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Set in East Texas in 1870s, The Big Thicket is a tale of people in the wildest part of the American frontier, the Big Thicket, where law is sometimes only a rumor. There is Venna who has the reputation of roaming the Thicket at night as a wolf and witching rain out of the stars. There's Lucius Simmons, an ex-slave and the woman he loves who struggle to find a preacher willing to marry a mixed race couple. There's Tim Coke who discovers some disturbing family secrets and who must challenge friends and family to prevent a hanging. It is the tale of the beginning of the industries that in our time have decimated the forest. This novel will keep you turning pages and will leave you with much to ponder. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Like Huckleberry Finn
This novel is a page turner. It's set in the fascinating big thicket of Texas, once an almost impossible area to get into. The book is a family saga and tells the story of a 19th century interracial love. There's a murder and a raft trip down the river as in Mark Twain's Huckleberry Finn. You will love it. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

This is a good book.
This is a pretty good book on what the ninja were for. You can use this book for research. Jerry Craven did a good job on this book. ... Read more

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Gives a brief history of the Mustang automobile and describes its special features and classic models. ... Read more

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Gives a brief history of the Thunderbird automobile describing its special features and most popular models. ... Read more

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Introduces some of the many forms of folk pageants including the Native American powwow, rodeo, Renaissance fair, folk drama, parade with float contest, and quilt-makers festival. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Tickling Catfish Is Interesting Fun!
Tickling Catfish is a romp through the weirder aspects of Texas as seen through the eyes of Jerry Craven, a good old boy turned college professor. Using many of the typical devices of the tall tale, Jerry presents alaid-back series of short essays that tell us about some interesting andstrange Texas beliefs and practices. To make the book even moreinteresting, he throws in accounts of the many other places he's lived,including Malaysia and South America. Beyond that, he explores thenetherworld of English, with such items as palindromes and how to speakTexan with correct grammar and pronunciation. I've known Jerry for over 20years and have always appreciated his keen eye for detail, his sympatheticappreciation of all kinds of nonsense, and his love of irony. I think youwill, too. ... Read more

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Gives a brief history of the Rolls-Royce automobile and describes its special features and classic models. ... Read more

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Good for kids, not a serious history book. Not up to date.
This is a great primer for kids. It's not very detailed, but it does have some good photos. It isn't very current, it's about 20 years out of date. ... Read more

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Introduces festivals celebrated in various places throughout the world. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Well-written summaries - 1 major factual error
In general, this is a good overview of holidays from several different cultures/religions. It can serve as a way of introducing younger children to the variety of celebrations in the world. It contains 1 significant factual error in the Hannukah section where the author confuses the Greek Syrians of 200 B.C.E. with modern Syrian Arabs. He states that "The Hebrews took over Jerusalem and made a building used by Muslims into a Jewish temple." At the time, Islam did not exist. Furthermore, the "building" was the Jewish Temple.

This grave error makes me worried about other information in the book. ... Read more

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Provides a brief history of Japanese sports cars in the United States and describes the special features of the most popular models. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (6)

Mahatma Ghadi Meets Annie Oakley (and Who Wins)
Snake Mountain is everything a "western" novel is supposed to be, but it's a lot more. It has all the gun-play, sinister bad guys, beautiful women and beautiful (and sometimes pitiful) horses and fist-fights one expects in the genre, but it transcends the genre in so many ways that merely assigning it to the western genre is an injustice.

The main character, Jason White, is a complicated character from the git-go. He's the son of a Texan, born in Texas himself, with a mother from India. He's been raised in the Far East and returns to Texas (west Texas Panhandle to be precise) a half-breed, at the age of 22 to attend college. When he arrives he's a vegetarian, sometime Muslim, who speaks with a British expatriate accent, and has the mind set of a pacifist. His first encounter with the United States is witnessing a murder at the Los Angeles airport. Although the encounter seems at first to be extraneous to the story that follows, it's not for a couple of reasons. The first and most obvious is that the experience reaffirms the opinion he has that the U.S. is a violent country, very alien to the way he believes himself to be. The second is more subtle and easily missed because the story moves on quickly to his arrival in Texas. What's also important about the encounter in the Los Angeles airport is that although he prevents the murderer from escaping by tripping him with his cane (he's nursing a broken leg from a tennis accident suffered before the story begins.) he has a brief fantasy in which he envisions himself as having prevented the murder by being more aggressive. Although it may seem to be a flaw in Jerry Craven's constructing the Jason character by including Jason's fantasy of being more aggressive, it's not at all. It foreshadows what is to come in the arc of Jason's character from the beginning of the tale to its conclusion.

