Contributing Editor<\/span><\/h1>\n![](\"https:\/\/lonestarliterary.etypegoogle10.com\/sites\/lonestarliterary.etypegoogle10.com\/files\/description\/dottedline220.jpg\")
<\/span><\/span><\/p>\nAUTOBIOGRAPHY \/ MUSIC<\/span><\/p>\nGary P. Nunn<\/p>\n
At Home with the Armadillo<\/span><\/p>\nGreenleaf Book Group Press<\/p>\n
Hardcover, <\/span>978-1-62634-487-7<\/span> (also available in e-book format), 336, pages, $24.95<\/span><\/p>\nJanuary 2018<\/p>\n
Reviewed by Si Dunn<\/p>\n
Early in 1972, singer-songwriter-musician Gary P. Nunn<\/span> was ready to quit performing, leave Texas, and move back to his home state, Oklahoma.<\/p>\nAt age 26, he admits in At Home with the Armadillo,<\/span> \u201cI had had a butt-full of the music business as it had led me to nothing but heartache and misery.\u201d His new plan was to help his uncles with their farming and ranching until he could figure out what next to do with his life.<\/p>\nNunn, or Gary P., as he sometimes is called in his new autobiography, had been playing bass guitar in rock bands since junior high school in Brownfield, Texas, in the late 1950s. Now he had his pickup packed and was ready to go. But he decided, spur of the moment, to stay in Austin a couple of days longer so he could see a live performance by a rising star he greatly admired: Texas singer-songwriter Michael Martin Murphey.\u00a0 <\/span>>>READ MORE<\/span><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n![](\"https:\/\/lonestarliterary.etypegoogle10.com\/sites\/lonestarliterary.etypegoogle10.com\/files\/description\/tafolla%2c%2015%20poet%20laureate_cover%20ts.jpg\")
<\/span><\/span>POETRY<\/p>\nCarmen Tafolla, edited by Bryce Milligan<\/span><\/p>\nNew and Selected Poems<\/span><\/p>\nHardcover, 978-0-87565-689-2, 96 pp.,\u00a0 $19.95<\/p>\n
Texas A&M University Press<\/p>\n
TCU Texas Poets Laureate Series<\/p>\n
June 15, 2018<\/p>\n
Reviewed by Natalia Trevi\u00f1o<\/p>\n
The first burst of delicacies in Carmen Tafolla\u2019s<\/span> New and Selected Poems.<\/span> A tribute to her accomplishments, roots, and activism by Bryce Milligan.<\/span> The sweets that waterfall out? Eclectic, sensuous, and unabashed poetics of a fierce Chicana.<\/p>\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 As I read this collection, I was reminded how fortunate I am to live in the city whose praises she frequently sings and whose sorrows and injustices she laments. This is one of the bright pi\u00f1atas in this book for San Antonio readers, but the big prize goes to a much wider population. Needed in a time filled with such negative rhetoric about immigrants and Mexicans, this book feeds its readers pride in their cultura,<\/span> in its Indigenous wisdom from the voice of a nurturer-mother Earth: \u201cI have squeezed cilantro into the breast milk\/ made sure you were nurtured with the taste \/ of green life.”\u00a0 >>READ MORE<\/span><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n![](\"https:\/\/lonestarliterary.etypegoogle10.com\/sites\/lonestarliterary.etypegoogle10.com\/files\/description\/dromgoole%2c%20glenn_headshot2b.jpg\")
<\/span><\/span><\/span>Texas Reads<\/span>Glenn Dromgoole<\/span><\/h1>\n>> archive<\/a><\/span><\/h1>\n5.6.2018\u00a0 Joanna Gaines shares some of her favorite recipes<\/h1>\n
<\/p>\n![](\"https:\/\/lonestarliterary.etypegoogle10.com\/sites\/lonestarliterary.etypegoogle10.com\/files\/description\/gaines%2c%20magnolia%20table_cover%20sm211x280.jpg\")
<\/div>\n<\/a><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n
Joanna Gaines of \u201cFixer Upper\u201d fame has a new cookbook,<\/span> Magnolia Table: A Collection of Recipes for Gathering<\/span> (William Morrow, $29.99 hardcover).<\/p>\nAs you would expect, it\u2019s very well done, with 300 pages full of recipes, color photos, and running commentary.<\/p>\n
Some of the recipes are from Joanna and Chip\u2019s newly opened Magnolia Table restaurant in Waco, at the old Elite Caf\u00e9 location. She begins the book with a few pages about the ingredients she always tries to keep on hand in her pantry and a discussion of the kitchen tools she uses most frequently. Then it\u2019s on to the food, divided into seven categories: breakfast, lunch, soups and salads, appetizers and starters, side dishes, dinner, and desserts.<\/p>\n
