Review of "The Bird Saviors" in the San Antonio Express-News, and Miles & Miles of Texas

Posted on October 22, 2012 by williamjcobb

So I’m on a book tour of Texas right now, and have actually driven 1,400 miles so far, from Texline in the northeast part of the Panhandle to South Padre Island at the very southern tip of the state. And though I’m a native Texan, since I haven’t lived here in a while it’s like a trip back through time for me, both nostalgic and primordial. I just spent three days on the Texas coast, and the lush tropical air and sound of grackles remind me of my badboy childhood. Plus all the pumpjacks and natural gas wells remind me how rich the state is in natural resources, a legacy of the age of dinosaurs, and then I come upon dragonflies (“caballitos del diablo” in Spanish, a great term, which means something like “little devil horses”) the size of small birds, and it really seems freaky. Here’s my daughter’s hand holding one:

I also just learned that The Bird Saviors received a terrific review in the San Antonio Express-News, here, and just did a reading at Paragraphs Bookstore on South Padre Island, with over 50 people there, which was a great crowd. That put a smile on my face.

Posted in Birding, books, The West, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

"The Bird Saviors" Texas Tour 2012: Just like ZZ Top, Only Different

Posted on October 17, 2012 by williamjcobb

So starting on Thursday I’ll be promoting my novel The Bird Saviors at various events in Texas. Just like ZZ Top, only minus the beards, the guitars, the groupies, and . . . well, okay, nothing like ZZ Top. But I do promise to do a good job at each event, and try to make it as lively as possible. The novel has murderous polygamists, lecherous pawn shop owners, a good-hearted young mother, a grieving ornithologist, and two kidnappings (well, almost: you have to read the book), so it shouldn’t be dull. Here’s the schedule:
Thursday, Oct 18th, 7 pm, at Blue Willow Books in Houston, who have given me a nice write-up here, and the Houston Chronicle had a nice review in June, here.
Saturday, Oct 20th, 1 pm, at Paragraphs Bookstore in South Padre Island, whose owner, Joni, has been most kind in arranging this, and will be my first visit to the Gulf (where I went to high school, near Corpus Christi) since 2009. I’m psyched to see the beach again.
Monday, Oct 22nd, 7 pm, at Book People in Austin, at my favorite bookstore in my favorite city in Texas, where I went to grad school.
Thursday, Oct 25th, 5 pm, at the Twig Bookstore in San Antonio, where I lived until high school. And rumor has it the novel is going to be reviewed in The San Antonio-Express News next Sunday, which would be cool.
Sunday, Oct 28th, 12:15-1:15 pm, at the Texas Book Festival (in The Lone Star Tent, which is on Congress Avenue between 8th & 9th streets), in a panel titled The Savage Southwest. The Texas Book Festival is much fun, full of outstanding writers, one of the premier book festivals in the country.

Posted in Birding, books, The West | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

The End of Growth, Or to Quote Bette Davis, "Fasten Your Seatbelts, It's Going to Be a Rocky Ride."

Posted on October 15, 2012 by williamjcobb

So there’s a fascinating, if decidedly gloomy, piece in the NY Times today, about one economist’s challenging paper that argues the U.S. (and other industrialized nations) are in store for a dramatic decline in growth, here. The most interesting part of the argument comes at the end, when he notes that both presidential candidates can’t really address this enormous problem head-on, for the obvious reasons that they would then be seen as Debbie Downers, but his analysis of the Republicans and Mitt Romney sound fairly sinister (or, some would argue, practical, though sometimes practical can be sinister, too).
But I’ve realized some of this argument without ever having read (or even heard of) Robert Gordon’s paper. Haven’t we all? Don’t the campaign promises to bring home a chicken in every part, two cars in every garage sound a little suspect now? Of course we have to update those notions of prosperity: Two iPhones in every home? A plasma TV in every den? What does that say about us?
In the much-dissected first debate, Obama did seem tired and a bit worn down, for good reason: He’s facing problems, like all presidents do, but his come at what may very well be a crucial turning-point in history, when our expectations are too high for a return to historical levels of growth, i.e., money-making. Romney came across as a convincing car salesman, assuring us all that if we buy his model, we’ll not only go faster, but we’ll do it in style, and look better, feel better, as we do. What a bunch of hokum.