The story takes lots of twists and turns. What's coming next is never totally predictable, but predictable enough to make it believable. Jason gets mixed up with two women, and entangled in the lives of both, including the hostility of the estranged husband of one (a really mean, ornery character) and the Lesbian pursuer of the other (another mean and very devious character.) Befriended by a Texas-style "uncle"-who's actually an old college chum of his father's-and a crusty cowboy or two, Jason learns to navigate and adapt to the strange ways and language of cowboy culture (like the culture of a "tribe" as his "uncle" describes it.)

Some may take offense at the comic, crude, and offensive mannerisms of this particular "tribe" as being demeaning and unflattering for Texas and Texans. Perhaps Craven's description of cowboy culture seems a bit over-the-top at times (Think Urban Cowboy.) But it's true to life. Craven never strays far from the truth as this reviewer knows it, and he's a native born Texan himself with experience in living during his early adolescence (very like Jason's Sitz im Leben) among the very tribe Craven describes, and growing up in Pasadena, Texas, the setting of Urban Cowboy.

The particular genius and meaning of Craven's story is not found in its plot nor the superficial setting of West Texas-a modern version of the "old west." The real importance of the book is the anthropology--what it tells about human beings; the way in which human culture adapts and thrives in the challenge of surviving in the land where it lives.

The west Texas part of the planet is a savage, unforgiving, semi-arid region filled with natural danger, unpredictable changes of weather, and hazards that spring up without warning, such as being surprised by a rattle snake on the trail and the sudden danger of wild fires (some natural and some the result of human contrivance.) It's not a land for sissies or those governed by altruistic notions of fairness or preset ideas about good and evil. Both are sure-fired ways of getting hurt real bad-or killed in west Texas.

Human survival in such a place has its own rules of behavior-some subtle and some outright. Sentimentality about love and the appreciation of the beauty of nature are present as part of human nature, and Craven shows us examples, but in doing so, he shows us why in west Texas they have to be cloaked by a veneer of hardness and spoken in a particular "code" as Craven describes it. The crude, tasteless limericks of dirty songs cloak what are in truth expressions of love, and spiritual connections with nature are literally hidden in darkness and performed in secret. This is all very true: "I been there" and I know.

Human beings are adaptable creatures; that's why we can survive and thrive in hostile environments--even in space--but the essential qualities of what makes us human are always present-both the goodness and the inherent evil, which we pass on from generation to generation in our genes.

A minor character (who Jason meets as a child long before he goes to Texas) is his first encounter with gratuitous violence and because the character is an Australian (a tribe of people who have learned to survive in a hostile land) the incident foreshadows Jason's encounter with violence in Texas among the Texas tribe. Human beings must adapt to the land in which they live if they are to survive, or they have to leave. Perhaps much of our trouble as a nation when we try to impose our own, northern and western culture on others stems from our lack of understanding for the tribes in other regions, such as desert nomads (think Lawrence of Arabia for an example) and the native tribes of Somalia and other parts of Africa, as well as in South and Central America-and of course, Iraq and Iran. They're like they are in part because of the nature of the land in which they live.

Craven's west Texas tale, at its heart, is a study in how Texans through crassness, crudeness, and their seemingly arbitrary judgments of right and wrong-law and order-live and let live-shows us a great deal about human beings and the human condition. There is an old story about how a no-nonsense (female) Texas judge explained something to another judge from a more "civilized" part of the country. He asked her why in Texas a man can go scot-free after killing a man he caught in bed with his wife-exonerated because it was justifiable homicide-while a man would always be strung up for stealing a horse. Her reply was: "Well, some men need killing, but there was never a horse that needed stealing." For those who don't understand; you steal a cowboy's horse and you steal his way of making a living. In west Texas there are places a cowboy has to go that you can't get to, even today, on an ATV, in a pickup truck, or on foot. Steal his horse and you endanger his livelihood as well as his life. For a west Texan, a horse thief needs killing.

That little antidote explains Craven's Texas and the Texans in Snake Mountain. He's written a great book that ought to be considered literature and certainly not dismissed as just another shoot-em-up story about the west. Buy it, read it, and appreciate it for what it teaches about our survival as human beings in hostile country.

