{"id":1440,"date":"2018-12-31T17:15:19","date_gmt":"2018-12-31T17:15:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wordpress.etypegoogle10.com\/?p=1440"},"modified":"2018-12-31T17:15:19","modified_gmt":"2018-12-31T17:15:19","slug":"lone-star-reviewsmichelle-newby-nbcc-127","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wordpress.etypegoogle10.com\/?p=1440","title":{"rendered":"Lone Star ReviewsMichelle Newby, NBCC,"},"content":{"rendered":"
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<\/span><\/span>Lone Star Reviews<\/span>Michelle Newby, NBCC,<\/span><\/h1>\n<\/div>\n

Contributing Editor<\/span><\/h1>\n
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<\/span><\/span><\/span>Texas Reads<\/span>Glenn Dromgoole<\/span><\/h1>\n

>> archive<\/a><\/span><\/h1>\n

Magic Tree House features 1900 Galveston hurricane<\/h1>\n

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Mary Pope Osborne, author of the popular Magic Tree House<\/span> series of children\u2019s books, turns her attention to the disastrous 1900 Galveston hurricane in Hurricane Heroes in Texas<\/span><\/a><\/span> (Random House, $13.99 hardcover).<\/p>\n

Jack and Annie have a magical tree house near their home in Frog Creek, Pa. From there they are able to travel back through time and experience history first hand, then return home where time has stood still. Their new adventure calls for them to get to Galveston before the hurricane hits and warn people to seek higher ground. But no one wants to heed their warning. They\u2019ve seen storms before; they\u2019re not worried.<\/p>\n

Then the massive storm surges onto the island, destroying everything in its path. Jack and Annie join a mother, Rose, and her baby, Lily, as they climb to the roof, then hang on for dear life to a piece of the roof that becomes their raft.\u00a0 At the Ursuline Academy, the highest point in town, they encounter Sister Mary Joseph and the other nuns who are sheltering hundreds of residents from the floodwaters.<\/p>\n

Jack and Annie help out, then they are ready to head back home to Pennsylvania \u2014 if they can find their magical tree house that\u2019s been blown away in the storm.<\/p>\n

Osborne teamed up with her sister, Natalie Pope Boyce<\/span>, to produce a 128-page companion Fact Tracker Texas<\/span> book ($6.99 paperback) that offers a lot of history and other factual information about Texas.<\/p>\n

Both books are intended for ages 7 through 10. Hurricane Heroes in Texas<\/span> is the thirtieth book in Osborne\u2019s best-selling Magic Tree House series. As she was writing the book last year, Hurricane Harvey struck the Texas coast with a vengeance.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis book is inspired by the hope and courage of Texans,\u201d she writes.<\/p>\n

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Hispanics in Texas History:<\/span> Historian Harriett Denise Joseph<\/span> is the author of From Santa Anna to Selena: Notable Mexicanos and Tejanos in Texas History since 1821<\/span><\/a><\/span>(University of North Texas Press, $29.95 hardcover).<\/p>\n

\u00a0In addition to the book\u2019s two title figures, Joseph offers substantive biographical essays on early Tejano leaders Erasmo and Juan Seguin, controversial folk hero\/criminal Juan Nepomuceno Cortina, Adina De Zavala (the Angel of the Alamo), labor activist Emma Tenayuca, Medal of Honor winner Roy Benavidez, husband and wife educators Jovita Gonzalez and Edmundo E. Mireles, and Latina legislator Irma Rangel.<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u201cTragedy and triumph, brutality and heroism, success and failure,\u201d Joseph notes, \u201call can be found in the lives of the eleven notables profiled in these pages.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u00a0Each of the biographical profiles is about forty pages long, including bibliography and endnotes, and Joseph\u2019s introductory and concluding essays reflect on the contributions of Hispanics in helping shape Texas history.<\/p>\n

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Glenn Dromgoole<\/span> writes about Texas books and authors. Contact him at g.dromgoole@suddenlink.net.<\/span><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

>> <\/span>Check out his previous Texas Reads columns in Lone Star Lit<\/a><\/span>erary Life<\/span><\/h1>\n

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4th Annual Permian Basin Writers\u2019 Workshop set for Oct. 13-14<\/h1>\n

Now in its fourth year, the Permian Basin Writers\u2019 Workshop<\/span> annual event will feature writing coaches, agents, and publishers from around the country, October 13-14, 2018.<\/p>\n

The two-day workshop event will be held in Midland, at the Marie Hall Academic Building at Midland College.<\/p>\n

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<\/span> and Arlene Gale<\/span>.\u00a0 <\/a>>>READ MORE<\/span><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

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Ecco Books<\/p>\n

Hardcover, 978-0-0626-8884-2 (also available as an e-book, audiobook, and large-print paperback), 448 pgs., $27.99<\/p>\n

September 25, 2018<\/p>\n

\u201cNautonomy: the asymmetrical production and distribution of life chances which limit and erode the possibilities of political participation.\u201d \u2014David Held,<\/span> Democracy and the Global Order<\/span><\/p>\n

Ben Fountain pulls no punches.<\/span> \u201cThis wasn\u2019t Democrats versus Republicans so much as the sad, psychotic, and vengeful in the national life producing a strange mutation,\u201d he writes, \u201ca creature comprised of degenerate political logic.\u201d<\/p>\n

Where were you when you heard the news? You remember, don\u2019t you, whether you thought the news was fantastic or catastrophic? I do; I was somewhere over the Atlantic Ocean on a 787 bound for New Delhi. So, naturally, at 9 p.m. EST I began pestering the cabin crew for election news. The pilot resorted to announcing updates and when it was done, when the result was announced, I cried.<\/p>\n

