Texas Pages

Another day, another new independent bookstore for Dallas.

Word comes today that Gainsville-based Dicho's has opened a new location at 500 N. Bishop. They tell me:

"We are Open! Our store hours are Tuesday - Thursday 11:00 to 8:00PM Friday - Saturday 11-11PM Sunday 12 -4 We carry a wide selection of books, Home furnishings and décor and an extensive childrens selection of books from picture books to young readers. We also special order."

Details to come as soon as I'm able to arrange a field trip.

Another day, another new independent bookstore for Dallas.

Word comes today that Gainsville-based Dicho's has opened a new location at 500 N. Bishop. They tell me:

"We are Open! Our store hours are Tuesday - Thursday 11:00 to 8:00PM Friday - Saturday 11-11PM Sunday 12 -4 We carry a wide selection of books, Home furnishings and décor and an extensive childrens selection of books from picture books to young readers. We also special order."

Details to come as soon as I'm able to arrange a field trip.

People smarter than I am have asked me to post the following:

Today and Wednesday, Oct. 29, we are moving this blog and all Dallas Morning News blogs to a new set of servers, which will increase our stability and speed.

However, during the transition, you have to click to a special URL to see new posts.

Click here to be redirected to our new servers, which is where new posts can be found. But don't save or bookmark that new URL! It's only temporary. By Wednesday noon, our regular blog URL should be pointing to the proper servers, so please don't change your bookmarks.

Oh and don't comment on the posts here any more. First click to our new servers, above.

Thank you for your patience.

New Books Tuesday returns this week after a brief hiatus. Here's what's new this week in the bookstores and at your local library:
* Burn Out, by Marcia Muller (Grand Central, $24.99). The 26th novel featuring San Francisco private investigator Sharon McCone.
* Flat Belly Diet, by Liz Vaccariello and Cynthia Sass (Rodale, $25.95). Outlines a weight-loss plan designed to decrease belly fat. (Will it also decrease the craving for a whole-milk latte?)
* The Memoirist, by M.J. Rose (Mira, $24.95). Focuses on a woman who receives a letter that may lead her to understand haunting, elusive memories she had as a child.
* In paperback this week: The fabulously entertaining Last Night at the Lobster, by Stewart O'Nan (Penguin, $13).

I checked with Kyle Hall at Legacy Books this morning. He reports that computer problems were ironed out, and the store is officially open.

Business writer/book reviewer Angela Shah was able to make it to last week's opening soiree and filed an official report as follows:

"Dallas' literati -- they exist! -- descended on southern Oklahoma, er, Plano, last Thursday eve for Legacy bookstore's opening party, possibly the first in North Texas to require cocktail attire. (Though, sadly, some of the women still don't know what that means. Ladies, save the floor-length gowns for the Crystal Charity Ball.) Hundreds mingled amid the stacks, noshing on neighboring restaurants' nibbles and sipping their choice of adult beverage. Legacy contains an extensive collection of books displayed over three stories in the airy and sleekly designed bookstore, which just opened this week. Fiction was arranged toward the back in an inviting nook and kiddos will no doubt adore the playful children's books section. For extensive browsing, there's a cafe and the bookstore even features a kitchen for cooking classes."

Angela's fashion critique aside (she's leaving the country, so if you happen to like full-length gowns, or Plano, please address the enraged comments directly to her, OK?) I did hear buzz from some quarters that the store's display is maybe too sleek -- it was described to me as more of a book gallery than a place to loiter and enjoy books. I'll pass judgment until I can see the final product in person. I'd love to hear your own thoughts, though.

Meanwhile, if you've got young ones and are looking for an excuse to visit, children's author Betsy Haynes is now scheduled to appear there 10 a.m. tomorrow (Tuesday). Chocolate milk is involved. Mmmmmm.

We've received the very sad news that famed author and former journalist Tony Hillerman died Sunday of respiratory failure. Mr. Hillerman, author of the acclaimed Navajo Tribal Police mystery novels and creator of the beloved characters Joe Leaphorn and Jim Chee, was 83.

