| |
Book
Review
The
Book Lover's Tour of Texas
by Jessie Gunn Stephens
Taylor
Trade Publishing (200 pp.)
$17.95
2004
ISBN: 1-58979-144-4
Reviewed by Jamie Engle |
|
You're
traveling to East Texas and want to read a book set there, or maybe read a book
by an East Texas author. Or maybe you're looking for a few good Texas authors
and books. How would you find one, without an extensive search?
The Book
Lover's Tour of Texas can help on all counts. A literary tour of Texas, Stephens
says the book is "about traveling through Texas and reading about what you're
seeing, or about what happened in history in the place you're passing through,
or about which novelists have chosen to set their works in the very city you're
visiting."
The book is part travel guide, part Texas literature guide.
Stephens, a native Texan living in Sherman, separates the state into eight regional
sections. Each section contains a bit of the area's history, authors and literature,
and the region's attractions (especially those relating to history and natural
history, and of course, books and authors). Gray boxes highlight special collections,
archives, museums, authors, and bookstores of note. The section ends with a Reading
Tour, a list of books related to the area.
Stephens doesn't limit the
scope to literary fiction or westerns. A variety of genres are covered, including
westerns, historical fiction, nonfiction, romances, mysteries, literary fiction,
science fiction and fantasy.
Highly readable, The Book Lover's Tour of
Texas is a great resource of Texas authors, books about Texas, and books set in
Texas. You'll come away with a long list of places to visit and books and authors
you want to know more about. |
Reviewed
by Jamie Engle, a book reviewer and freelance writer living in North Texas. September
1, 2005
© Jamie Engle |
| |
