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Sandhills Boy: The Winding Trail of a Texas Writer
“One thing is certain,” a reviewer in True West Magazine recently said, “as long as there are writers as skillful as Elmer Kelton, Western literature will never die.” Few would disagree with the assessment of the man whose peers voted the “Best Western writer of all time” and whose 50 novels form a testament and tribute to the American West. But who is that Texas gentleman with the white Stetson and rimless eyeglasses whose friendly face appears on so many book jackets? Sandhills Boy is Kelton’s memoir, a funny and poignant story of “a freckle-faced country boy, green as a gourd, a sheep ready to be sheared,” growing up in the wild, dry, sandhills of West Texas. The son of a working cowboy and ranch foreman, Elmer was expected to follow in father's footsteps but learned at an early age that he had no talents in the cowboy’s trade. Buck Kelton called Elmer “Pop,” said he was “slow as the seven-year itch,” and reluctantly supported his son’s decision to become a student at the University of Texas, and, eventually, a journalist and writer. Kelton’s life in ranch and oil patch Texas during the Great Depression is told with warm nostalgic humor animated with stories of the cowboys and their wives and kids who gave the time and place its special flavor. He writes with great feeling of his service in WW2 in France, Germany, and Czechoslovakia, and the romantic circumstances in which his life changed in the village of Ebensee, Austria. .
Price: $4.39
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Some of My Best Friends and Other Fictions
Joe Benevento's first collection of short stories is a compelling and diverse exploration of American and Latin American cultures. Benevento's readers may recall his prolific work in poetry and novels, which include the volumes "Holding On," "Willing to Believe," "Plumbing in Harlem," and "The Odd Squad." "Some of My Best Friends and Other Fictions" is a significant addition to Benevento's fresh portrayals of the urban lives of New York City and of the Midwest..
Price: $10.14
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States
About her debut collection of short stories, esteemed writers have these observations: "The world in Jennifer Pashley's stories is wicked and seriously out-of-whack, remarkable and delicious-you never know who you're going to run into. Pashley writes quick, tough dialog that cuts hard and scars, and her stories put you in places and circumstances you have little chance of getting to otherwise. She asks you to pay attention and use your imagination, and then treats you to the real pleasures of fiction, of character, of remarkable people in difficult times. Her work always stuns." - Frederick Barthelme "Jennifer Pashley's 'States' imagines human desire in all its heart-breaking complexity: the mysteries, disguises, aggressions, disappointments, ecstasies. The contemporary narrators of these stories - men and women mostly in their 20s and 30s - are disturbed and disturbing, smart but rarely knowing. They are, as one puts it, 'unraveling with desire.' States is a riveting, accomplished, and immensely satisfying first collection." - David Lloyd, author of Boys, Stories and a Novella "Precise. Blunt. Funny. Scary. Bleak. An inviting and well-carved debut." - Aimee Bender.
Price: $8.70
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Sandhill County Lines: Stories (A Sandhill Chronicle) (Sandhill Chronicles)
Sandhill County Clay Reynolds s Yoknapatawpha is the setting for all nine stories in this collection Reynolds sees his stories as refl ective fragments, "the kind one notices when driving through a county in North Central Texas old buildings and houses, each one concealing a story. I wonder about such places, about the people behind the windows and doors, what their stories truly are. Sometimes a sensation that wouldn t cause so much as a ripple in the city may roll like a tidal wave in a small town.
These gathered short stories make whole and illuminate the place that informs Reynolds s Sandhill novels, from "The Vigil" and "Agatite" to his most recent, "Threading the Needle."
"Out on the porch twilight was passing. The silver sky in the west outlined the bare trees. It was early spring. Buds hadn t yet appeared on the live oaks and cottonwoods, and the Johnson grass was still yellow and crackly. Walker P. walked to the edge of the warped, gray boards and peered out toward the highway. A pair of taillights blinked away into the night. 'One of them Surburbans,' he said. 'From over to Punkin Center. Goddamn town people got no sense. Drive too goddamn fast. Don t they know folks live here?' The man and boy stared off into the arkness. 'Get my rifle,' he said, 'and a lantern.'
From "Etta s Pond.".
Price: $16.95
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The Cry of the Sandhill Crane (Camp & Cottage Birding Collection, 3)
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Yellowbird
Judy R. Smith's Yellowbird was the Native Writers' Circle of the Americas First Book Award recipient David Lynn, editor of the prestigious Kenyon Review notes, "Yellowbird is a marvelous achievement--full of wit, invention, and emotional power. There is a wildness of spirit here and a searing honesty. I was entirely caught up while reading Yellowbird and only reluctantly came to the end." University of Oklahoma Professor of English and Native American Studies, Geary Hobson, writes, "Have you ever found yourself carefully scrutinizing mid-19th Century daguerreotypes--as if halfway expecting the cut of Prince Albert topcoats and the stylish flair of ribbon clusters of the clothing of the well-dressed fathers and mothers and their children will somehow reveal what the faces aren't offering, what they can't offer? Yellowbird, with its several strands of intricately woven narratives of a past century's voices, is just such a similar act, one in which the reader is not only rewarded with a deeper and clearer understanding of the people in that olden day, but also of our own century and its multi-faceted assemblage of voices and faces." Yellowbird is an important collection, essential for readers of Native American Studies, fiction, and women's studies..
Price: $9.59
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