Texas Reads>> archiveGlenn Dromgoole

11.6.16    Two of the hottest Texas books of the year

Two of the most talked-about Texas books this fall are Paulette Jiles’s novel News of the World, and the story of the popular couple on HGTV, Chip and Joanna Gaines from Waco. Both books were featured prominently in the October issue of Texas Monthly.

The “Fixer Upper” TV stars have written The Magnolia Story (Thomas Nelson, $26.99 hardcover) about how they met, their early years struggling to remodel and flip houses, their business successes and challenges, and of course their new life in the spotlight — all while trying to keep up with their four kids.

If you’ve seen Chip and Joanna on TV, they write pretty much like they talk (with the help of co-author Mark Dagostino).

The book is like sitting in on a long conversation with them. First, Joanna starts telling a story (in one font), and then Chip chips in his thoughts (in a different font), or vice versa, and so the story flows seamlessly back and forth throughout the 190 or so pages.

The Magnolia Story is a nice, easy, fun, insightful and inspiring read, and one that will no doubt be gift-wrapped under quite a few Christmas trees.

News of the World by Paulette Jiles of Utopia (William Morrow, $22.99 hardcover) has been named a finalist for the National Book Award.

The 200-page historical novel is set in Texas in 1870 and involves a seventy-year-old veteran of two wars who makes his living traveling around the country and reading news accounts from various newspapers. Of course, the news isn’t exactly new, but folks out west have a hunger to hear about what’s going on in the world.

After a reading performance in Wichita Falls, Capt. Jefferson Kyle Kidd is asked by Britt Johnson (a legendary frontier character featured in another of Jiles’s novels, The Color of Lightning) to take a ten-year-old girl, who was kidnapped by the Kiowa four years ago, back to her aunt and uncle’s home near San Antonio.

A big problem is the girl, having lived with the Kiowa for four years, has forgotten almost everything from her first six years, including the English language and what passes for civilized behavior in her new surroundings. Kidd is reluctant but feels it is the right thing to do, so he and Joanna set off on the journey, quite against her will. Along the way, they forge a relationship as they confront life-and-death situations.

Glenn Dromgoole’s latest book is West Texas StoriesContact him at g.dromgoole@suddenlink.net.

>> Read his past Texas Reads columns in Lone Star Literary Life here.