I could imagine myself walking alongside them as they went through some of their experiences. A great read!

It was interesting to experience the early Big Bend daysthrough one of the original pioneers. I altogether enjoyed it.

I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book. It was entertaining and fun to read. It was very well written and I found it difficult to put down. I would recommend it to everyone. A delightful story!

This novel made me remember some very dear moments of my childhood.

I wake up inside William Bell to find myself reliving the dreams and adventures of my own childhood. All the fears and joys of life come alive in the hot Texas summer that feels your toes and soul with sand. SWC

Lovesong for the Giant Contessa is a beautifully scripted novel, set in a strange and wonderous place: Texas. This thought provoking work is sure to become a classic. I have read, even studied, many author's work. Few have compared in their ability to capture their reader's imagination like Steven Tye Culbert.

I just bought Matt's book because of my intrest in great Tex Mex and outdoor cooking. I was not disappointed. Early results are very good. Not wanting to try anything too complicated (and nothing really is in this book) I threw together some spanish rice. Wow, result was fantastic and just as good as anything I tasted while living in So. California for 20 years. The stories of Matt's family are also entertaining and make the book more than the traditional glossy photos and excrutiating detail of some cook books. A great starter book for anyone wanting to learn about the basics of traditional Tex Mex. Highly recommend as a add to anyone's culinary library or gift selection. Pass the Guacamole!!! Viva La Matt!!!

I must confess that I bought this book for a gift, but kept it for myself! I live in the Dallas area and visit Matt's restaurants often. This book gives some of Matt's best recipes. This is the only Tex Mex cookbook I have seen where the recipes are simple to make and great to eat. The cookbook reads like a story with history behind some of the recipes. Yes, the Bob Armstrong dip and story are included in this book. If you are ordering this as a gift, you might want to also order one for yourself!

This is a simple to use, easy to read, enjoyable cook book that is not only a pleasure to work out of, but is intresting and fun to read.

The recepies are straight forward, Martha Stewart would hate this book.

For years I have been tring to make enchalidas for my family without them having the consistantly of tree bark. Matt has shown me how to share the recipies I enjoyed so much growing up in Texas to my family being raised in New York City.

A sumptuous read - Laurie Shulman's inimitable wit and style grace the pages of this handsome book. The details she shares are as fresh and lively as her trademark program notes. Like many others who worked in the Arts District, I watched the Meyerson being built - from crater to finished perfection. The knowledge Shulman imparts expands my appreciation and most certainly will enhance my enjoyment of another concert in this dream hall, the Meyerson.

This is a great book about a wonderful place for music. After reading the book, I purchased copies for my relatives who are professional musicians, and those who care about such music. One might ask how can you make a story about building a music hall interesting, but Laurie Shulman has done so.

Excellent and interesting book on a fantastic community effort.

Excellent map/manual for someone with stamina for mountain biking. Intresting geographiacal, geological, meteorological information with incredible personal touch and wonderful pictures. I recommend this book to any audience. This book is even good on rainy days to crawl in bed with-good reading. You'll love it! Besides, you want to see the baby picture of Chuck on a wooden horse, he is adorable! Those dimples and ray in the corners of his cutest eyes....

Since I am the author I think this is the best trail guide book on the market for my two favorite states, Oklahoma and Texas. I worked my ...off on this project, it is the second guide book I have done about mountain biking in these two states, actually the second edition of the same book.

I had such a blast working on this project but was quite glad to see it finished. Now I have a blast going back and rereading it and remembering what fun I had while out on research trips. Most were a pleasure, I got to meet some great folks and do some very excellent riding, though there were a few trips that bordered on miserable due to bad weather or general fatigue on my part as I neared the end of traveling for research.

My hat is off to the many bike clubs and excellent shops I encountered along the way, and all the super people who helped me complete this project.

Thanx to you all, hope to see you and ride again soon.

Chuck in DAllas

This is a well written book,If you wanted to take the ultimate vacation,grab your bike,a bottle of gatoraid and this book,and head for the hills.
the author has taken the time to rate all aspects of the trails from length, to difficulty.He even decribes the scenery.
The maps are first rate and are a nice addition.For those who are new to mt biking the glossary in the back of the book will come in handy when you get around all the hardcore bike freaks and will enable you to hold your own with them!
To sum it all up,. I would recomend this book to anyone with the slightest interest in oklahoma or texas,or cycling in general.