Posted in Economics, Politics, The West | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

Unicorn Sighting in Southern Colorado!

Posted on October 11, 2012 by williamjcobb

So on my drive back from Santa Fe this weekend, while passing through the rugged (and remote) Huerfano County, Colorado, I snapped this photo of that rarest of rare (horses? ponies?) one-horned wonders, a unicorn. And I swear this photo was not doctored in the least, Scout’s honor:

Posted in Cryptozoology, The West, Unicorns, Weird Science | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

At the Collected Works Bookstore in Santa Fe, in Cormac McCarthy Country

Posted on October 9, 2012 by williamjcobb

So last weekend I was in Santa Fe, one of the coolest cities in the U.S., and did a reading at the Collected Works Bookstore, which is a beautiful, old-fashioned, high-quality, brick-and-mortar bookstore right off the plaza, on Galisteo Street. Much has been made of the demise of brick-and-mortar, independent bookstores, but from my experience in reading/signing at many of them in the Rockies this late summer/early fall, they are most definitely alive and well, and feature all the personality you won’t get shopping online. One of the cool things about Collected Works is that Cormac McCarthy actually shops there, too, and I managed to talk to several people who know him, said nice things about him, but pointed out he doesn’t do signings, and shuns personal interaction with his fans, which I respect, though I’m not that reclusive. But my road trip to Santa Fe was nothing like the bleak wasteland McCarthy imagines in The Road, and looked a little more like this:

Posted in books, Cormac McCarthy, The West | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

On Jessica Karbowiak's "These Things I Know" & Simon Winchester in the NY Times

Posted on October 3, 2012 by williamjcobb

So one of my former students, Jessica Karbowiak, has a knockout book out right now, titled These Things I Know. And though I know much about the book I don’t want to be a Spoiler and give it all away, so I’ll just say it’s a dramatic, punchy combination of memoir and fiction, an adroit melding of the two genres, and is full of heartfelt, moving, traumatic Life. She recently spoke to the blog Glitterword, and even says some nice things about me, which can be found here. Jessica is tough, sassy, and funny, and this book has all those aspects of her personality, and More. Read it.
And one of my favorite nonfiction writers, Simon Winchester (author of Krakatoa, Atlantic, and The Professor and the Madman), has an article in the NY Times this week, here. He has a new book out soon, about this skull collection, and it’s no wonder I like his writing so much: I too have a skull (and Natural History collection, which includes arrowheads, dinosaur bones, and most recently, bison teeth) collection, which includes various Woodpeckers, Grosbeaks, Terns, Elk, Deer, Antelope, Jaguar, and African Lion. Here’s the African Lion, which is perhaps my most farflung acquisition, courtesy of a good friend.

Posted in Birding, books, The West, writing | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

Reading from "The Bird Saviors" in Santa Fe, at Collected Works Bookstore, Oct 4th, 6-7 pm, & 4,000 miles of the Wild West

Posted on October 1, 2012 by williamjcobb

So for the month of September I’ve driven over 4,000 miles, traveling to Montana and Wyoming for the first three weeks, then finishing off the month with readings from The Bird Saviors in Durango & Boulder, Colorado. I have to give a shout-out to the great people at the University of Colorado at Boulder, particularly the phenomenal writer Stephen Graham Jones, who invited me up there. We had a good crowd and the students asked many questions, which is always nice. I feel dizzy from all this moving around. And it’s not over yet: For anyone interested in hearing some good fiction, I’m reading and signing books at Collected Works in Santa Fe, this Thursday, October 4th, 6-7 pm.
Our Montana trip began with 8 days in Glacier National Park, which was lovely, then a few days in the Missoula area, and ended with a week of backpacking in Yellowstone. One of the Weird Weather highlights: When we drove south from Glacier to Missoula, it was an entire day of driving through wildfire smoke like pea-soup fog. Wildfires in the West this summer have been much worse than usual, really wicked. At Yellowstone we were in the Imperial Geyser Basin area, and were surrounded by bison most of the time, while Canada geese and Sandhill Cranes flew overhead. In both parks we heard Great Horned Owls (twice right over our heads), and in Yellowstone, I heard the distinct call of the majestic Great Gray Owl. Here’s one of our bison friends nearby. The gray sky behind it is caused by the wildfire smoke.

