This quick and easy read is an entertaining biography of an entertaining and important man. But I finished it feeling we had glossed over the surface of General Sam without really getting under his skin. This was a decent introduction to the man and his times, but the serious student will be left wanting more.

This book captures Sam Houston quite well. It is much better than John Hoyt Williams' Sam Houston, published around the same time. Houston was the George Washington of Texas: commander-in-chief of the Texan army when Texas won its independence from Mexico at the Battle of San Jacinto, first president of the Republic of Texas, governor when Texas became a state. Houston had a theatrical flair and obviously succeeded in becoming a larger-than-life historical giant.

As impressive as his historical achievements were, what makes Houston fascinating to me are two things. First was the fact that he ran away from home at age 16 to live with a band of Cherokees. He was adopted by the chief of the tribe, who gave him the name Kalanu, or "The Raven." Houston left the tribe when he was 19, but returned to live with the tribe on other occasions when he was fleeing white civilization, most notably when he returned 20 years later and married Tiana (or Diana), a prominent member of the tribe. A fascinating novel about Tiana and her relationship with Houston is Walk In My Soul, by Lucia St. Clair Robson.

A second fascinating aspect of Houston's life was his relationship with Eliza Allen, a white woman Houston married in 1829. The marriage lasted only a few months, at which time Allen fled Houston to return home to her parents. Neither she nor Houston ever revealed the reason for their breakup, but it destroyed Houston's political career in Tennessee, led directly to his going back to live with the Cherokees and marry Tiana, and eventually to his going to Texas. Elizabeth Crook's novel, "The Raven's Bride," is a compelling speculative account of what might have happened.

Sword of San Jacinto is a good, readable overview of the life of one of the most fascinating characters in American history.

I could not put this book down! I like ol' Sam Houston. Being a member of the Masonic Order as was Houston and knowing that Sam Houston was a big factor in the forming of the Grand Lodge of Texas, I wish Mr. DeBruhl had visitied the Republic of Texas Room in the Grand Lodge of Texas Museum in Waco, Texas. I live in Nacogdoches, Texas and work only a few steps from were Sam Houston lived and across the street from were the Old Stone Fort once was. You can look East and see the house were Anna Raguet lived. Across the street was the office of Thomas J. Rusk. This book came real close to home for me, I liked it.

The Book had a good Plot. The way the characters where represented where horrible. You should have gotten to know them better, the author should have spent more time on the description of the characters personalities, and details of the story then just concentrating on the plot.

Horton Foote is everything that today's culture is not -- thoughtful, sensitive, insightful. His works are rich, but can be accessed only by taking the time to listen and reflect, skills not well practiced these days (as evidenced by the dimwitted reviewer of the previous entry). If you cannot see his plays, please read them slowly and carefully (Both 'The Young Man from Atlanta' and 'The Last of the Thortons' are excellent choices) and the rewards will be tremendous.

Dramatic writers are like orchestral conductors; advancing age serves to enhance the talents of the truly gifted in their ranks. Octogenerian Horton Foote, who imprinted the visual memory of the 1960's generation with his screen adaptation of Harper Lee's novel "To Kill a Mockingbird", won the 1995 Pulitzer Prize for "The Young Man from Atlanta". In this one-act drama, Foote embeds within a structure of six simple scenes a gentle and unsettling tale of 1950's Houston. Will Kidder is the 65 year-old man from Houston whose fortunes grew up with the city -- his prosperity always rendered in large cash sums. "Because I want the best. The biggest and the best. I always have." -- Will alerts co-worker Tom early in the first scene, unaware that he addresses his replacement at the firm he's helped build for almost four decades. Will's simple hope is that constructing the city's biggest house for his highly strung but deeply religious wife Lily Dale will help her overcome the peculiar death of their only child. Non-swimmer son Bill's short stroll into a Florida lake has bequeathed a void to the couple's life along with a young companion from Atlanta -- the never-seen title character -- whose calls Will avoids even as he forbids the grieving mother further contact with the visitor. With the opening of the second scene, Lily Dale, unaware of her husband's firing, occupies her place in their large new house, but the hoarding of her grief and the baggage of her relationship with the unseen Atlantan occupy her thoughts. She confides to her step-father Pete that she has funneled to the stranger most of seventy-five thousand dollars accumulated from Will's past Christmas gifts in gratitude for his comforting testimony about her son's religious devotion at the Atlanta boarding house where they were roommates. Also, Lily Dale -- whose very name conjures proper Southern Baptist assemblages, floral hats, and lily-covered caskets -- admits that she has responded with m! onetary pity to her son's friend's stories of life without loving family. She prays Will himself can come to accept the young man from Atlanta as an important part of her son's life. Then Will admits to her the loss of his job. Discovery that Pete's own nest egg cannot replace the money given to the stranger as outright gift (for now Will needs funding to start a new business) -- along with knowledge that the one hundred thousand dollars Will gave their son over the years is no longer accounted for -- undermines the household's tranquillity. "You've been taken for a fool, woman." Will cries on the way to his heart attack. It is the couple's groping toward "truth telling" to one another that gives impetus to the drama, even as they deal with the more mundane matters of recovering financial stability and failing health. Horton Foote's mid-century characters in "The Young Man from Atlanta" embody a "memory" of American Southern propriety that dared not openly allude to situations outside of prevailing social norms. The preservation of privacy and its refusal to examine reality from different perspectives enabled construction of a societal fortress that defied plundering, even if substantial financial and emotional resources were at stake. As long as the resources remained intact -- or seemingly so -- the Will Kidders could continue functioning as they desired, while deluding themselves into the bargain. "Will Kidder" was a perfect name for the old man from Houston.

