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Turning the Pages of Texas
Turning the Pages of Texas is a collection of sixty essays about Texas books, authors, book collectors, libraries, and bookstores. It is a book for booklovers and bookish readers.
Lonn Taylor writes from the point of view of a historian who has been reading books about Texas for seventy years, since he was seven years old, and who has known many of the authors he writes about. He presents his reflections about well-known figures such as John Graves, J. Frank Dobie, and Larry McMurtry. He also introduces readers to people like folklorist C. L. Sonnichsen, who wrote about Texas feuds; Julia Lee Sinks, who interviewed early settlers of Fayette County in the 1870s; Karen Olsson, who wrote a fine novel about the mystique of Austin; and David Dorado Romo, who describes himself as the “psychogeographer of El Paso” and is the grandnephew of a saint. Some of the authors Taylor writes about are truly obscure, like Gertrude Beasley, who published her autobiography in Paris in 1924 and died in a New York insane asylum, or Tony Cano, whose self-published autobiographical novel describes what it was like to be poor and Mexican in West Texas in the 1950s. Taylor also teases out the Texas connections of writers as diverse as William Sydney Porter, Hervey Allen, and H. Allen Smith, and he writes about tracking down Texas books in London and Washington, DC, as well as at Barber’s in Fort Worth, the Brick Row Book Shop in Austin, and Rosengren’s and Brock’s in San Antonio.
This is a booklover’s book.
Lonn Taylor writes from the point of view of a historian who has been reading books about Texas for seventy years, since he was seven years old, and who has known many of the authors he writes about. He presents his reflections about well-known figures such as John Graves, J. Frank Dobie, and Larry McMurtry. He also introduces readers to people like folklorist C. L. Sonnichsen, who wrote about Texas feuds; Julia Lee Sinks, who interviewed early settlers of Fayette County in the 1870s; Karen Olsson, who wrote a fine novel about the mystique of Austin; and David Dorado Romo, who describes himself as the “psychogeographer of El Paso” and is the grandnephew of a saint. Some of the authors Taylor writes about are truly obscure, like Gertrude Beasley, who published her autobiography in Paris in 1924 and died in a New York insane asylum, or Tony Cano, whose self-published autobiographical novel describes what it was like to be poor and Mexican in West Texas in the 1950s. Taylor also teases out the Texas connections of writers as diverse as William Sydney Porter, Hervey Allen, and H. Allen Smith, and he writes about tracking down Texas books in London and Washington, DC, as well as at Barber’s in Fort Worth, the Brick Row Book Shop in Austin, and Rosengren’s and Brock’s in San Antonio.
This is a booklover’s book.
224 pages, Paperback
Published February 28, 2019
2 people are currently reading
14 people want to read
About the author
Lonn Taylor
24 books5 followersLonn Taylor was an expert on "The Star-Spangled Banner" (both the national anthem and the flag) and Southwestern furniture. He was a curator and historian with the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of American History for nearly twenty years. After retiring in 2002, he returned to his home state of Texas, where he penned a weekly newspaper column about Texas history and other stories about Texas, which he read on Marfa Public Radio. Before his death, he finished a memoir about his childhood years spent in the Philippines.
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
April 23, 2019
Reviewed by Si Dunn for Lone Star Literary Life
Lonn Taylor’s latest book demonstrates again why the West Texas and Fort Worth author is widely regarded as a master storyteller.
Reading the sixty short essays collected in Turning the Pages of Texas is like spending an inspiring, yet relaxing, weekend hanging out with some of the Lone Star State’s greatest writers, quirkiest characters, most avid book collectors and booksellers, and some of the state’s best librarians, cooks, cowboys, and photographers, among others.
Texas book classics and Taylor's love for collecting rare pamphlets often figure into his enlightening essays. Yet, they "are not book reviews," he assures. "They originated as recommendations to the readers of my weekly column in the Marfa Big Bend Sentinel, 'The Rambling Boy,'" which has been published since 2004.
Many of those "recommendations" have been expanded a bit for this book, and readers are offered intriguing details about—plus Taylor’s reflections upon—a diverse cast of nineteenth-, twentieth-, and twenty-first-century Texans, some famous, some notorious, and many just downright interesting.
For example, Taylor describes his friendship with Texas naturalist and photographer Jim Bones. “Watching and learning from landscape has become Bones’s life work,” Taylor writes. “When I first knew Jim Bones in the early 1970s, he and his first wife, Ann Matlock, were living in a house in the country west of Austin that was built around a Ford Econoline van. Their bedroom was the body of the van, the van’s roof was the floor of the guest room, and one of its sides was the wall of the kitchen. Bones referred to the van’s front seat as the television room, the television being the view of the landscape through the windshield.”
Turning the Pages of Texas presents Taylor’s essays under four headings: “Giants and Old-timers,” “A Bookman’s Pleasures,” “Back Roads and Dark Corners,” and “Cooks, Photographers, Poets, and Others.”
One “giant” he describes is writer and painter Tom Lea who was a World War II combat artist for LIFE Magazine before he became famous for his novels, his books about the King Ranch, and his artworks. Taylor points out that “Few American cities have embraced a native writer and artist in the way that El Paso has Tom Lea. Usually creative people, like prophets, are without honor in their own country, especially in Texas, where, until recently, artists and writers were considered weirdos, and people like Robert Rauschenberg and Terry Southern (natives of Port Arthur and Alvarado, respectively) had to go to New York to get any respect.”