Posted in Birding, books, Climate Change, Owls, The West, Weird Weather | Leave a comment

Lewis & Clark's Lolo Pass Campsite, 207 years later

Posted on September 17, 2012 by williamjcobb

So I’m traveling in Montana just now, and visited Lolo Pass and the Glade Creek campsite of the Lewis & Clark “Corps of Discovery” almost exactly 207 years after they were there (they passed through on September 13th, 1805, and I was there on September 15th), but what was most obvious about the area was the choking smog of forest fire smoke. It’s intense up here. We drove almost two hundred miles through peasoup fog fire smoke. And the locals say this was an unusually hot summer. Here’s a photo of the Lewis & Clark campsite, supposedly little changed since 1805.

Posted in Climate Change, The West, Weird Weather | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

On Bogus Book Reviews, Facebook Hoopla, & Why Book Reviews Even Matter

Posted on September 1, 2012 by williamjcobb

So I read with some amusement and (tempered, jaded) dismay a good piece in the NY Times about bogus, “bought” online book reviews, here. I didn’t know about any of this, exactly, but I’m not too surprised. The ‘net is a hive of hoax, that’s for sure. Facebook, for instance, into which I’ve been dragged, kicking and screaming, and now find (somewhat) interesting and (somewhat) annoying, seems like joining the Pep Squad. (I’m also well aware that what seems weird to me on FB is old hat to others, who are used to it.) Everyone is so upbeat! Everything is great! You’re fabulous! I’ve never seen so many exclamation points!! I use them just to say Hi How ya doin’!!!! You changed your profile picture!!!!! Isn’t that fabulous!!!!!!
Nevertheless (and when can you say “nevertheless” with a straight face? that funky run-on compound that looks like it’s itching for hyphens?), I do try to preserve some kind of FB integrity, and only mean what I say/say what I mean. More or less. I mean, a little upbeat feelgoodism doesn’t hurt, in this dark world, does it? You do look great. Really!
But my real subject here is book reviews, both the bogus and the “real.” By real I mean the traditional idea of book reviews, the kind I’ve been doing for almost twenty years now: You (the critic, writer) are assigned a book to review by an editor (someone knowledgable about language/literature, we assume), written by someone you don’t know; the editor is essentially asking for your public opinion, not biased or slanted, or not unreasonably so (aren’t we all biased in our own particular ways?). But there’s a crucial difference between the real and the fake book reviews: I’ve reviewed for the New York Times, Houston Chronicle, and the Dallas Morning News. Never has an editor suggested what I should (or shouldn’t) think or say about a book. They edit for accuracy and style, but not content. As it should be. And I should note this: I consider my high point of reviewing when I was assigned and reviewed Cormac McCarthy’s No Country for Old Men (2005), and my quote made it to the book jacket back page of the paperback edition, and appears in the Wikipedia page, here.  (Scroll down to the Literary Significance and Criticism heading.) I think book reviews are important, they matter. So many books are published in the world, we need some legitimate voices to offer preliminary opinions. I don’t believe everything that’s said, of course. But the best book reviews make you want to read, and that’s what matters most.

Posted in books, The West, Uncategorized | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

Review of David McGlynn's "A Door in the Ocean"

Posted on August 27, 2012 by williamjcobb

So my review of David McGlynn’s just-published memoir, A Door in the Ocean, appears today in the Dallas Morning News, here. It’s a good book, and gives an interesting insider’s viewpoint of competitive swimming, how grueling and isolating it can be, a view that you usually don’t get in all the Olympics hoopla. Plus I’ve never read a book that talked about being a virgin at a late age (well, late in these times: in his 20s).
I just returned from a backpacking trip in my beloved Sangre de Cristo mountains. On the first day we saw a young Golden Eagle, huge and impressive. We also saw many other birds, including Audubon’s Warblers, and some Western Tanagers, as captured below in a recent pic.

Posted in Birding, books, Photography, The West, writing | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment