The Bookshelf, The Parlor, The Young Texas Reader, and the Monthly

The Texas Bookshelf is different from the The Texas Parlor, http://texasparlor.blogspot.com/ . The Texas Parlor carries "general" bookish information and non-book information and even different Texana news and notes of use to the bibliographically challenged and other nosey folks intersted in historical, literary, and cultural observations. Will's Texana Monthly may carry material from either blog, but extends itself beyond those, especially for longer compilations or treatments. The Monthly, the Bookshelf and the Parlor are all companions. So, is the Young Texas Reader http://youngtexasreader.blogspot.com/ which specialized on books and such things for the youngest to the teenagers.

Tuesday, May 4, 2010

Kirkus is Dead ! Kirkus Is Alive !

Kirkus Reviews ( http://www.kirkusreviews.com ) , established in 1933 was declared dead a few months ago until the Indiana Pacers' owner bought it and kept it alive.  Their reviews appear early in the publishing stream and known for their saucy commentary.  Kirkus is a mainstay for libraries and bookstores and the subscription is hefty.  A search for "Texas" at the main page brings up a variety of titles (see below) with initial nubbets of the books' reviews; to see the full review, you'll need to subscribe.  For example,

 Search Results
1 2 Next Last
Search Criteria:
Keyword(s): texas
Total Records: 20
Date Range: 02/03/2010 to 05/04/2010
Publication(s): Kirkus Reviews
Sorted By: Date in Descending order.
KEEPER
On a day when everything goes wrong, a little girl relies on the magic of the blue moon to turn things around. Since her mother swam away seven years ago, ten-year-old Keeper has lived happily with Signe on a remote slice of Texas coast, convinced
May 01, 2010 - Kirkus Reviews - Appelt, Kathi

THE FACULTY CLUB
Jeremy Davis thinks he has it made: Mere days after starting school, a high-ranking professor asks him to be his research assistant; a beautiful and brilliant classmate expresses interest in him; and he is courted by an exclusive club that
May 01, 2010 - Kirkus Reviews - Tobey, Danny

ON THE OUTSKIRTS OF NORMAL
Novelist and short-story writer Monroe (English/Texas State Univ.; Shambles, 2004, etc.) adopted Marie, an African-American baby, and raised her in the West Texas countryside where single female professors were an oddity and single white women with
Apr 15, 2010 - Kirkus Reviews - Monroe, Debra

BELLY UP
Twelve-year-old Teddy is a world traveler with a wildlife-photojournalist father and a mother who does gorilla research. Stateside, the family lives at FunJungle, the world's biggest and newest state-of-the-art zoo and theme park, the pet project of
Apr 15, 2010 - Kirkus Reviews - Gibbs, Stuart

RICHARD WRIGHT
This book, part of the publisher's series of short biographies of prominent African-Americans, isn't intended to deliver new information or surprising insights into the life and work of Richard Wright (1908–60). But given that the two major
Apr 01, 2010 - Kirkus Reviews - Wallach, Jennifer Jensen

LYNDON B. JOHNSON
Washington Monthly founder Peters (Five Days in Philadelphia: The Amazing "We Want Willkie!" Convention of 1940 and How It Freed FDR to Save the Western World, 2005, etc.) paints a mostly unpleasant portrait of a fiercely ambitious climber who
Apr 01, 2010 - Kirkus Reviews - Peters, Charles

WELCOME TO UTOPIA
The author starts slowly, but once she gets rid of the early-on clichs ("Roots are rare these days"), she emerges as a sensitive, candid and balanced observer of life in a town that is both everywhere and nowhere. Valby first tries to establish
Mar 15, 2010 - Kirkus Reviews - Valby, Karen

GALVESTON
Violence shadowed Roy Cady's childhood in East Texas. His alcoholic father fell to his death; his mother killed herself. She had worked for a bar owner and racketeer, and at 17 Roy started working for him too. Eventually he moved to New Orleans and
Mar 15, 2010 - Kirkus Reviews - Pizzolatto, Nic

HOLLY BLUES
Although traffic has been slow at her shops, China and her family—her husband Mike McQuaid, private eye and part-time college professor, his son Brian, and China's niece Caitlin—are making do. When Mike's former wife, Brian's mom Sally Strahorn,
Mar 15, 2010 - Kirkus Reviews - Albert, Susan Wittig

AT THE EDGE OF THE PRECIPICE
Although Illinois Senator Stephen A. Douglas actually pressed for the passing of the separate bills that effectively became the Compromise of 1850, it was Kentucky Senator Henry Clay who hammered the various proposals by Northerners and Southerners
Mar 01, 2010 - Kirkus Reviews - Remini, Robert V.

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