Mr. Hillerman was from Oklahoma originally, and lived in Texas for a while, but he had called New Mexico home for decades. While living in Albuquerque from 2000 to 2005, I was blessed to have met Mr. Hillerman several times and heard him speak about his books and career. His wonderful collection of essays, The Spell of New Mexico, helped me learn about my new home, the perfectly nicknamed Land of Enchantment, a sentiment with which he obviously agreed. What always blew me away was the care and love with which he treated aspiring writers: No question was too small, no "I've got this story idea ..." treated as commonplace writer-workshop banter. After events, he would remain talking with people, signing books and offering advice (really great advice, at that), for however long it took, till the last person had gone away happy. I was surprised to learn that he was 83 -- he had more energy than I usually have, and I'm only a bit more than half that age.

Tony, you will be sorely missed. I'm sure there's one heck of a book party underway inside the Pearly Gates.

Read on for the entire AP obituary.

Our review of Alphabet Juice appears in today's Guide Sunday and on GuideLive.

If you're interested in catching Roy Blount Jr. in Austin, he'll be with NPR's Peter Sagal 3:30 Saturday in the Senate Chamber. Details are posted here.

You can find the full schedule of authors here.

Youtube has this amusing clip of him recording the audiobook version:

And if you're really a fan, and have somehow missed my half-dozen other mentions of this, you can go into our archives for my 2007 interview with Mr. Blount.

I described the pre-construction scene at Legacy Books earlier this week. I'm told by those who attended last night's gala that things were nicely cleaned up.

But it's not quite ready for prime time. Kyle Hall, the store's director of marketing and events, writes to say:

"Rather than opening on Saturday, we're opening Monday morning. Today, our sales training day, we are having computer networking problems that make transactions impossible to complete. The malfunction or technical hang-up, whatever it is, should be resolved by Sunday afternoon so that Monday goes without a hitch."

Best of luck with that, Kyle.

Here's a look at what's coming Sunday, in print and on GuideLive:

Roy Blount Jr.'s Alphabet Juice.

The Ghost In Love, by Jonathan Carroll.

The Fire, by Katherine Neville.

From Colony to Superpower: U.S. Foreign Relations Since 1776, by George C. Herring.

A Passion for Nature: The Life of John Muir, by John Worster.

The third annual Dallas International Book Fair takes place this weekend at the J. Erik Jonsson Central Library.

You can find the list of participants here.

The Dallas Morning News' Fitness Blog notes that breast-cancer survivor Jack Willis will sign Saving Jack 1 p.m. Saturday at Barnes & Noble, 5301 Beltline Road.

Neighborsgo staffer Tommy Cummings alerted me to the event and sent the following writeup:

Jack Willis discovered that breast cancer isn't just a woman's disease. Men can contract breast cancer, but it is rare. The Norman, Okla., resident and former University of Oklahoma journalism professor wrote Saving Jack, A Man's Struggle with Breast Cancer, to address the apprehensions faced by men who contract the disease. To coincide with Breast Cancer Awareness month, Willis has scheduled a book signing at the Barnes & Noble Booksellers, 5301 Beltline Road in Dallas, at 1 p.m. Saturday. Willis said he'd never written anything book length, nothing longer than a "60-inch newspaper article." But writing helped Willis, who is an Oklahoma Journalism Hall of Fame inductee, cope during treatment. "Most men didn't realize that men could get breast cancer," Willis wrote on his Web site, SavingJack.com. "They don't like to talk about diseases and especially woman's diseases. Women seemed more attentive and nurturing, perhaps because they could relate. I think men saw me as an oddity."

Spotted on Shelf Awareness: Houston's Blue Willow Bookshop is launching a drive to restock the libraries of three local schools who lost the bulk of their collections to Hurricane Ike.

The store suggests you can:

-- Purchase books at the store from the schools' wish lists (see below).
-- Call with a donation and let the store do the shopping for you; or
-- Call if you have "very gently used current fiction (preferably hardcover)" appropriate for grades 5 and up.

The store has links to wish lists for the Alief Hastings 9th Grade Center, Anahuac High School and Freeport Intermediate School.

It's hard to believe, but that construction scene you're looking at is scheduled to become a working bookstore by the weekend.

[Update 10-24: The opening has indeed been postponed.]