I expected to see pictures of Galveston as it was . This is a bunch of pictures of Galveston decayed.

The city of Galveston, Texas was a vibrant, prosperous port at the start of the 20th century, outstripping even New Orleans. Fine Victorian homes were built by prosperous merchants, many in grand style. The deadly hurricane of 1900 dealt the city a blow from which it never entirely recovered. But Galveston's economic slump had a silver lining -- as shown in "The Galveston That Was." There was no economic incentive to tear the old homes down; so scores of these remarkable Victorian homes survived, though many fell into disrepair. Howard Barnstone secured two superb photographers and wrote text for this beautiful book, which displays the faded glory of Galveston's Victorian architecture. The book's first edition inspired Galvestonians to restore many of these homes, and sparked a preservation revival there that lasts to this day. Always a beach destination, Galveston now draws visitors to the Texas coast for beautifully restored Victorian homes and historic business district, the Strand. The book's photographs are simply beautiful and the concise history of Galveston is intriguing.

As someone with a general scientific background, I found this book high on padding and relatively low on the content I wanted and was expecting - the author spends much time on the history of the subject and on the basic properties of air, leaving little space for details on the physiology and medical side of the subject. I have no medical education or qualifications, though I still found much of the actual medical text in the book over simplified and lacking in detail.

This is a revised and expanded version of "Going Higher". The author has added additional text and illustrations. It is now even better than previous editions. Like Dr. Houston, I carry my altimeter with me on airplane flights. His observations match mine. Little do most passengers realize that the atmospheric pressure in the cabin may be the equivalent of the atmosphere at 7000 to 9000 feet.

Dr. Houston has written an excellent book on the effects of altitude on people. He reviews the history of mountain exploration, explains the physiological effects of the reduction of atmospheric pressure, and presents a practical guide for acclimitization to altitude. Whether you are going to ski in the Rockies or climb in the Himilayas, this is a useful and entertaining book. I also recommend "Altitude Illness" by Bezruchka

Not bad, but if you were really looking for some real knowledge of Lewis' teaching style this isn't it...it's pleasant reading, but not terribly informative. Also, it does not show the complete Lewis character. Based on sources at Oxford, the real C.S. Lewis was impersonal (even by British academic standards) with some of his students, and could be withering to those whom he felt were not terribly bright or motivated.

I've always been a bit surprised and suspicious of the C. S. Lewis industry: the fact that I like reading Lewis, doesn't mean I like reading about him. (Though, if push comes to shove, I have to admit I do. Just no slobbering, please.) Fortunately this is a collection of essays by colleagues, students, and friends of Lewis who, even while writing about Lewis, have other things on their minds -- the purpose of English teaching, Oxford, redemption, even (in the gardener's case) his own bad jokes. There are even a few critical stories. Most of the essays are well written and insightful, and gave plenty of Boswell-like anecdotes not only of Lewis, but of other peculiar denizens of Oxford as well. Graham could have saved himself the occasional bone thrown to evangelicals, though, as far as I'm concerned. I really don't care how Bob Jones reconciles the work of the Holy Spirit and beer. Billy Graham and J. I. Packer didn't seem to have much to say. Also, the editor protested a bit too much about "hero worship." There's no need to apologize for this book, otherwise.