Lonn Taylor’s previous writing credits include nine other books, such as Marfa for the Perplexed, The American Cowboy, and Texas Furniture: The Cabinet Makers and Their Work, 1840-1880.
Want to know more about some little-known quirks, history, and achievements of Texans? Turning the Pages of Texas is an excellent starting place. Everything from ancient rock art to punk rock gets a turn in Lonn Taylor’s spotlight, and he throws in some prairies, presidents, poets, pecans, and rattlesnakes for good measure.
Lonn Taylor’s latest book demonstrates again why the West Texas and Fort Worth author is widely regarded as a master storyteller.
Reading the sixty short essays collected in Turning the Pages of Texas is like spending an inspiring, yet relaxing, weekend hanging out with some of the Lone Star State’s greatest writers, quirkiest characters, most avid book collectors and booksellers, and some of the state’s best librarians, cooks, cowboys, and photographers, among others.
Texas book classics and Taylor's love for collecting rare pamphlets often figure into his enlightening essays. Yet, they "are not book reviews," he assures. "They originated as recommendations to the readers of my weekly column in the Marfa Big Bend Sentinel, 'The Rambling Boy,'" which has been published since 2004.
Many of those "recommendations" have been expanded a bit for this book, and readers are offered intriguing details about—plus Taylor’s reflections upon—a diverse cast of nineteenth-, twentieth-, and twenty-first-century Texans, some famous, some notorious, and many just downright interesting.
For example, Taylor describes his friendship with Texas naturalist and photographer Jim Bones. “Watching and learning from landscape has become Bones’s life work,” Taylor writes. “When I first knew Jim Bones in the early 1970s, he and his first wife, Ann Matlock, were living in a house in the country west of Austin that was built around a Ford Econoline van. Their bedroom was the body of the van, the van’s roof was the floor of the guest room, and one of its sides was the wall of the kitchen. Bones referred to the van’s front seat as the television room, the television being the view of the landscape through the windshield.”
Turning the Pages of Texas presents Taylor’s essays under four headings: “Giants and Old-timers,” “A Bookman’s Pleasures,” “Back Roads and Dark Corners,” and “Cooks, Photographers, Poets, and Others.”
One “giant” he describes is writer and painter Tom Lea who was a World War II combat artist for LIFE Magazine before he became famous for his novels, his books about the King Ranch, and his artworks. Taylor points out that “Few American cities have embraced a native writer and artist in the way that El Paso has Tom Lea. Usually creative people, like prophets, are without honor in their own country, especially in Texas, where, until recently, artists and writers were considered weirdos, and people like Robert Rauschenberg and Terry Southern (natives of Port Arthur and Alvarado, respectively) had to go to New York to get any respect.”
Lonn Taylor’s previous writing credits include nine other books, such as Marfa for the Perplexed, The American Cowboy, and Texas Furniture: The Cabinet Makers and Their Work, 1840-1880.
Want to know more about some little-known quirks, history, and achievements of Texans? Turning the Pages of Texas is an excellent starting place. Everything from ancient rock art to punk rock gets a turn in Lonn Taylor’s spotlight, and he throws in some prairies, presidents, poets, pecans, and rattlesnakes for good measure.
February 3, 2022
It seldom snows in Austin, Texas, but when it did this year, I came home from the grocery store and snuggled into my couch for a couple of days reading this book by my old friend Lonn Taylor. I hadn't seen much of him in the decade before his death, and every page of this book made me remember his unique voice and erudite sense of humor.
Lonn had a lifelong love affair with books about Texas. Many of the books he discusses I have read, but he tells me something about each author that I didn't know, or had forgotten. He mixes the books with recollections of how he came to know about them, or people he associated with them.
These memories brought back my own memories: Lonn working for HemisFair, or cooperating to plan future events at the Institute of Texan Cultures, both in San Antonio; hosting groups of museum curators at Round Top; or sipping wine on the roof of his and Dedie's apartment in Washington, D.C..
My own brother is a rare book dealer, and I imagined talking with him about Lonn's views on these rare books. Lonn always had a way of connecting people to others, finding what they shared. The books gave me insight into the wide network of intellectuals, historians, gourmands, collectors, and "ordinary" people he took delight in knowing.
Lonn had a lifelong love affair with books about Texas. Many of the books he discusses I have read, but he tells me something about each author that I didn't know, or had forgotten. He mixes the books with recollections of how he came to know about them, or people he associated with them.
These memories brought back my own memories: Lonn working for HemisFair, or cooperating to plan future events at the Institute of Texan Cultures, both in San Antonio; hosting groups of museum curators at Round Top; or sipping wine on the roof of his and Dedie's apartment in Washington, D.C..
My own brother is a rare book dealer, and I imagined talking with him about Lonn's views on these rare books. Lonn always had a way of connecting people to others, finding what they shared. The books gave me insight into the wide network of intellectuals, historians, gourmands, collectors, and "ordinary" people he took delight in knowing.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews