What manner of man is Leon Hale? A "paper man," whose regular column in The Houston Post has been one of that newspaper's most popular features for more than two decades. A Texan, whose writing celebrates the state and the independent, individualistic people who populate it. An easygoing sort of fellow, whose pieces for the Post reflect his own personal style: straightforward, deceptively simple, unpretentious as a well broken-in boot. And Hale's travels too are an easy going, a relaxed ramble in which he uncovers the simple pleasures of the state and shares them with us. Here Hale goes 'on the road again,' taking us with him across the Grand Prairie, the Piney Woods, the Lower Rio Grande Valley, and other Texas territory as he records the sights and sounds of the state's back ways. Uncommon folk: a bridge-burning sheriff, a country blacksmith, hard-working illegal aliens, a young man dying with quiet grace. Old-time expressions. Tales passed along, of Uncle Rhodie's whiskey-swilling bear, iceskating jaybirds, and other curious animals. These are Hale's subjects as are his own "shirttail days," his growing-up time in West Texas. Hale's theme is happiness - not strived for but come upon easily, naturally, when one lives with a relaxed openness and is alert to the infinite potential for joy in the commonplace.

Easy Going

History

Hale, Leon

Americas

Winedale Publishing

Paper Hero is a history of Leon Hale's youth, from birth in the small town of Stephenville through a series of homes in various partS of west Texas, and, finally, his college days at Texas Tech and combat duty in World War II. From his earliest days, Leon Hale was a daydreamer who invented wonderful drama out of mundane events. And of course he cast himself in the leading roles of these Walter Mitty-like dreams. He became aware early in life, he writes, "that it was my purpose to be heroic now and then." Such as the time - he was only six - that he rescued his family from a burning house (no matter that his sisters remember it differently). And the time he played the trumpet with his pal Harry James at the Aragon Ballroom on the West Coast. And the day he bought his mother the house she had always wanted. Wishes all.

Paper Hero

LEON HALE READS FROM HIS WORK

In this little gem of a book Leon Hale reacquaints us with the back road individualists who have given Texas much of its character over the past century. A novelist and columnist for fifty years, Hale has built his reputation on an exceptionally smooth writing style combined with a sharp eye for what's unusual and remarkable hidden among the otherwise ordinary people and places of Texas, for example, the alligator that slept by the stove at Scheller's Place; the ghost of Fiddler's Island; or the billboard newspaper of Tillie Roome. Turn South at the Second Bridge chronicles a world that abounds with surprises. Check out Virge Whitfield, who combined wisdom with a limitless love of dogs; or Pat Craddock, whose skill at cooking whiskey cost him a leg; or Jack Hillhouse, the one-armed giant beach-dweller who had an unusual way of obtaining fresh eggs. Hale takes us along with him, down winter beaches from Galveston to Port Aransas, deep into the Piney Woods of East Texas, through the bottom lands of the Trinity, the Brazos, and the Colorado Rivers, as he searches for the unique characters who inhabit the part of Texas you don't find in guide books. Many of the places and most of the people chronicled in this delightful Texas classic have vanished by now, and we are the poorer for it. Fortunately for us, however, Hale has captured with warm affection the language and spirit of this memorable part of his state's social and oral history, in the shape of stories and characters you won't forget.

Turn South at the Second Bridge

Into the Wind introduces to a broader audience the thoughtful, humane, wryly humorous observations of Amarillo Globe-Times columnist David Horsley. His perspective on contemporary life reflects his decision to become a stay-at-home dad, while his attorney wife took over principal bread winning responsibilities. Horsley’s is a close-up view of the small realities that form the texture of our lives: the vagaries of his garden, his switch from shooting to feeding birds, his youngest child’s last bottle, conquering a fear of roller coasters, the virtues of a classic BLT sandwich, the delights—and drawbacks—of his afternoon nap habit. Lighter pieces are punctuated with more serious observations on some of today’s most complex issues: lamenting the circumstances that impede friendships between white and black men, or unraveling the theological arguments wrongly used to condone gay-bashing. Subtly—and often by example—he beckons his readers toward exhibiting greater compassion, tolerance, and fairness every day. Horsley views life on the high plains with amusement and affection—always informed by his theological training, but never overwhelmed by it. And his unconventional outlook, rendered in graceful, colloquial prose, is one that his readers will find both entertaining and thought-provoking.

Into the Wind: This High Plains Life

Literature & Fiction

Horsley, David

Humor & Satire

From the beloved Houston Chronicle columnist comes this delightful and heart-warming stroll through the kitchens of his life. In relating his love affair with the food that has sustained him for more than three-quarters of a century, Leon Hale recreates for us the tables of Texas and the South enjoyed by our parents and grandparents—and if we are lucky, ourselves. They were filled with solid, nurturing fare like chicken and dumplings, cornbread with Jersey butter, chicken-fried steak, green beans glistening with bacon drippings, and homemade fried pies—tables glowing with the memory of good times and good friends. America’s way of eating has evolved, of course, and Hale’s passion for food has evolved with it. Today his pleasures run to more healthful fare: jalapeno turkey burgers on whole grain buns, blue corn dinner pancakes with black beans, the world’s best sweet pepper omelette. From the day in Bryan when he invented blackened chicken to his bachelor apartment adventures making pot roast and “the Soupwich”—a lunch-time staple—Hale has been a producer of unusual dishes. But he is only an occasional cook. For the most part he has been on the consuming end, as he recalls some of the beloved figures whose signature dishes he still longs for: his mother-in-law, “Mimi” Vick, and her Christmas ambrosia; Mary Elizabeth Adams and her world-class fried chicken; Marie Moore’s guacamole salad accompanied by fried Matagorda oysters—a holiday tradition. Or Mary Helen Hale’s Texas cheese dip, which became the Hale family’s all-purpose comfort food. With memories of cooks who learned their craft in the late 1800s, Supper Time serves as a kind of food history of twentieth century Texas. Forgotten staples of the 1920s like chow-chow give way to Forties’ Spam sandwiches, Sixties’ backyard barbecues—where neighbors would piggy-back a pork chop or two on the grill if Hale was cooking—and eventually to today’s low fat but satisfying dishes like turkey breast meat loaf with skinny mashed potatoes. This is an intimate, unforgettable portrait of a man, his friends, family, and his time, full of personal preferences, brimming with memory and affection, enriched by family recipes, old and new. And Hale tells his story with the self-deprecating humor, wit, and grace for which he is celebrated.

Supper Time

Cookbooks, Food & Wine

Cooking Education & Reference

Ordinary Paradise offers the moving story of a young girl's reaction to the early loss of her mother with its persisting consequences, as they affect choices the author has made with regard to her own family and future. Laura Furman was thirteen-and-a-half years old at the time her mother died, swiftly and without explanation, from ovarian cancer, thus creating a rupture in the landscape of what had been a happy childhood that the author equates with the Great Rift Valley of Africa. In a family where no one spoke about anything messy or uncomfortable, the result was a repression of mourning to the point where the author felt that her own mother's existence was being obliterated: "Now it was as if she'd never existed—and if she hadn't existed, then I did not." The difficulties that ensue, like the earlier description of happier times when Laura's mother was alive, are expressed in the clean, precise, supple style that has distinguished Furman's previous books. The book is not bitter; rather, this is a voyage of attempted understanding—honest and realistic in its depiction of the self-absorption of the surrounding adult world; heartbreaking in detail, but ultimately victorious as its heroine strives to possess the experience wholly for the first time, as a mother and wife. It is a powerful rendering of the effect upon the soul of an artist of the silences that often characterize a family's reaction to crisis. Giving the memoir a contemporary focal point is the controversial decision made by the author in response to the statistical probability that she would follow her mother and grandmother into an early death. "No one spoke to me about the hereditary possibility of ovarian cancer but the bond I felt with my mother linked me with her disease. . . . Inside my abdomen (waited) patient black space that was not me and would be the end of me." This decision addresses issues of a woman's identity in a poignant fashion that the reader will never forget.

Ordinary Paradise: A Memoir

Biographies & Memoirs

Furman, Laura

Arts & Literature

Nothing is quite what you expect in the quirky world of Ken Hoffman. He’s a nationally syndicated restaurant critic—but his specialty is drive-through burgers and fries. When he makes a grand tour of Europe, he does ten cities in ten days, no hotels. Instead, he sleeps on overnight trains and tosses his socks and underwear in the trash. And the sights he chooses to see? The world’s, respectively: skinniest house, only serious museum of erotica (in Copenhagen), largest flea market (in Warsaw). Hoffman is attracted by the bizarre, the outlandish, and the fattening. Sports are a forte. Bjorn Borg came to town with the tennis Legends, and Hoffman took him on. Won one point, a clean forehand passing shot. The Harlem Globetrotters made their annual visit and there was Hoffman going 0 for 3 with the opposition Generals (but nobody de-pantsed him). He’s even tried pro wrestling, although how that ended he can’t quite remember. (He was carried out on a stretcher.) But his subjects aren’t confined to food, sports, and travel. There’s pop music, too. (He is a major collector of Beatles memorabilia.) And more domestic subjects, like his dog’s intelligence quotient; or the day he visited a nudist resort; or his adventures with infomercials. One touching column pays tribute to the world’s greatest Neil Diamond fan. Another tells of a man whose wife lost her wedding ring in a port-o-potty. Hoffman calls it, “a love story for Valentine’s Day.” In a more serious vein, he writes candidly about infertility and how he eventually adopted a baby. Hoffman’s style is colloquial, coaxing humor out of surprising juxtapositions and references to icons of pop culture. Whether he’s watching Seinfeld reruns or visiting the weirdest bar in Kenya, he remains clearly one of us—with a skewed and highly entertaining view of American life at the turn of the millennium. And you can rely on his taste for cheeseburgers.

You Want Fries with That?

Hoffman, Ken

The Shadow Line

Literary

Hale's second, award-winning novel that tells the story of a flawed hero and the love of his life. http://www.leonhale.com/

Addison

Contemporary

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