In *The Day They Took My Uncle and Other Stories,* Lionel Garcia's short stories run the gamut from the hilarious to the tragic, just as his novels do; he proves to be as deft at presenting pure tragedy as pure comedy, and at his best when they are blended together.

On the one hand, there's "Mammogram," in which language difficulties in the waiting room lead to misunderstanding and, for the reader, great fun. In "West Texas Cowboys," a crew of dumb-and-dumber cowhands destroy their boss's property piecemeal in successive attempts to cover up each disaster. On the other hand, there is the account of a jaded ememgency room orderly who is forced to face a bereaved family and, in doing so, to confront his own situation as well. In another story, a contemporary urbanite goes home to his aging, small-town parents in an effort to recover his lost intimacy with them.

We see a loving young mother place her child on a city bus to ride all night in safety while she works. In this short, simple story, the writer, like a fine cartoonist, draws with a few short strokes rich characters and powerful emotions. In the title story, we watch Uncle Merce --introduced earlier in the autobiographical *I Can Hear the Cowbells Ring*--running wildly through the town, shouting obscene accusations against the mayor's wife; his protective mother and sister then courageously attack the sheriff who comes to take him to the insane asylum. A lonely widow attempts to seduce her plumber. There is even a bona fide ghost tale in the collection.

In the majority of the stories, humor and pathos are blended in such a way that each one heightens the other; it is unusual to find comedy without some significance, or tragedy unrelieved by either humor or hope.

Garcia sees the complexities of the very real individuals who people his stories, grasps their contradictions, and introduces them to us tenderly, humorously and, in most cases, with hope that tomorrow will be a better day for them. Although the stories in this collection are set mostly in South Texas and often in Hispanic families, they are about the foibles, disappointments, and hopes that are common to all of us. Few, if any, leave us untouched.

A good friend's fourth grader selected this book as a gift from me while visiting my new home. She was completely absorbed by it and stimulated to remember and relate to me the Texas history she'd studied in the past year. I read it, too, and found it a good tale, well told and well illustrated.

This book explains the effects of alcohol and drug use in a format that is easy to understand. The author uses his own experiences (from being a professional athlete to nightclub manager)to show how alcohol and drugs can turn your life upside-down in a blink of an eye, and it can happen to anyone. He does this by talking to the reader, not above them. He explains one step at a time how he got involved in this lifestyle and what he did to get his life back. As an employee in the law enforcement field, I believe it would be beneficial for adults and teenagers to read this book. It would let them know that NO ONE is exempt for alcohol and drugs, not even professional athletes. An impotant message of this book is "You can choose to do whatever you want, but you can't choose the consequence" If more people realized this, they may think more often before they act.

The head of the United States section of the International Boundary and Water Commission Zanjiv Mehendru has made many enemies in America for his decisions favoring Mexico. In Mexico he is regarded, as a hero so when he is murdered, there is a public outcry for the judicales to catch his murderer. When Clay and Texana Jones, the owners of Texana's Trading Post and a veterinary practice go across the Mexican border to the town of Ojinaga to dine with friends at a local restaurant, Clay is arrested.

It is only later that Texana learns that her husband is believed to be the killer of Mehendru but when she goes over their records, she has proof that Clay was nowhere near Ojinaga the night the homicide occurred. The magistrate dismisses her evidence preferring that of a prostitute who insists says she saw Clay kill Mehendru. Someone politically high up wants Clay convicted and Texana must find out whom that person is if she ever wants to see her beloved husband back home with her where he belongs.

Life on the border is definitely different and La Frontera has a culture and a history different from the rest of both countries. The protagonist must work within a court system that finds a suspect guilty until proven innocent and the only way that she can free her husband is to offer up an alternative suspect. Friends on both sides of the border work together to uncover a conspiracy that is keeping an innocent man incarcerated. Allana Martin has written a culturally colorful amateur sleuth novel.

Harriet Klausner

This is a well researched and well written description of a time and place in Dallas in the 20's and 30's that has long been overdue. The history of blues, jazz, gospel and country was written in Deep Ellum. It was a "good read", and I recommend it highly.

This stupendous book is vital to the collection of anyone who appreciates great literature and considers himself a bibliophile. A collaboration by the Scholz sisters -- Suzette, Stephanie and Sheri -- this gripping non-fiction account reads like a Pulitzer-winning novel. Consider this excerpt:

"Johnny picked Loni up in a white stretch Cadillac wearing a coyote fur coat. He had on cream-colored, snakeskin boots and there were rings on all his fingers. Crowning him was a brown suede cowboy hat with a falcon feather in the band. When she opened the door, Loni went into shock."

This was from the chapter discussing the ethics of the Bikini tests, the first hydrogen bomb trials in the South Pacific, and included some superlative speculation about reconciliation of quantum mechanics with the unified field theory. In another chapter, we find:

"One morning, Greg called Zee. 'I'll pick you up in ten minutes. Meet me out in front of your apartment.' 'Where we going?' 'Shopping.' " There ensued a trip to Neiman Marcus in Dallas, and a luncheon wherein several solutions to the Middle East difficulties were proposed, examined, dissected and evaluated, and afterward they tried on swimsuits.