A Good Read
Craven's novel grabbed me in the first paragraph and kept me turning pages. The principal characters are finely made and just bizarre enough to be interesting without being too weird. The minor characters vivid as Dickens makes his characters vivid. The plot is compelling. Craven builds themes into the novel, but they are subtle, kept in the background, available for those who want more than a fast and entertaining read.
The book opens as do many classic novels: on the road, though the road here is air travel. Jason, like his namesake from Greek legend, is on a trip, and the reader is invited along. The first scene, the murder in the airport, indicates it will be a difficult trip, and Jason's feeling of inadequacy in the face of the violent man with a pistol says he has much to learn.
My favorite scenes have to do with a couple of crusty old ranchers teaching Jason about some West Texas-style violence that, handled properly is entertainment rather than violence, something they call a "friendly fight." But the most violent group isn't made up of the modern-day cowboys; it is a group of outlaw bikers.
The novel contains much humor, scenes that are genuinely funny, which isn't a surprise if you have read Craven's hilarious collection of Texas Humor, 'Tickling Catfish.'
'Snake Mountain' is a good read, a fun peek at some odd characters, and a vivid look at some tribal habits of cowboys as well as bikers. You'll be glad you picked up this book.

balancing the books on "snake mountain"
this is a story that could become your favorite movie in the right hands.it is a quick read with an intelligent message on life in the modern west.the characters and imagery apparently are founded on the author's history of poetry and short, anecdotal, stories.a perfect book for the summer.your other reviewers of this book seemed more anxious to sound like critics than to evaluate this book as a story -- they(probably)enjoyed their reviews -- i enjoyed the book.

A Texan view
Mr. Craven should be "commended" upon his novel.He has elevated the eastern way of life to appear much more civilized and thus superior to the "Texan" way.The Texas characters in the book are portrayed as backward and borderline barbaric.Jason, on the other hand seems to be much more enlightened and cultured.I supposed upon finishing the book, I was to be ashamed of my home state, but rather I was more ashamed of Mr. Craven's portrayal of us Texans in the book.If he thinks so much of the Far East and their culture, maybe he should leave Texas and go there to live there instead.On the other hand, once I get past the hurt feelings, the novel did hold my interest and was full of action.I kept reading to find out who really was harassing Sybil, and what would finally transpire between Lint and Angela.

A Texan view
Mr. Craven should be "commended" upon his novel.He has elevated the eastern way of life to appear much more civilized and thus superior to the "Texan" way.The Texas characters in the book are portrayed as backward and borderline barbaric.Jason, on the other hand seems to be much more enlightened and cultured.I supposed upon finishing the book, I was to be ashamed of my home state, but rather I was more ashamed of Mr. Craven's portrayal of us Texans in the book.If he thinks so much of the Far East and their culture, maybe he should leave Texas and go there to live there instead.On the other hand, once I get past the hurt feelings, the novel did hold my interest and was full of action.I kept reading to find out who really was harassing Sybil, and what would finally transpire between Lint and Angela. ... Read more

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Details the rituals and celebrations that mark special days in a person's life, including birthdays, name days, the bar mitzvah, and marriage. ... Read more

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This digital document is an article from T H E Journal (Technological Horizons In Education), published by T.H.E. Journal, LLC on August 1, 1994. The length of the article is 1488 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

From the supplier: West Texas A&M University has implemented a new approach to teaching literature that lets students in World Literature and Modern Poetry classes discuss literary works via computer. The classes are held in a networked PC lab that runs the Interchange program, which is part of the Daedalus Integrated Writing Environment software. Students use a simple word processor to comment on a literary work and send the comments to all screens on the network; they also scroll through the comments of other classmates and respond to them. Each student receives a hard copy of the entire class discussion at the end of the class, and the next meeting is a traditional class discussion that uses the written comments from the computer-assisted discussion. It was thought that introverts would like the anonymity of the computer and extroverts would dislike it, but all students like the computer-aided discussions; the computer also gives all students a chance to contribute and add ideas to whatever has come up.

Citation Details
Title: A new model for teaching literature classes. (West Texas A&M University's use of the Daedalus Integrated Writing Environment software package to let students discuss literature via computer)
Author: Jerry Craven
Publication: T H E Journal (Technological Horizons In Education) (Refereed)
Date: August 1, 1994
Publisher: T.H.E. Journal, LLC
Volume: v22Issue: n1Page: p55(3)

Distributed by Thomson Gale ... Read more

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Becoming Others collects new poems and poems selected from publications over a long poetic career. The poems are personal and intense expressions of feelings, finely crafted, with attention to imagery, sound, and rhythm. Craven writes in the tradition of Robert Browning and other poets who assume voices: poems are staged as dramatic monologues and soliloquies, so the speaker might or might not be the poet's own personal voice. What all of the voices have in common is a lyric sensibility that lets the world sing and uncovers new ways of seeing at every turn. Craven is "an artist of becoming others," a storyteller with an eye for detail and an ear for lyric. In this collection, the many selves he has gathered "take a rhythmic stage in chiming words," the poet exits "wearing many faces," and that makes these poems a joy to read. ... Read more