This book has been very tough to read but God has used it to encourage so many. The authors did such a fantastic job of giving the reader a comprehensive understanding of what took place at Wedgwood by weaving numerous eye witness accounts. The picture they provide is very rich and inspiring. I am very grateful for their work and how they tell the world how Christ was proclaimed.

It is sometimes harder to review books that hit close to home, but this book deserves mention. Dr. Dan Crawford did a wonderful job in putting into words what will always be a part of many people's lives. Dan catches the emotion (I did shed a few more tears), the shock,and the triumph in what happened at Wedgwood Baptist Church. To anyone reading this work it helps you to be there on that night with lights flashing and shocked expressions everywhere. Dan's book doesn't seek to mask what occured with platitudes and theories. The book tells it like it was, and what is the "Hope" that keeps Wedgwood Baptist Church going. Night of Tragedy, Dawning of Light accurately records the coming together of a community, and the reassurance that God can take the worst and turn it for good. It may not be the easiest book to read in terms of the emotions it evokes, but it is well worth the effort.

It's hard to forget the image when you turn on the news and see a mass shooting like the ones at Columbine High School or at the Jewish community center in Los Angeles. But, when you see it happen in your own community and in a church of your denomination, it makes it far worse. Dan Crawford does an excellent job over more than 375 pages detailing not only the destruction that Satan wrought on God's house at Wedgwood Baptist Church, but more importantly, shows the victory that only God is capable of providing. There are points where I got very angry, points where I cried, but at the end, I was reminded that Satan has already been defeated and our Lord has the victory. That's the true story of Sept. 15, 1999.

I have NEVER laughed so hard, and been so drawn into a work of fiction. Not only was I loving Johnny McBride and hating Hide immediately, but I was savoring every page...i.e: not reading it when the kids were around to bother me...this is a tremendous read with so much heart and humor:) McAfee should move to the ocean and write full time and honor all of us with further works of art!

From the opening page the humor starts and Johnny McBride begins the journey of his life. With the humor born of a lifetime of experience and the poetic use of language John P. MaAfee brings the world a book about life and making decisions. From the West Texas cow county of the west, you will travel with McBride even further west until he ends up in Southeast Asia. After that it is back west by a means almoast unbelievable that McAfee makes real. Then the questions are answered, even some that didn't seem to be questions in the first place. A truely enjoyable read, it was hard to put down and I did so only to preserve the domestic tranquility. Then it was up early to finish before going to work. McAfee has gone beyond SLOW WALK IN A SAD RAIN. This book is the must read of 1998!

If you've enjoyed the work of Cormac McCarthy, then you should not miss "On Rims of Empty Moons. McAfee wanders over similar terrain as McCarthy, but he has the craziest imagination you've seen in print for years, and a wild sense of humor that finds laughs even in the midst of the goriest events and the blackest tragedies. The book takes the reader on a crazy journey from the dry landscapes of West Texas and northern Mexico to the steamy jungles of VietNam, and accomplishes all without a false note, because the author knows intimately the places and the ways of life he talks about. My personal thanks to McAfee and his publishers at Texas Tech Press for a book in which finally an Anglo author writes about Mexico without making the speech of the characters and the language they use sound like snippets of dialogue from an old Cisco Kid movie. Can't wait for the movie version! (Nahh! Hollywood couldn't cope with this kind of imagination without emulsifying and adulterating it!)

There are a lot of reasons to read about the recent political history of Texas. To understand the current winners in American politics and where they want to take us, you've got to understand their financial, cultural, and political lineage. Dave Richards' book about Texas from 1954 to the present is a story of the dominant conflict in America today, the war between the extreme right and the moderates. It's a cautionary and instructive tale.

Richards is one of the lawyers who changed Texas from a one-party, racist fiefdom to a two-party political moiety with a less tilted playing field for Hispanics, Blacks, students, women, nature-lovers, and other ordinary people. In 1954, Richards came of age in a segregated Texas with a poll tax and no Republican party. Conservatives voted in the Democratic primaries, maintaining the white, racist, oil-field culture's hold on the state. He and his cohorts, a coalition of Hispanic and student labor, labor unions, Blacks, and women, determined to redistribute the power. With the aid of new federal laws and the fortunate appointment of a new crop of federal judges, the populist, progressive coalition were able to solve problems that had throttled Texas for a hundred years: unrepresentative voting districts, disenfranchisement of students, censorship of the press, disenfranchisement of Blacks and Hispanics, and unequal public school financing.

