Texas Pages

Anne Lamott, who'll be talking to a sold-out crowd Thursday at First Presbyterian Church (part of the Dallas Museum of Art's rockin' Arts & Letters Live series), has lately been concentrating on her nonfiction books on faith. She'll likely be talking about her latest, Grace (Eventually).

But those of who've been Anne Lamott fans ... well, forever ... know she's also a fabulously talented novelist. When I talked to her last week, she said she's now working on a novel that'll be the third in the series about her beloved heroine Rosie, which started with Rosie and moved on with Crooked Little Heart. That's the good news; the bad news is it takes her a lot longer to write fiction, so it'll likely be late 2010 or early 2011 before we see that book.

Several tales, actually.

Will Howard, creator and distributor of Will's Texana Monthly, has compiled a bibliography of Texas vampire literature. He makes it available for free at his blog.

How important is Texas in the vampire universe? Well, Will points out, it was a TEXAN who fatally impaled Vlad with his bowie knife in Bram Stoker's 1897 "Dracula."

Will also made contact with the modern queen of vampire lit, Anne Rice. Loyal followers will know that she's a product of Richardson High. Will had asked about Texas locales in her work, and she said: "As I recall, the 'Queen of the Damned' was the only novel in which I used my Texas experience. Baby Jenks the little biker novel comes from the area around Cedar Creek lake where I lived, and I get to describe the towns."

Some of this week's literary offerings, at a bookstore or libary near you:
* Killer Heat, by Linda Fairstein (Doubleday, $26). The 10th legal thriller starring Manhattan assistant district attorney Alex Cooper
* Another Thing to Fall, by Laura Lippman (Morrow, $24.95). It's the week for tenths, apparently: This is the 10th mystery featuring Baltimore private investigator Tess Monaghan.
* Blind Fall, by Christopher Rice (Scribner, $26). Or perhaps it's the week for titles containing the word "fall." Mr. Rice, novelist Anne's son, writes about a former marine investigating the murder of his commanding officer.
* Dreamers of the Day, by Mary Doria Russell (Random House, $25). The author of perennial book-club favorite The Sparrow tells the story of the creation of the modern Middle East at the 1921 Cairo Peace Conference, through the eyes of an Ohio schoolteacher.
* Earth: The Sequel: The Race to Reinvent Energy and Stop Global Warming, by Fred Krupp and Miriam Horn (Norton, $24.95). Mr. Krupp, longtime president of the Environmental Defense Fund, brings a hopeful call to arms.
* Human Smoke: The Beginnings of World War II, the End of Civilization, by Nicholson Baker (Simon & Schuster, $30). NBCC award-winning writer Mr. Baker (Double Fold) traces a direct line from 1920s Iraq to WWII.