Texas Pages

Our interview with Garrison Keillor appears in today's Guide Daily and on GuideLive.

For those who missed it, our review of Liberty can be found there as well.

For those who want tickets to tonight's appearance, follow this link.

For those who disagreed with his comments about Dallas, the "comments" button is right down there. \/

It's a busy weekend -- here's what's in store:

First, print readers will find a new name atop their section: Guide Sunday. (Online readers, you'll still find all our book reviews here on GuideLive. )

On the cover, look for an interview with Anne Rice, as she discusses her new memoir Called Out of Darkness: A Spiritual Confession. The Interview With a Vampire author talks about her faith, the rediscovery of her faith and the significant portion of her life she spent in North Texas.

Inside, on the books pages, look for reviews of:

I See You Everywhere, by Julia Glass
Liberty, by Garrison Keillor (and check back on Tuesday for an interview with him ahead of his appearance in Dallas.)
Supreme Courtship, by Christopher Buckley
Guyland: The Perilous World Where Boys Become Men, by Michael Kimmel
Happy Families, by Carlos Fuentes

And you can read all about Candace Bushnell, whose new work is One Fifth Avenue, in this interview.

She's recording with the Writers Studio. Ticket info is here.

After reading this weekend's story about Gustavo Arellano by Lesley Tellez, I was eager to find out whether an entertaining shouting match might break out at his signing Saturday.

I turned to Lesley for a report. She tells me:

"No violence. It was actually a pretty adoring crowd -- great turnout, standing room only, into the aisles of the bookstore.

"Gustavo told the audience about the email at the beginning of the reading, and he urged everyone to get his back (i.e., be his bodyguard) if a random guy in red, white and blue showed up. Luckily no one did. I do know they only had three or four copies of Ask a Mexican, and those sold out quickly. A lot of people bought Orange County books.

"He was really funny in person. He took questions from the audience about the Cesar Chavez naming debate (which he didn't know much about, but he didn't appear to like what he heard), and he read a question from Ask a Mexican that originated in Dallas. (Something funny and clever about how hard it is to be a "brotha" in Oak Cliff, where all the fried catfish joints are now taquerias.)

"Most of the time he talked about the Orange County book.

"I enjoyed it. It was a good reading."

From the pages of today's GuideLive: Jewell Parker Rhodes talks about what she learned from voodoo priestess Marie Laveau.

The author is just one of many appearing this weekend at Tulisoma, the South Dallas Book Fair & Arts Festival.

In today's GuideLive, we had a review of Stephanie Elizondo Griest's latest novel, Mexican Enough.

Read a bit more about the 34-year-old author, who grew up in South Texas and attended the University of Texas, in this interview with Quick's Lesley Tellez.

From our features editor, Cathy Barber:

Christy Rost was motivated by a kitchen redo of a house in Colorado. She survived the renovation in fine culinary style -- so fine, in fact, that she rounded up her tips and recipes and wrote Where's My Spatula? Fast, Healthy Meals for When Your Kitchen or Your Life Is a Mess.

Longtime local cooking teacher Karel Anne Tieszen of Duncanville also has a new book, this one compiling student favorites from her classes. Check out In Your Own Kitchen.

How nice to have so many author events happening that I haven't even been able to blog about them all.

Here's hoping you caught Lesley Tellez's interview with Alisa Valdes-Rodriguez earlier this week. The author was in town to promote Dirty Girls on Top, a sequel to her best-seller The Dirty Girls Social Club.

At the other end of the week, if not the spectrum of literary lights, N. Scott Momaday is headed to the Mayborn Literary Nonfiction Writers Conference.. Karen M. Thomas interviewed him about his career.