I write this review on the day Paul Manafort pleads guilty to conspiracy against the United States.<\/p>\n

Beautiful Country Burn Again: Democracy, Rebellion, and Revolution<\/span> is the first book of nonfiction from Ben Fountain,<\/span> a former attorney, whose fiction is famous. You may not be familiar with Brief Encounters with Che Guevara,<\/span> a collection of short stories which won the PEN\/Hemingway Award in 2007, but you cannot have avoided Fountain\u2019s novel, which won the National Book Critics Circle Award in 2013 and became a film directed by Ang Lee \u2014 Billy Lynn\u2019s Long Halftime Walk.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI was having feelings. They weren\u2019t good feelings,\u201d Fountain writes. \u201cBy Thanksgiving, 2015, these feelings had crystalized into a sense that something new and ugly was afoot in the land of the famously free.\u201d So, The Guardian<\/span> newspaper dispatched him to the campaign trail to \u201cfigure out what the hell was going on out there.\u201d The result was a series of essays for the newspaper which eventually became Beautiful Country Burn Again.\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>>>READ MORE<\/span><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

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St. Martin\u2019s Press<\/p>\n

Hardcover, 978-1-2501-9316-2 (also available as an e-book and an audiobook), 416 pgs., $27.99<\/p>\n

September 4, 2018<\/p>\n

\u201cGirls want marvelous adventures just as much as boys do.\u201d \u2014L. Frank Baum,<\/span> author of The Wizard of Oz<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cHere\u2019s the first thing you should know about Miss Cathy Williams,\u201d Sarah Bird<\/span> writes. \u201cI am the daughter of the daughter of a queen and my mama never let me forget it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Williams was born a captive prisoner of war \u2014 never a slave \u2014 on a Missouri tobacco farm. Her mother raised an intelligent, resilient, fierce warrior-woman, nurturing Williams with tales of an African grandmother who was a warrior-wife of the Leopard King.<\/span><\/p>\n

In the waning days of the Civil War, Williams is plucked from the farm by Maj. Gen. Philip Henry Sheridan to be a helper for his cook. Traveling with and feeding the Army of the Potomac\u2019s Cavalry Corps engenders a sense of purpose in Williams, and she sees joining the Buffalo Corps at the end of the Civil War as the only option for a life of independence and honor.\u00a0 >>READ MORE<\/span><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

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WHAT TEXANS ARE READING<\/span><\/h1>\n

LONE STAR LISTENS interviews\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>>> archive<\/span><\/a><\/span><\/h1>\n

Author interviews by Lone Star Lit staff<\/span><\/h1>\n

9.16.2018\u00a0\u00a0 Ben Montgomery on how West Texas, the Great Depression, oddballs, quests, and his love of words became his new book, \u201cThe Man Who Walked Backward\u201d <\/p>\n

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Ben Montgomery\u2019s new book of narrative nonfiction, <\/span>The Man Who Walked Backward: An American Dreamer\u2019s Search for Meaning in the Great Depression, <\/span>lands on shelves September 18. Montgomery spoke with Lone Star Literary Life about how an interest in agriculture became a career in journalism, the sources of inspiration, amazing women, the Chautauqua tradition, and the swagger of Texas.<\/span><\/p>\n

LONE STAR LITERARY LIFE: <\/span>You were born in Oklahoma, Ben. How would you describe your formative years?<\/span><\/p>\n

BEN MONTGOMERY: <\/span>My dad was a Southern Baptist preacher and long-haul trucker, which is to say he was something of a stranger to me, a void. My mother ran a day-care center and cleaned the church and tried hard to give me and my brothers what we needed. I spent summers on my grandparents\u2019 farm in Slick, Oklahoma, which wasn\u2019t much more than a wide spot on Highway 16, between Bristow and Beggs. When I wasn’t hunting armadillos or arrowheads I\u2019d sit on my granny\u2019s back-porch swing and look out on the wheat field and listen to her tell stories about growing up in Oklahoma. She convinced me I was her favorite grandchild. My brothers never knew. They became rodeo cowboys. I wanted that, too, for a long while, and I went off to college in Arkansas to learn the agriculture business so I could come back to the Plains and live off the land. But her stories planted something inside me I could not escape.<\/p>\n

You studied journalism in college and worked at several newspapers, including the San Angelo Standard-Times<\/span> in Texas, before ending up at the Tampa Bay Times, <\/span>where you\u2019ve spent most of a twenty-year newspaper career. In 2010 you were nominated for a Pulitzer. What drew you to journalism?<\/p>\n

My high-school girlfriend stayed home when I went off to college. I was only four hours east on Interstate 40, but I missed her something bad. And being Southern Baptists, we\u2019d both made promises to God and the youth pastor at church that we would not fornicate before marriage. Her promise was stronger than mine. Alas, I asked her to marry me halfway through my first academic year, and she said yes … on one condition. She did not want to be a farmer\u2019s wife. I needed a new path. I stumbled into a feature-writing class, and I liked it. I changed my major from ag business to journalism, which might put me in rare company. I\u2019m still in love with words.\u00a0 >>READ MORE<\/span><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

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Texas’s only statewide, weekly calendar of book events
<\/span><\/a><\/span>Bookish Texas <\/span>event highlights\u00a0 9.16.2018<\/span>>> GO this week<\/span><\/a><\/span>Michelle Newby, Contributing Editor<\/span><\/h1>\n

SPECIAL EVENTS THIS WEEK<\/span><\/p>\n