A few of the appealing selections for breakfast: asparagus and Fontina quiche, JoJo\u2019s biscuits, garlic cheese grits, ham and cheese bread pudding, and cinnamon squares (\u201cmy kids\u2019 favorite breakfast,\u201d Joanna writes).<\/p>\n
For lunch, how about the hefty Gaines Brothers Burger, flatbread pizza with prosciutto and potatoes, or grilled Havarti, tomato and basil sandwiches?<\/p>\n
Dinner entrees range from King Ranch chicken with Mexican-style jicama salad to Jo\u2019s fatayer meat pies to Gaines family chili, meat loaf, and beef stew.<\/p>\n
You wouldn\u2019t want to skip desserts like Aunt Opal\u2019s banana pudding, buttermilk blueberry puff, lemon pie, and mocha trifle cups.<\/p>\n
Well, there\u2019s a lot more, but you get the idea. And if you\u2019re interested in trying some of these recipes at the Waco restaurant, it\u2019s open from 6 a.m. to 3 p.m. Monday through Saturday \u2014 first come, first served, no reservations, according to the website. I imagine you should be prepared to wait.<\/p>\n
Veteran cemeteries:<\/span> In The Veterans Cemeteries of Texas,<\/span> retired Lt. Col. Michael Lee Lanning<\/span> tells the stories of the ten burial sites in Texas reserved for military veterans and their families (Texas A&M University Press, $29.95 hardcover).<\/p>\nWith text and color pictures, Lanning relates each cemetery\u2019s history as well as vignettes about some of the more notable veterans buried there. He also offers practical information about eligibility requirements and floral policies.<\/p>\n
Texas has six national VA cemeteries \u2014 San Antonio, Fort Sam Houston (also San Antonio), Kerrville, Fort Bliss, Houston and Dallas\u2013Fort Worth \u2014 as well as state veteran cemeteries at Killeen, Mission, Abilene and Corpus Christi.<\/p>\n
![](\"https:\/\/lonestarliterary.etypegoogle10.com\/sites\/lonestarliterary.etypegoogle10.com\/files\/description\/jakoby%2c%20the%20strange%20career%20of%20william%20ellis_cover%20sm.jpg\")
<\/a><\/span><\/span>Now in paperback:<\/span> Karl Jacoby\u2019s<\/span> The Strange Career of William Ellis: The Texas Slave Who Became a Mexican Millionaire<\/span><\/a><\/span> is now available in a trade paperback edition (Norton, $16.95).<\/p>\nBorn in Victoria, Texas, in 1864, Ellis would become a cattle trader, stock broker and entrepreneur who crossed national boundaries and racial lines with ease. He established a short-lived colony in Mexico for African-Americans, purchased a seat on the New York Stock Exchange, and had international business holdings, sometimes passing himself off as Mexican or Cuban. He died in Mexico in 1923.<\/p>\n
Glenn Dromgoole<\/span> writes about Texas books and authors. Contact him at g.dromgoole@suddenlink.net.<\/span><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n>> <\/span>Check out his previous Texas Reads columns in Lone Star Lit<\/a><\/span>erary Life<\/span><\/h1>\n* * * * *<\/p>\n
![](\"https:\/\/lonestarliterary.etypegoogle10.com\/sites\/lonestarliterary.etypegoogle10.com\/files\/description\/dottedline300.jpg\")
<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n![](\"https:\/\/lonestarliterary.etypegoogle10.com\/sites\/lonestarliterary.etypegoogle10.com\/files\/description\/bookish-destinations-badge-2018-transp-ts.png\")
<\/span><\/span>2018 TEXAS BOOKISH DESTINATIONS<\/h1>\nCan you name this literary place in the Lone Star State?<\/h1>\n
Okay, one last chance at the prize, before National Poetry Month comes to an end April 30!<\/span><\/p>\nAdmit it: bookfans love traveling almost as much as they love reading itself.<\/span> Beginning March 4, 2018, Lone Star Literary Life will roll out #10 through #6 in our annual list of Top Texas Bookish Destinations, for readers who want to visit the settings of their favorite books, the birthplaces and haunts of favorite authors, and hot spots for book buying, readings, and other literary activity.<\/p>\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 But throughout Texas\u2019s 268,597 square miles, there are also lots of out-of-the-way points of interest that we don\u2019t always have space to cover in our Top Ten pages.<\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Watch this space each week for a new bookish place that you\u2019ll want to add to your own travel list. Be the first to email us with the correct identification, and win a prize!<\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 This week, we continue with a bookish place that\u2019s located in 2017\u2019s #2 Top Bookish Destination. There\u2019s plenty of poetry in this literary-rich city, but there\u2019s a Poet Tree, too. Can you name the city? And extra credit for telling our readers the neighborhood or street where they can find it, too.<\/p>\n