The girls were unique in their associations with major world figures, and they were not shy with their opinions. Criticism of Jane Seymour and Morgan Fairchild, for example, was profoundly stunning: Seymour was "rather aloof" -- and of Morgan, they wrote, "I had never seen so many layers of heavily aplied makeup in my life. It looked as though it would have taken a chisel to get it off."

Personally, I almost wept when I read their observation, "Football is a wonderful game, with the action and excitement and the uniforms and all." This not the sort of thinking that manifests itself in ordinary people, and the Scholz sisters were anything but.

Deep in the Heart is a must-read for anyone striving to become a Dallas Cowboy Cheerleader, a gloves-off report revealing that it's not all glitter and mascara. But these women prevailed, nay excelled, and the world is a better place for their efforts. Buy this book TODAY !

When did the "profession of arms" become a profession, and not a vulgar clash of untrained violent mobs? More importantly to Matthew Moten's seminal work, when did the US military begin the transition from militia based rabble to professional military?

The Delafield Commission and the American Military Profession gives a concise, detailed account of an exceptional group of three American officers, Maj Delafield, Maj Mordecai and Capt McClellan. In the 1850's they stood at the top of their profession, and each was widely respected in his particular branch, or specialty. Although Moten does not bludgeon the reader to death with the details of each, he gives full scope to their qualifications and personalities, and how this colored the prism through which each viewed their twelve month journey through the armies of Europe. Likewise, although the Commission sought to make it to the Crimean Peninsula before the war there ended, the long term effect of their travel was not what they saw, or did not see in the Crimea. Rather, as Moten argues, it was the cumulative effect of what they saw, and central to his thesis, the manner in which they gathered, evaluated, and processed this information that sat them apart as the defining standard of military professionalism of their day. The Commission did see a great deal in the Crimea, but only the end of a drawn out siege style war.

Moten could make more of the time spent in Prussia, England, France and Russia. The reports of the three commissioners have a great deal to say about these militaries, and McClellan's report was published under the title The Armies of Europe. The commissioners thought a great deal about the technical details of what they saw on each stop, but they thought, at least to measure by their writings, very little about the future implications of the details they so closely observed.

Moten notes what the Commission not accomplish. The three officers chosen represented the mentalities of their own branches, and not the needs and views of the total Army as an institution. They were all primarily scientific corps officers, not combat arms, although McCLellan had recently transferred to the cavalry. Moten notes that the commission failed to address the impact of the new telegraph. There was evidence that it would be of major impact: William Howard Russell was sending daily dispatches to the Times, and the governments of Paris and London were sending almost daily operational and even tactical orders via the telegraph. The commission failed to address the impact of steam screw ships: the ability to move men and material regardless of wind planning consideration was truly revolutionary. The commission also failed to address the tactical implications of new rifled artillery and small arms, although the evidence was there to be seen, in both the new "rifle pits" and the extent to which both sides had entrenched. To be fair, a review of the British military journals at the time reveals a failure of the combatants to realize the importance of this as well.

Of interest, Moten notes that Delafield felt a need to improve the quality of military education. He may have been prompted in this by the debate raging in England at the time of the Commission's visit on the exact same subject. Whilst the British were complaining of the difficulty of maintaining the professional education of an army who had 2/3 of her officers across the globe on any given day, the American military was complaining of the same thing with the outposts in the West.

Overall, Moten does a superb job of analyzing the state of the professional American military in the 1850's, using the Delafield Commission as a benchmark. The book is concise, accurate, meticulously researched, and a valuable insight into the American military on the eve of the American Civil War.

Prof. Linden has done a remarkable job of taking newspapers, oral history and written documents to piece togehter the story of Dallas desegregation. For anyone interested in desegregation, urban American history or the history of North Texas this book is a must read. I have learned much from it and have found many insights into my own research in Linden's extensive bibliography. Clear enough for undergraduates but complete enough for any level of scholar.

George Coalson managed to describe the formation of agricultural labor in Texas in an interesting, informative fashion in only 130 pages. The book treats agricultural labor in Texas between 1900 and 1954. It ties the industrial revolution to changes in agricultural production (tractors) and transport (trains), resulting in the need for more harvest workers and the transformation of the role of state and federal government in coordinating the farm labor market. The writer makes good and thorough use of primary and secondary sources.

ARISTEO BRITO'S NOVEL IS AN EMOTIONAL JOURNEY. HIS SINCERITY IS OBVIOUS AND HIS IMAGES ARE TRUE PRINTS OF THE HUMAN SPIRIT.I HAVE NOT BEEN SO MOVED BY THE INTENSITY OF A NOVEL IN A LONG TIME. THE PLIGHT AND HEROISISM OF A PEOPLE SO OPPRESSED COULD ONLY BE DESCRIBED SO ELOQUENTLY BY ARISTEO BRITO. I AM ONLY SADDENED THAT I COULD NOT READ IT IN IT'S FIRST EDITION OF SPANISH, BECAUSE I IMAGINE HIS WORDS WERE EVEN MORE COMPELLING AND BEAUTIFUL.