The book arrived in the mail on Friday afternoon. By Saturday afternoon I was chewing on crumbs.

To me, one of the most interest comments was the suggestion by one writer that Lewis had been influenced by the marvellous chapter "The Ethics of Elfland" in G. K. Chesterton's Orthodoxy. I am beginning to suspect that Wilhelm Grimm was a very clever, and also successful, evangelist, and that there might be a secret link between the Seven Dwarves and Trumpkin.

author, Jesus and the Religions of Man

This was one of the worst histories I have ever read. I finally had to put it down after finishing about 250 of its 400 pages, because I thought I might go insane if I continued.

The book consists largely of recitation of facts, repetition of thousands of names of old Houston families, and constant musings about how wonderful Houston was in those old, carefree days. (The author even writes that in those simpler, happy times no one complained about Houston summers.)

She has researched her subject thoroughly, talking with hundreds of people who can recall the city in the early 20th century; but there's hardly any context or analysis for this blob of material. It's just thrown out there in this haze of "the wonderful old days."

Yes, one can parse through all the verbiage about how much fun it was to go the park, sail in the bay, etc. etc., and pick up some useful morsels about the facts behind Houston's growth and development.

But they are few and far between.

In an achademic style, Margurite Johnson leads us through a description of Houston as a small Gulf Coast community to a thriving Port City backed by the oil investment. She does a great deal to enrich the readers knowledge of Texas metropolitan outlook on it's relationship to it's environment. It serves as a good primer for further research.

I found this book to be full of rich history. It helped me to understand not only the evolution of an oil town, but to relate to American history in a more detailed way.

There was not any [sugar] thing in this book to make it interesting or tempting. Needless to say, I am very disappointed in Ms. Berry's third novel.

The book jacket spoke of two friends and their journey towards acceptance by growing in life, friendship, and faith. What we got was Adel's story about her failed marriages and immature husband; then a total thematic contradiction with Ms. Lucy and her tiptoeing on the brink of self-destruction.

Call it what you want Ms. Berry-hoodoo, voodoo, or psychic energy-it all comes down to
evil symbols, vampires, snakes, and séances, all makings for a story with a theme I didn't want to read about.

What do you believe?.....I believe Ms. Berry really let her fans down with this one.

From the author of So Good and All of Me, Venise Berry is back with Colored Sugar Water a very different novel from her first two novels. Colored Sugar Water is about friendship, relationships and spirituality. It's a thought-provoking book that may have you questioning what you believe.

Meet Adel and Lucy. Adel is stuck in a job that she doesn't enjoy but the six-figures keep her going back day after day. Then there's her husband who lives in la-la land and reminds me of Tommy from the old Martin show. Remember Tommy supposedly had a job but no one knew where? That's Adel's husband...a man that she is definitely too good for. Adel's spiritual life is lacking and she's not sure of what to believe. Lucy, Adel's best friend, is single but has been in a comfortable although uninspired relationship with Spencer for the past few years. Unfortunately he no longer floats her boat. Lucy who believes in everything including Christianity, voodoo and the psychic hotline decides to explore. Her exploring leads her to Kuba...the mystery man from the psychic hotline who takes her on a roller coaster adventure.

Colored Sugar Water was an engaging and page turning experience for me. I kept reading because I wanted to know the outcome. Berry brought us full circle with Adel and Lucy and their spiritual journey. Colored Sugar Water is about what the two characters, Adel and Lucy believe, and their ability to come to terms with their beliefs in order to grow spiritually as well as in their professional and personal relationships. I liked that Berry didn't preach about religion but rather showed us that we have choices and that faith might mean something different to each person. In fact, she touched on all the religions/spiritual beliefs that individuals might hold. There was one scene with the Jehovah Witnesses that was a Kodak moment...I loved it! I must admit I was slightly disappointed in the ending. Berry left it open so that you could form your own opinion...or as she said in an online chat...¨The ending is whatever your belief system is." Hmm...while it was true to what Berry wanted to accomplish with Colored Sugar Water I took that as a copout because I wanted a direct answer. :)

But that aside I enjoyed the story and recommend it to those who enjoy creatively crafted and refreshing reads. Oh yeah...if you're a traditionalist then this might not be the book for you. Colored Sugar Waters is definitely a book that's not for everyone but for those who enjoy exploring and thinking outside of the box then pick up Colored Sugar Water today.