<\/span><\/span><\/p>\nAUTOBIOGRAPHY \/ MUSIC<\/span><\/p>\n Gary P. Nunn<\/p>\n At Home with the Armadillo<\/span><\/p>\n Greenleaf Book Group Press<\/p>\n Hardcover, <\/span>978-1-62634-487-7<\/span> (also available in e-book format), 336, pages, $24.95<\/span><\/p>\n January 2018<\/p>\n Reviewed by Si Dunn<\/p>\n Early in 1972, singer-songwriter-musician Gary P. Nunn<\/span> was ready to quit performing, leave Texas, and move back to his home state, Oklahoma.<\/p>\n At age 26, he admits in At Home with the Armadillo,<\/span> \u201cI had had a butt-full of the music business as it had led me to nothing but heartache and misery.\u201d His new plan was to help his uncles with their farming and ranching until he could figure out what next to do with his life.<\/p>\n Nunn, or Gary P., as he sometimes is called in his new autobiography, had been playing bass guitar in rock bands since junior high school in Brownfield, Texas, in the late 1950s. Now he had his pickup packed and was ready to go. But he decided, spur of the moment, to stay in Austin a couple of days longer so he could see a live performance by a rising star he greatly admired: Texas singer-songwriter Michael Martin Murphey.\u00a0 <\/span>>>READ MORE<\/span><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n Carmen Tafolla, edited by Bryce Milligan<\/span><\/p>\n New and Selected Poems<\/span><\/p>\n Hardcover, 978-0-87565-689-2, 96 pp.,\u00a0 $19.95<\/p>\n Texas A&M University Press<\/p>\n TCU Texas Poets Laureate Series<\/p>\n June 15, 2018<\/p>\n Reviewed by Natalia Trevi\u00f1o<\/p>\n The first burst of delicacies in Carmen Tafolla\u2019s<\/span> New and Selected Poems.<\/span> A tribute to her accomplishments, roots, and activism by Bryce Milligan.<\/span> The sweets that waterfall out? Eclectic, sensuous, and unabashed poetics of a fierce Chicana.<\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 As I read this collection, I was reminded how fortunate I am to live in the city whose praises she frequently sings and whose sorrows and injustices she laments. This is one of the bright pi\u00f1atas in this book for San Antonio readers, but the big prize goes to a much wider population. Needed in a time filled with such negative rhetoric about immigrants and Mexicans, this book feeds its readers pride in their cultura,<\/span> in its Indigenous wisdom from the voice of a nurturer-mother Earth: \u201cI have squeezed cilantro into the breast milk\/ made sure you were nurtured with the taste \/ of green life.”\u00a0 >>READ MORE<\/span><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/a><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n Joanna Gaines of \u201cFixer Upper\u201d fame has a new cookbook,<\/span> Magnolia Table: A Collection of Recipes for Gathering<\/span> (William Morrow, $29.99 hardcover).<\/p>\n As you would expect, it\u2019s very well done, with 300 pages full of recipes, color photos, and running commentary.<\/p>\n Some of the recipes are from Joanna and Chip\u2019s newly opened Magnolia Table restaurant in Waco, at the old Elite Caf\u00e9 location. She begins the book with a few pages about the ingredients she always tries to keep on hand in her pantry and a discussion of the kitchen tools she uses most frequently. Then it\u2019s on to the food, divided into seven categories: breakfast, lunch, soups and salads, appetizers and starters, side dishes, dinner, and desserts.<\/p>\n A few of the appealing selections for breakfast: asparagus and Fontina quiche, JoJo\u2019s biscuits, garlic cheese grits, ham and cheese bread pudding, and cinnamon squares (\u201cmy kids\u2019 favorite breakfast,\u201d Joanna writes).<\/p>\n For lunch, how about the hefty Gaines Brothers Burger, flatbread pizza with prosciutto and potatoes, or grilled Havarti, tomato and basil sandwiches?<\/p>\n Dinner entrees range from King Ranch chicken with Mexican-style jicama salad to Jo\u2019s fatayer meat pies to Gaines family chili, meat loaf, and beef stew.