{"id":796,"date":"2018-12-31T14:02:29","date_gmt":"2018-12-31T14:02:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wordpress.etypegoogle10.com\/?p=796"},"modified":"2018-12-31T14:02:29","modified_gmt":"2018-12-31T14:02:29","slug":"lone-star-reviewsmichelle-newby-nbcc-55","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wordpress.etypegoogle10.com\/?p=796","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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HISTORICAL FICTION<\/p>\n

Bill Wittliff,<\/span> illustrated by Joe Ciardiello<\/span><\/p>\n

The Devil\u2019s Sinkhole<\/span><\/p>\n

University of Texas Press<\/p>\n

Hardcover, 978-1477309742, 214 pgs., $29.95 (also available as an e-book), October 4, 2016<\/p>\n

Reviewed by Fran\u00e7ois Pointeau<\/p>\n

The Devil\u2019s Sinkhole is a real place in Texas,<\/span> a National Natural Landmark that houses one of the state\u2019s largest colonies of Mexican free-tailed bats. You can visit if you call the Devil\u2019s Sinkhole Society to make reservations. It\u2019s also a very important part of Bill Wittliff\u2019s<\/span> novel by the same name. I can\u2019t tell you why. You\u2019ll have to read the novel for that. However, like the first novel in the series, The Devil\u2019s Backbone,<\/span> the story revolves around real landmarks in and around the Texas Hill Country. In a way, it is an imagined travel memoir of life in Central Texas in the late 1800s, and it\u2019s breathtaking.<\/p>\n

The Devil\u2019s Sinkhole<\/span> is not an easy read. The writing is highly stylized. That said, it is worth your time and effort. Let me repeat: It is worth your time and effort.\u00a0 >>READ MORE<\/span><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

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

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

Couple produces readable, colorful book on Texas birds<\/h1>\n

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Author\/professor Gary Clark has teamed up with his wife,<\/span> photographer Kathy Clark, to produce the very readable and colorful Book of Texas Birds<\/span><\/a><\/span> (Texas A&M University Press, $39.95 flexbound). The 512-page book is thorough, fun to read, and richly illustrated with hundreds of color photos.<\/p>\n

Clark said he set out to write the book as \u201ca personal account of Texas birds,\u201d with the first draft being basically off the top of his head. (Technical corrections and additions based on source material would come later.) And that\u2019s how it reads, written informally and conversationally, like a friend telling another friend about the interesting birds he has observed, with a color picture of each one.<\/p>\n

A few examples:<\/p>\n