"If you've ever thought about starting a business," says insurance entrepreneur Warren Barhorst, "the time to act is now."

Huh? In this economy.

Precisely, he argues. "More millionaires were created in the Great Depression than in any other era. Now is a great time to reach your goals."

Barhorst, a former Texas A&M football player who built a successful insurance and investment company, has teamed up with College Station author Randy Burson to write and publish Game Plan: The Definitive Playbook for Starting or Growing Your Business ($24.95 hardcover).

As you might surmise from the title, the book is filled with sports analogies that apply to running a business. The authors gleaned a number of inspirational and whimsical quotations to illustrate their points, such as this one by George Eliot: "It's never too late to be who you might have been."

Or, as Barhorst puts it in the very first chapter, "Never underestimate the power of your own dreams." That, he says, is the most important point in the book.

"If you only act on one principle in this entire book," he writes, "this is the one to wrap your arms around."

Then he adds, "Don't just dream; hold on to your dreams and focus your actions toward achieving them."

In succeeding chapters, Barhorst and Burson focus on specific actions to take to turn those dreams into reality. For more information, see their Web site, gameplanbook.com

Bloody Feud

Chuck Parsons, a veteran Texas author and historian, has a new book, The Sutton-Taylor Feud (University of North Texas Press, $24.95 hardcover), about a bloody feud that started with two families during the Reconstruction period.

"In another time and place," Parsons writes, "attorneys might have settled matters in a courtroom, but in the tumultuous days of Reconstruction in Texas, the more common means of settling disputes was with a gun."

Parsons continues, "A period of vigilantism became common during the late [18]'60s and '70s, and many men associated with the Taylors, or related to them, were accused of theft and then murdered, the excuse being 'killed while attempting to escape.'"

"The Taylors," he continues, "did not sit idly by and allow their ranks to be thinned without retaliation."

Thus, the tale begins.

A related title, The Mason County 'Hoo Doo' War, 1874-1902 by David Johnson, has been reissued in a trade paperback edition by UNT Press ($24.95). It is the number four book in the press' A.C. Greene Series, while The Sutton-Taylor Feud is number seven.

* Glenn Dromgoole writes about Texas books and authors. Contact him at g.dromgoole@suddenlink.net.