Yasmin
APOOO Bookclub

When voodoo mingles with the search for spirituality, and faith is the defining factor in the lives of two women looking to maintain stability, it makes for a good story. Colored Sugar Water is award-winning novelist Vernise Berry's latest book where the aforementioned women face the challenge of trying to understand just what a meaningful relationship should be. We enter the lives of Lucy Merriweather and Adel Kelly, whose friendship spans 20 years as the brunt of their problems span from spiritual stress, professional ennui, and personal malfunctions within their lives. Borrowing an analogy that Lucy has heard from her grandmother, both women find that their lives are like the colored sugar water Lucy drinks every morning, contrasting being bland and routine, yet sweet and satisfying. Each woman makes a startling choice about what she wants from life and what she needs for spiritual health.

Finding whatever is missing in their lives, the midlife issues and troubling relationships brings on daring exploits as they try to straighten out their respective men. Lucy's problems stems from a sense of insecurity dealing with her emotional and spiritual dreams. Exasperating the situation is her boyfriend, Spencer, a mama's boy who doesn't measure up to her standards. Adel struggles with a husband who refuses to grow up, as he works a job where the money is great but the work is unrewarding. Both of these women are forced to reexamine the need for faith as it pertain to sustaining levels of spirituality to find the balance that is fleeting. Lucy decides to answer the call of a psychic by the name of Kuba, who claims to be all that is missing from her life. The mysterious Kuba, in the end, turn out to be much more than Lucy bargained for....and to Adel's chagrin it's the beginning of more trouble!

Filled with the usual drama that depicts familial relationships gone awry, and the antics that characters deploy to right wrong situations, this book plays into the type of storyline that tend to make the reader wish for more depth to the characters to match the scenarios given. However, the best thing about this novel is the way the author weaves imaginable passion to produce reasons for Lucy and Adel to discover the power of their unique spiritual gifts. It further establishes Venise Berry as one of our innovative storytellers on the scene today. Nevertheless, if you've enjoyed any of the author's earlier work, this one will not disappoint. Read it and discover the colored menagerie of her powerful words here.

This book suffers from being too self absorbed for a collection of adventure/travel articles and in a different sense, not self revealing enough about the author if it's really supposed to be "A Little More About Me". Pam Houston has had an unconventional life yet gives only tantalizing tidbits about her family and other personal relationships that have led her to the life she has (other than far too much about her dogs, which says something in and of itself). The book needed to be either more self analytical or to have left the personal side out altogether.

A rambling collection of essays that indeed reveal much about the author of her quirky books. Provides insight into who she is, why she would risk life and limb just to prove a point, how she defines 'home,' her relationships with men and dogs and trucks...
Goes down easy.

When this book was published in 1999, Pam Houston visited Tempe, Arizona and read "Dante and Sally" and "Home is Where Your Dogs Are" from this twenty-four essay collection. It is easy for me now to hear her voice in all of these essays. Written over a period of five years (p. 23), they are full of "happy-to-be-alive adrenaline" (p. 19), and "artistic, spiritual, emotional, even physical edges" (p. 25). Each essay is a testament that life offers us opportunities "to be our truest selves, to lead an independent lifestyle, not tied (or chained) to the conventions of a confining city life" (p. 35). Houston has the ability to make "words dance" (p. 22).

The unfavorable reader reviews below are a mystery to me. While some of Houston's essays soar higher than others, they all contain their own unique moments of truth, whether her subject is flyfishing at 2 a.m. with "a bunch of male poets" (p. 103), or pitching a tent "on a patch of red in front of a big blond piece of sandstone under a blue Utah sky" (p. 129). In "A Man Who'll Freeze His Eyelashes for You," Houston observes "the essence of the desert is silence, meditation, empty spaces, and peace" (p. 126). In another favorite, "Redefining Success," we find Houston discussing success with poet Jane Hirshfield, while walking along Muir Beach. She writes: "But now I am coming to the understanding that success has less to do with the accumulation of things and more to do with the accumulation of moments, and that creating a successful life might be as simple as determining which moments are the most valuable, and seeing how many of those I can string together in a line" (p. 166). In this collection, Houston offers us an accumulation of such valuable moments which, upon reaching the book's final essay, will leave you hoping for a little more about her. I encourage you to read this book, then decide for yourself.

