Books

Larry Jene Fisher's Photographs of the Last Southern Frontier

Thad Sitton and C.E. Hunt

(University of Texas, $29.95)

In the decade before World War II, Beaumont photographer Larry Jene Fisher lovingly recorded daily life in the Big Thicket region of Southeast Texas. It was one of the last places in America where people still practiced "the old ways" of living off the land. Mr. Fisher's photos and the authors' enlightening essays provide a valuable historical record of a Southern lifestyle now lost to time.

Karl H. Schlesier

(Texas Tech, $27.95)

This is an enticing novel for fans of fiction about the early Southwest. In 1807, a Cheyenne headsman leads a search mission southward out of Colorado to find his twin brother, missing after a raid in New Spain. The arduous journey takes them into lands they have never seen, battles with enemy tribes and foreign soldiers, and encounters with alien civilizations: Spanish settlements.

PAST-DUE NOTICE

Alan Burton

(State House, $14.95, paperback)

As playoff contenders, the Dallas Cowboys of recent vintage have been superb at snatching defeat from the jaws of rout. However, as this entertaining book demonstrates, Da Boys and their coaches and owners often excel at saying funny and memorable things, even when the chips are down or just spilled on the floor in frustration.

RECENT REPRINTS

Lady Bird Johnson (University of Texas, $24.95)

Lady Bird Johnson considered herself "terribly average," even while she was first lady. But her personal diary, first published in 1970 and available again in paperback, provides fascinating insights into Lyndon Johnson's difficult presidency and her role in the White House.

Edited by Bill Crawford (Plume, $16)

It's tough to turn away from this straight-forward accounting of lethal-injection executions in Texas between December 1982 and October 2006. The transcripts of the prisoners' last statements and the menus of their last meals are particularly poignant.

Si Dunn reviews books about Texas and the Southwest.

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