There have been lasting effects of the effort to remake Texas. There is no longer a poll tax, there is a Republican party, there is desegregation, and women, Hispanics, and Blacks hold office at every level of government.

But Nixon promised to turn the Supreme Court so far right we wouldn't recognize it, and with the Reagan and Bush appointees the federal courts are no longer reliably part of the solution. The Dallas east Texas oil field crowd has prevailed again, despite all the coalition building; to read Richards' book is to follow how and why.

One familiar trick, the disenfranchisement of voters who are putative "felons," played so effectively in Florida in the year 2000 presidential election, was first pulled in Texas in 1982. That time, the trick was played long enough before the election that Richards was able to get a federal injunction requiring the withdrawal of the "felons" list and prohibiting the secretary of state from doing anything that would interfere with or violate the right to vote.

Look for this trick to return to your polling place soon. For other Texas tricks, read Richards' book, and prepare to hire good counsel, or give otiose assent to the current winners.

This book is well-written and compelling reading. It provides a overview of the politics in Texas from the time of the "Shivercrats" in the 50's through the upheaval of campus protests in the 60's to the current landscape where Republicans occupy the majority of statewide offices. The author is an attorney who was engaged over his career in Texas in a number of lawsuits seeking equity in voting rights for minorities and in funding among public schools, among other social justice issues.

The autobiographical structure of the book provides an engaging contrast between the (potentially dry) discussion of litgation and the personal growth and escapades of the author and his rowdy and adventurous friends. The legal points are explained in terms that non-attorneys can easily grasp and the outcomes of the cases demonstrate that progess can be made, bit by bit, in dragging civilization forward to a more progessive place if you are clever and persistent and sometimes just downright lucky. It is a must read for anyone wanting to understand the political history of Texas, or for students of public affairs seeking insight into the realities of how policies are made and changed.

It is also a very enjoyable read for anyone wanting to get a feel for Austin during its best years -- when the music was great and the living was laid back. Some of the anecdotes made me laugh out loud, which is one of the greatest compliments a book can elicit from me. The fact that there is much to be learned from reading it, and that it is a delightful read to boot, earned it a 5-star rating.

How is it that Texas politics could give the country Lyndon Johnson and George W. Bush, Ralph Yarborough and Phil Gramm? When Ann Richards became governor, the prison system, the juvenile justice system, and the mental health system were all to some degree under the control of federal courts because of state defaults. After her administration, all those systems were back under state control, employment was up and crime was down--yet, she got voted out. Why?

If questions like this hold no fascination for you, pass on this book...unless you are up for a string of hilarious shaggy dog stories involving the movers and shakers and noisemakers of Texas. The acid test for humor is whether you will laugh out loud when nobody else is in the room. This book passes so clearly that you might want to take it in small doses if you are prone to aches caused by belly laughs.

The reason why a first rate academic press would publish a memoir full of political anecdotes is because those anecdotes illustrate important strategy and tactics in the struggle to drag Texas toward the 21st Century. Where is it writ that you cannot learn important things and have fun at the same time?

The story is laid out above (Editorial Reviews). So I'll just add that I liked it. It was pleasantly different than most legal
mysteries in that it was about regular people in a rural town, not your wealth blahblahblah clients who can and do buy and
manipulate everything and everyone in sight.
This is the third book by Jay Brandon I've read and enjoyed.

The only blooper I found was that the lawyer went looking to see if the defendant was wearing a ring. Everything is taken
from you when you are processed into jail.

Wicked. Cool. Sorted. Jay Brandon is da man. Aiiight! Boo ya!

Jay Brandon is the man... and I've only read one of his books. Cool cat - good courtroom stuff. Excellent. Wicked. Aiiie! Boo yah!

I picked up this book a few years ago while visiting a friend in Houston. There are so many good recipes in here, I don't even know where to begin! Lots of basic, easy to make Texas-style and Tex-mex recipes, plus a smattering of exotic wild game dishes. But it's not just the recipes that make this book -- the author, Linda West Eckhardt -- has filled the pages with humorous stories and factoids about the Texas lifestyle.

I had borrowed the book from my sister and found it to be just wonderful!! Being a Native Texan, I am always on the look-out for recipes that are "Texas". The recipes for Duck Gumbo, Crawfish Etouffee andFuzzy's Fantastic South Texas Road Meat Chili are among my favorite from the book. My sister is demanding her copy back, so, I am ordering my own!!

This is not only a cookbook but a collection of excellent short stories by Linda that give you an insight into Texas culture as well as cusine (recipes are good too).