THESE ARE MY CHOICES FOR the fifty best Texas books. I would like to emphasize that these are the best books about Texas. By that I mean Texas is their main subject or, in the case of fiction and biography, their chief setting. They are not the best books written
Dallas' cultural aspirations take a beating when city fathers reject a sculpture.
TRY TO REMEMBER, BILL, Hell and Houston both begin with a h. —letter from a 19th-century visitorI wish I’d said it first, but I can’t say it any better. It still begins with a h. Houston today is a dozen cities, and you couldn’t give me any of them if
WHEN I WAS GROWING UP there in the Thirties and Forties, Abilene was a one-industry town: God.God met the biggest payroll and He was the local real estate magnate. Besides owning the fifty church buildings and employing the people in them, He held title to the three institutions of higher
THE HIGHLAND PARK WOMAN is thirty-two or thirty-three. She says she honestly forgets sometimes. She’s not particularly afraid to tell her age (she’s not that old) but she seldom does. It’s not really necessary: a ten-year-old son in St. Mark’s and a seven-year-old daughter in Lamplighter, three bedrooms and three
WHEN UPON LIFE’S BILLOWS you are tempest tossed, When you are discouraged, thinking all is lost . . . Count your many blessings, ev’ry doubt will fly, And you will be singing as the days go by.— “Count Your Blessings”My first check as a radio gospel singer on KRBC in
WHY IS IT YOU NEVER REMEMBER the good things about certain jobs, only the bad—and yet the sweetest times, the days of your life you think you’d rather live over, are those seasons when salaries were lowest, the bosses were cruelest, your fellow workers were the most problematic? I spent
THREE YEARS AGO ANYBODY in the business could describe a Texas movie producer for you: loud talking, fast moving (white Eldorado), Frye boots, and a rodeo shirt to match his California girl friend’s; born in Brooklyn (where else?), with two quickies to his credit—one that four-walled Waco, Temple, and died,
A RIVER BEGAN IT. Sluggish in summer, scant. A red and awesome terror in a wet spring. Too much river . . . or not enough.Called Daycoa by some Indians, Arkikosa by others, in 1690 Alonso de Leon, a Mexican-born officer of the Spanish crown, bestowed its modern name: La
Before the Dallas newspaper war, the Herald was full of character—or was it characters?
I sang gospel music for God, a bakery, and $6 a week.
One man’s favorite writings span a century and capture Texas in all its grimness and glory.
Big D is not called Big D for nothing.
The tale of the man who made Dallas a film industry capital is no shaggy-dog story.
Splendor in the suburbs.
Abilene, Abilene, strangest town I’ve ever seen.
