhood for Dummies book,” Mosbacher attempts to fill that void. Employing an auto racing metaphor, she provides guidance through “widow’s fog.”
A handsome and well-designed volume, Racing Forward: Faith, Love and Triumph Over Loss is Mica Mosbacher’s memoir that addresses the many varieties of loss — death, “break-ups, divorce, injury, disabilities, illness, friendships and careers, even a loss of innocence” — and how loss may be worked through, learned from, and, finally, moved past, a process she terms “grieving forward.” >>READ MORE
Simon & Schuster
Ebook, 978-1-4391-9124-8 (also available in hardcover and as an audio book), 480 pgs., $14.99
October 27, 2015
Claudia Alta “Lady Bird” Taylor and Lyndon Baines Johnson met in the Texas Railroad Commission Office in September of 1934. He proposed the next day and they eloped two months later. Lady Bird, the independent, determined, business-minded offspring of a jaw-droppingly dysfunctional marriage, needed a vehicle, as a woman in Texas during the Great Depression, to “let her deploy her ambition” and decided Lyndon was that man.
In Lady Bird and Lyndon: The Hidden Story of a Marriage That Made a President Betty Boyd Caroli makes a convincing case that Lady Bird was certainly not the timid wallflower as she is so often portrayed in biographies of President Lyndon Johnson, but rather a “girl [who] gradually became a figure of steel cloaked in velvet,” who transformed herself into the “model political wife” and an example for future first ladies. >>READ MORE
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