In this Book
- Turning the Pages of Texas
- Book
- 2019
- Published by: TCU Press
summary
Turning the Pages of Texas is a collection of sixty essays about Texas books, authors, book collectors, libraries, and bookstores. It is a book for booklovers and bookish readers.
Lonn Taylor writes from the point of view of a historian who has been reading books about Texas for seventy years, since he was seven years old, and who has known many of the authors he writes about. He presents his reflections about well-known figures such as John Graves, J. Frank Dobie, and Larry McMurtry. He also introduces readers to people like folklorist C. L. Sonnichsen, who wrote about Texas feuds; Julia Lee Sinks, who interviewed early settlers of Fayette County in the 1870s; Karen Olsson, who wrote a fine novel about the mystique of Austin; and David Dorado Romo, who describes himself as the “psychogeographer of El Paso” and is the grandnephew of a saint. Some of the authors Taylor writes about are truly obscure, like Gertrude Beasley, who published her autobiography in Paris in 1924 and died in a New York insane asylum, or Tony Cano, whose self-published autobiographical novel describes what it was like to be poor and Mexican in West Texas in the 1950s. Taylor also teases out the Texas connections of writers as diverse as William Sydney Porter, Hervey Allen, and H. Allen Smith, and he writes about tracking down Texas books in London and Washington, DC, as well as at Barber’s in Fort Worth, the Brick Row Book Shop in Austin, and Rosengren’s and Brock’s in San Antonio.
This is a booklover’s book.
Lonn Taylor writes from the point of view of a historian who has been reading books about Texas for seventy years, since he was seven years old, and who has known many of the authors he writes about. He presents his reflections about well-known figures such as John Graves, J. Frank Dobie, and Larry McMurtry. He also introduces readers to people like folklorist C. L. Sonnichsen, who wrote about Texas feuds; Julia Lee Sinks, who interviewed early settlers of Fayette County in the 1870s; Karen Olsson, who wrote a fine novel about the mystique of Austin; and David Dorado Romo, who describes himself as the “psychogeographer of El Paso” and is the grandnephew of a saint. Some of the authors Taylor writes about are truly obscure, like Gertrude Beasley, who published her autobiography in Paris in 1924 and died in a New York insane asylum, or Tony Cano, whose self-published autobiographical novel describes what it was like to be poor and Mexican in West Texas in the 1950s. Taylor also teases out the Texas connections of writers as diverse as William Sydney Porter, Hervey Allen, and H. Allen Smith, and he writes about tracking down Texas books in London and Washington, DC, as well as at Barber’s in Fort Worth, the Brick Row Book Shop in Austin, and Rosengren’s and Brock’s in San Antonio.
This is a booklover’s book.
Table of Contents
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- Title, Copyright, Dedication
- pp. I-VI
- Introduction
- pp. XIV-XX
- Part I: Giants and Old-Timers
- 1: Myself and Strangers
- pp. 3-5
- 2: Legends of Texas
- pp. 6-9
- 5: With His Pistol in His Hand
- pp. 18-21
- 6: The Last Picture Show
- pp. 22-26
- 7: A Personal Country
- pp. 27-30
- 8: I'll Die Before I'll Run
- pp. 31-34
- 9: Peleliu Landing
- pp. 35-39
- 10: Six Years With the Texas Rangers
- pp. 40-42
- 12: Chronicles of Fayette
- pp. 47-50
- 13: The Trail Drivers of Texas
- pp. 51-54
- Part II: A Bookman's Pleasures
- 15: My Books and My Friends
- pp. 61-64
- 16: Al Lowman, Texas Bookman
- pp. 65-69
- 17: Browsing in Used Bookstores
- pp. 70-73
- 18: Rosengran's Books, San Antonio
- pp. 74-78
- 19: Browsing in Libraries
- pp. 79-82
- 21: My Life in Cookbooks
- pp. 87-90
- Part III: Back Roads and Dark Corners
- 22: My First 30 Years
- pp. 93-97
- 23: Texas Brags
- pp. 98-101
- 24: Back to Texas
- pp. 102-105
- 25: The Other Side of the Tracks
- pp. 106-109
- 26: Sam Houston's Texas
- pp. 110-113
- 27: A Gallery of Texas Characters
- pp. 114-117
- 28: A Place in El Paso
- pp. 118-121
- 29: Exploring the Edges of Texas
- pp. 122-125
- 30: Gray Ghosts and Red Rangers
- pp. 126-129
- 31: Never the Same Again
- pp. 130-134
- 32: Armadillo World Headquarters
- pp. 135-138
- 33: Waterloo
- pp. 139-142
- 34: Maverick
- pp. 143-146
- 35: Comfort and Glory
- pp. 147-150
- 36: Ringside Seat to a Revolution
- pp. 151-153
- 37: Henry Cohen
- pp. 154-156
- 38: Tio Cowboy
- pp. 157-160
- 40: Texas Cattle Brands
- pp. 165-168
- 41: Madeline in Texas
- pp. 169-172
- 42: Lone Star Lawmen
- pp. 173-176
- 43: The Big Rich
- pp. 177-180
- 44: Norfleet
- pp. 181-184
- 47: H. Allen Smith, A New Yorker in Alpine
- pp. 193-196
- 49: Alan Tennant and Rattlesnakes
- pp. 201-204
- 52: Remembering Bryan Woolley
- pp. 213-218
- Part IV: Cooks, Photographers, Poets, and Others
- 53: Our Founding Foods
- pp. 221-224
- 54: Hillingdon Ranch
- pp. 225-228
- 55: A Long View Southwest
- pp. 229-232
- 56: Watt Matthews of Lambshead
- pp. 233-236
- 57: The White Shaman Mural
- pp. 237-241
- 58: Home Ground
- pp. 242-245
- 59: Authentic Texas
- pp. 246-250
- 60: Capturing Nature
- pp. 251-254
- 62: Ranch Verses
- pp. 259-261
- 64: The Rotarians’ Book Festival
- pp. 266-273
Additional Information
ISBN
9780875657202
Related ISBN(s)
9780875657165
MARC Record
OCLC
1065796743
Pages
224
Launched on MUSE
2019-07-23
Language
English
Open Access
No