<\/p>\n You wouldn\u2019t want to skip desserts like Aunt Opal\u2019s banana pudding, buttermilk blueberry puff, lemon pie, and mocha trifle cups.<\/p>\n Well, there\u2019s a lot more, but you get the idea. And if you\u2019re interested in trying some of these recipes at the Waco restaurant, it\u2019s open from 6 a.m. to 3 p.m. Monday through Saturday \u2014 first come, first served, no reservations, according to the website. I imagine you should be prepared to wait.<\/p>\n Veteran cemeteries:<\/span> In The Veterans Cemeteries of Texas,<\/span> retired Lt. Col. Michael Lee Lanning<\/span> tells the stories of the ten burial sites in Texas reserved for military veterans and their families (Texas A&M University Press, $29.95 hardcover).<\/p>\n With text and color pictures, Lanning relates each cemetery\u2019s history as well as vignettes about some of the more notable veterans buried there. He also offers practical information about eligibility requirements and floral policies.<\/p>\n Texas has six national VA cemeteries \u2014 San Antonio, Fort Sam Houston (also San Antonio), Kerrville, Fort Bliss, Houston and Dallas\u2013Fort Worth \u2014 as well as state veteran cemeteries at Killeen, Mission, Abilene and Corpus Christi.<\/p>\n Born in Victoria, Texas, in 1864, Ellis would become a cattle trader, stock broker and entrepreneur who crossed national boundaries and racial lines with ease. He established a short-lived colony in Mexico for African-Americans, purchased a seat on the New York Stock Exchange, and had international business holdings, sometimes passing himself off as Mexican or Cuban. He died in Mexico in 1923.<\/p>\n Glenn Dromgoole<\/span> writes about Texas books and authors. Contact him at g.dromgoole@suddenlink.net.<\/span><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n * * * * *<\/p>\n Okay, one last chance at the prize, before National Poetry Month comes to an end April 30!<\/span><\/p>\n Admit it: bookfans love traveling almost as much as they love reading itself.<\/span> Beginning March 4, 2018, Lone Star Literary Life will roll out #10 through #6 in our annual list of Top Texas Bookish Destinations, for readers who want to visit the settings of their favorite books, the birthplaces and haunts of favorite authors, and hot spots for book buying, readings, and other literary activity.<\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 But throughout Texas\u2019s 268,597 square miles, there are also lots of out-of-the-way points of interest that we don\u2019t always have space to cover in our Top Ten pages.<\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Watch this space each week for a new bookish place that you\u2019ll want to add to your own travel list. Be the first to email us with the correct identification, and win a prize!<\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 This week, we continue with a bookish place that\u2019s located in 2017\u2019s #2 Top Bookish Destination. There\u2019s plenty of poetry in this literary-rich city, but there\u2019s a Poet Tree, too. Can you name the city? And extra credit for telling our readers the neighborhood or street where they can find it, too.<\/p>\n<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<\/span><\/span>POETRY<\/p>\n<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<\/span><\/span><\/span>Texas Reads<\/span>Glenn Dromgoole<\/span><\/h1>\n>> archive<\/a><\/span><\/h1>\n
5.6.2018\u00a0 Joanna Gaines shares some of her favorite recipes<\/h1>\n
<\/div>\n<\/a><\/span><\/span>Now in paperback:<\/span> Karl Jacoby\u2019s<\/span> The Strange Career of William Ellis: The Texas Slave Who Became a Mexican Millionaire<\/span><\/a><\/span> is now available in a trade paperback edition (Norton, $16.95).<\/p>\n>> <\/span>Check out his previous Texas Reads columns in Lone Star Lit<\/a><\/span>erary Life<\/span><\/h1>\n
<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<\/span><\/span>2018 TEXAS BOOKISH DESTINATIONS<\/h1>\nCan you name this literary place in the Lone Star State?<\/h1>\n
![](\"https:\/\/lonestarliterary.etypegoogle10.com\/sites\/lonestarliterary.etypegoogle10.com\/files\/description\/bookish%20texas%20022518%20sm215x322.jpg\")
<\/div>\n![](\"https:\/\/lonestarliterary.etypegoogle10.com\/sites\/lonestarliterary.etypegoogle10.com\/files\/description\/tx%20bookish%20place%2017843%20sm.jpg\")
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