9 books like The Alamo

This book served as the starting point for many present-day Alamo historians. Written by future American Poet Laureate Robert Penn Warren, and enhanced with vivid illustrations by noted Western artist William Moyers, it is the perfect introduction to the Alamo story for young readers. A copy remains on my bookshelf sixty years after its discovery.

Acknowledged by many Alamo historians as the best book on the subject, it is certainly the most readable. Popular historian Walter Lord presented a solid history book written as a novel and brought to light many of the lesser-known personalities and events of the Alamo siege and battle. Lord also included intriguing addendums “Riddles of the Alamo,” “Men who fell at the Alamo,” and a solid list of sources. If other books inspired people to read more about the famous battle, Lord’s book created the desire to plunge deeper into the sources and begin writing about the Alamo. I have a copy of this book, signed by Lord to me, dated March 6, 1991, the 155th anniversary of the Alamo battle.

Good friend, Tom Lindley spent fifteen years researching and piecing together this controversial book, more a collection of stand-alone Alamo-related articles, than a single narrative of the battle. Lindley, known for his “hard chair time” as a researcher dispels many long-standing myths of the Alamo such as Travis drawing his famous line in the sand, the story of Louis Rose, the much-publicized and phony De La Peña “diary,” the number of men who died at the Alamo, and many others. It is not an easy read, but it is absolutely necessary for anyone researching and writing about the Alamo.

There have been many novels written about the Alamo. Friend and fellow member of the Western Writers of America, Tom Clagett, tells his unique story by only presenting the last two days of the siege. On the Texan side we experience the battle through the three Taylor brothers and Susannah Dickinson, and the Mexican side via Colonel Juan Morales, all historical participants. Clagett blends fact, fiction, and myth, holding a reader’s interest throughout. One can’t help but care for the characters and hope for the best, even though there is only one way an Alamo story can end. That is great writing!

One thing my selections have in common is my own awe for the amount of research that went into the work. In this instance, Mr. Donovan has gone back to original sources, found old letters, telegrams, newspaper reports, interviews with survivors, and so on, turning the famous participants (e.g. Jim Bowie, Davy Crockett, etc.) from the stiff, stock characters of popular imagination or media and mockery into recognizable human beings: Jim Bowie with his tenacious will (see the description of a duel fought on an island in a river against several opponents) and a heart-broken by the death of a beloved wife, or Crockett, an out-of-office politician, and national figure, heading West in the hopes of finding a new beginning.

None of them planned on being a hero, but, at the end, were willing to die for their friends and their adopted home of Texas.

If you’ve never heard of the Saint Patrick’s Battalion—the Irish soldiers who deserted the US Army to fight for Mexico during the Mexican-American War of 1847—with this novel, Reyna Grande will fill in the blanks in grand style. She pulls you in using the trope of a romance between Ximena, a curandera, and John Riley, an Irish-American artilleryman, both pawns in a gigantic land grab now regarded as one of the US’s forgotten wars.

We listen to the big personalities—Mexican General Antonio López de Santa Anna and US General Zachary Taylor—give their version of events even as the book provides an unflinching eye at the plight of the common people caught in the chaos and bloodshed.

Mexican history is full of abrupt reversals. The life of Santa Anna, many times president and dictator of Mexico, is a wonderful example. Infamous in the United States for the Battle of the Alamo, where he gave no quarter to the defenders fighting for Texan independence, the general was vilified in Mexico for the far more heinous crime of losing Texas, once Mexican territory.

Two years later, his political career over, he lost his leg repelling French marines who were trying to seize the port of Veracruz. Santa Anna was now the saviour of Mexico, returning to power in 1841 and, for good measure, having his amputated leg buried with full military honours. Soon, however, he was forced to limp from office while an angry mob exhumed the leg, dragging it round Mexico City to humiliate their former leader. Yet this was far from the last time he held power.… show more.

Have you ever wondered what happens during a significant moment in history and no one is left to tell the tale? Three Roads to the Alamo by William C. Davis helps give a wonderful backstory to the characters leading up to the famous 1836 Texas battle against the Mexican army under Santa Ana. The pages are filled with details obtained through original documents of the era both in the United States and Mexico, making the characters come alive as never before. The incorrigible James Bowie, loyal commander William Barret Travis, and the renowned Davy Crockett give the ultimate sacrifice against insurmountable odds, and in doing so, shape the course of history forever.

Kit and I share some life similarities, she’s a working-class girl with a Birmingham background, published later in life, and I was keen to read her story. Written as scenes from childhood with sharp observation and wit, her book illustrates an unpredictable childhood. The daughter of an Irish mother and Caribbean father in a large and sometimes chaotic family, where there is love in the Kingdom Hall of Jehovah’s Witnesses, but not always at home. There are the familiar places, the family dynamics observed with the clarity of a child, and the tit-for-tat games her parents play - dad buys a new car, the next week, mum a harmonica and Davy Crockett hat. All quirks observed and challenging situations related with a lightness of touch and wit, a genuine pleasure to read.