Book Notes: Popular Abilene Authors Working On New Books

Book Notes: Popular Abilene Authors Working On New Books

Popular Abilene authors have new books due this fall

 By Glenn Dromgoole

 

Hey, Jay Moore, Sandi Mathur, and Charlie Russell fans: Three of Abilene’s most popular authors have books scheduled to come out this fall.

Abilene history virtuoso Jay Moore has written a history/biography of the Dodge Jones Foundation and family that is due in October. It’s going to be a high quality coffee-table narrative of the foundation and family (Judy Matthews) that have transformed the face of Abilene in the past 40 years. Proceeds from the book benefit Abilene Heritage Square (ACU Press, $40 hardcover).

Dr. Sandi Mathur is following up his very successful autobiographical account of his first year in West Texas, Cowboys and Indian, with the sequel, Cowboys and Indian II, based on his second year as a West Texas physician.

Charlie Russell, who has developed quite a following for his upbeat ranch-family novels, has another one going to the printer soon — My Country –  God’s Country, a sequel to last year’s When the Cactus Bloom.

We will have autographed copies of these books – and, hopefully, book-signing events – this fall. Stay tuned.

 


Jim Wilson: The former Abilene veterinarian and poet Dr. Jim Wilson has published a new collection of verse – Poems with a Point in 25 Words More or Less ($9.95 paperback).

Wilson, who now lives in Burton, near Brenham, urges readers in his introduction, “Live in the now moment of your life. Make the most of it because now is where your pot is boiling and where you can turn the heat up or down as necessary.”

His poems offer thoughts and suggestions about living in the now moment. I especially liked this one:

Wisdom Patience and Kindness
“Pray for wisdom patience and kindness.
While you are waiting for wisdom
practice patience and kindness

“and by the end of the day
wisdom will have surprised you
several times. I’ll bet.”

 


What a Team: Here’s a sports book you probably won’t care about, but I did because it’s the story of the 1991 boys’ basketball team from my alma mater, Hardin-Jefferson High School in Sour Lake, near Beaumont.

 

Coach Charles Breithaupt, now the executive director of the University Interscholastic League, wrote Press On ($15.49 paperback) about his remarkable team that won state. The most remarkable thing, though, wasn’t the state championship. It was the fact that the entire starting lineup, as well as Coach Breithaupt himself, would go on to earn doctorates, and a seventh member of the team is about to. I’ve never heard of such a thing at any level – high school or college. An amazing and uplifting story.

 

We don’t keep the book in stock, but we can order it.

 


Houston Novelist: What You Wish For is the latest novel by Houston authorwhat you wish for Katherine Center (St. Martin’s, $27.99 hardcover). It’s set in Galveston and features a librarian at an acclaimed private school and the hard-nosed principal who comes in to run it after the beloved founder dies.

Center has written several other novels, and we became fans a few years ago after reading How to Walk Away and then Things You Save in a Fire.

Read more about her at katherinecenter.com.