The eyes of Dallas-area book lovers, if not the nation's independent booksellers, will be on that bookstore, Legacy Books, and on managing partner Teri Tanner to see if she can succeed in make a large-scale indie book shop bloom in this town.

Working against her: the worst retail economy in years, online competition, everything else you've heard about the death of the written word.

Working for her, based on the tour I got of the store Tuesday: a clean, well-lighted space; a staff with about 200 years of combined bookselling knowledge; and that mixture of determination, optimism and love of books that anyone in her position needs.

(Click for more about the store, including photos.)

Alert reader L.A. Starks notes this link to Irving's "Big Read" activities.

NeighborsGo has a blog for discussing the book.

The Snowball: Warren Buffett and the Business of Life is one of the biggest biographies of the season, and it has a Texas tie: Author Alice Schroeder is a Highland Park High alum.

She speaks extensively with columnist Cheryl Hall about how the book came about, and about the appeal of the Oracle of Omaha. To wit, the author says:

"He became a very interesting puzzle for me to solve, He thinks rich people should pay taxes. He grew up in a very conservative, Republican family, yet he became quite liberal in his political views. He really does live this simple, almost austere life, and yet he's something of a jetsetter."

The whole story is here.

Here's a look at what's being reviewed in Guide Sunday and on GuideLive.com:

The New Annotated Dracula, by Bram Stoker (of course), edited with a foreword and notes by Leslie S. Klinger.

True Crime: An American Anthology, Harold Schechter, editor.

The Numerati, by Stephen Baker

To Catch the Lightning: A Novel of American Dreaming, by Alan Cheuse

Unpacking the Boxes: A Memoir of a Life in Poetry, by Donald Hall

And finally, we'll have an interview with Booker finalist Amitav Ghosh, author of Sea of Poppies.

I mentioned that Texas was well-represented among the National Book Award finalists. There's one more proud Texan to put on that list.

Annette Gordon-Reed, who is nominated for The Hemingses of Monticello: An American Family, writes to say: "I grew up in Conroe, Texas and still consider myself a Texan, even though I live in New York now. All my family is there, and I am down there often."

She's also the author of the much-discussed Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings: An American Controversy. Her Web page at New York Law School notes:

Professor Gordon-Reed, who grew up in still-segregated east Texas, became interested in Jefferson in elementary school after reading a children's biography of him, narrated by a fictional slave boy. At 14, she joined the Book-of-the-Month Club (concealing her status as a minor) to receive Fawn Brodie's biography, Thomas Jefferson: An Intimate Portrait.

National Public Radio and Newsweek have covered the book as well, with the latter also discussing her life in East Texas.

Spotted on the road in Dallas today, on a green SUV:

"ATTICUS FINCH FOR PRESIDENT."

Off the top of my head, I can't think of a fictional character I'd prefer more. Although this year, with reality unfolding more like a horror novel, I don't think I'll be putting any witty write-in names on my own ballot.

Texas is well-represented among the National Book Award nominees.

According to the official biographies, Mark Doty (poetry) is a professor in the graduate program at the University of Houston; Reginald Gibbons (also poetry) is a Texas native (honored repeatedly by the Texas Institute of Letters) and Kathi Appelt (young people's literature) teaches an occasional course in creative writing at her alma mater, Texas A&M University.

The 2008 National Book Award finalists have been announced. The complete list is available here; a summary from The Associated Press is below.

If one of your own favorites books of the year is here, or missing, leave us a comment about it.

NEW YORK -- Talk about second chances: Eighty-one-year old Peter Matthiessen has received a National Book Award nomination for Shadow Country, an 890-page revision of a trilogy of novels he released in the 1990s.
Others in the fiction category include Marilynne Robinson for Home, a companion novel to her Pulitzer Prize-winning Gilead; Aleksandar Hemon for The Lazarus Project; and debut authors Salvatore Scibona and Rachel Kushner.
Among the nonfiction finalists: Jane Mayer for The Dark Side, an investigation into the war against terrorism, and Annette Gordon-Reed's The Hemingses of Monticello: An American Family. Richard Howard and Mark Doty are nominees for poetry, while Laurie Halse Anderson is cited for young people's literature.
Winners will be announced November 19.