G. Merritt

I am shaking as I write this. I have never read something so biased and so upsetting in my life. I am more convinced than ever after reading this book that Karla Faye Tucker got exactly what she deserved. This book portrays her as some sort of wonderful, mislead, genuine person who made a mistake. I am stunned beyond belief at this portrayal of a murderer. It sounds to me after reading this book, that Karla Faye did not make any genuine changes, she just simply learned how to play the game, and in this case ultimately and fortunatley did not win.

As one of the people who is intimately involved in the case that this literary piece is supposed to be realistically portraying, I am surprised that anyone could believe that any of this actually happened the way the author portrays it. The convicted murderer is shown as being a wonderful person. I have not met too many "wonderful" people who are capable of swinging a pick axe into two different people more than 60 different times and enjoying it so much that they told several people that they had a sexual orgasm with each swing. That is sick. This was not an isolated incident; within a day after the first two murders, this individual was planning several more murders which would have been carried out if she had not been apprehended. She had no religion and no remorse until AFTER she was in jail. The reason I know all this? Tucker murdered my wife, Deborah Ruth Thornton. Don't waste your money on this trash.

"Compassion" seems to be in short supply when it comes to Karla Faye Tucker --- starting with then-Gov. Bush's smirk on the occasion of her execution and continuing in these reader comments. This she-got-what-she-deserved feeling stems, I think, from the view that People Don't Change. What grim philosophy! Change --- the hope of it, the longing for it --- is, in fact, what drives most evangelical religions. Given that, you'd think Karla Faye Tucker would be the Poster Child for Christian conversion. She never denied the terrible crimes she committed, she prostrated herself before her Lord, and, if you believe her, Jesus bathed herin His love. That is the subject of the book Beverly Lowry has written --- a book powered by a head-splitting irony: The murderesss gives comfort to the professional writer (a mother whose son was killed in an unsolved highway accident). My advice: Just read the book. Decide for yourself.

Lindsey has been better, but even a submaximum Lindsey is better than most others. The Color of Night is exciting, and you do become intricately involved with the characters. The plot line is intriguing but takes too long to conclude. Lindsey's writing, however, is good enough to move the reader through the slow parts. Not a one sitting book, but not one you'll never finish.

http://members.ebay.com/aboutme/tiannei/

I read Color of Night, because it sounded interesting (though I don't usually like spy novels). I am still glad I read it, but my opinions are mixed. Lindsey's treatment of action was superb - I really almost felt the anxiety of the characters as they executed their plans. But the book was quite a bit longer than it needed to be, and only a few characters did I really like (or care about). Attention to detail was good, and the various European locales were refreshing. All and all, while the story could have been better, it was still a decent and thrilling read for me, and I may well read more of this author's works.

As both a writer and artist, I was taken with this exquisitely-drawn - and I do mean "drawn" - novel. It is like a perfectly beautiful colored drawing, sometimes black and white, in brush and inks, just like the works of art Lindsey writes about with obvious knowledge of his subject.

You just saw everything so vividly. I particularly appreciated the mouthwatering European travelog, the descriptions of scenes, restaurants, food, hotels - visited by the rich and famous.

There is a flaw in this book that keeps it from being a great, however. (Sorry if it bothers some amazon review readers, but I often give five stars to a book for having entertained me thoroughly, and this one did). It is this: every truly great book is laced with wit. Read the grimmest novels, say, by Dostoevsky, Dickens or Tolstoy, and even and even some of the best contemporary detective and mystery writers and you will be chuckling, laughing, amused. "The Color Of Night" would have benefited had Lindsey given us a few wry touches here and there. He was too dead serious, which sometimes lent it a slightly precious tone. Of course, "precious" can be hilarious, and he might have capitalized on some of his foppish characters, but I found this novel too stolid.

Another flaw: like some of the beautiful drawings one sees, the perfect, deft creations of the greatest artists, there is a coldness about the book itself. If I didn't know otherwise, I would have guessed that the author wrote the whole book with a quill pen and ink. I can see him thinking, dipping, scribing, again and again, with a dispassionate hand - and heart. Not exactly an insult, but sometimes I like a feeling (and the word 'feeling' is exactly the word I meant to use) that the work is coming from the artist's gut. Like Van Gogh, for example, who wasn't afraid to make a mess.

Nevertheless, despite these flaws, "The Color Of Night" is a fun book to read and Hollywood would be crazy not to make it into a movie. Clint Eastwood as Harry? This time, clean, of course. Harry Strand is a morally upright man, despite his years of spying and his (acceptable) thievery. I'm glad he lived to "watch" Mara cross the street.