Books

Reviews, profiles, and interviews that capture the diverse voices adding to Texas’s rich literary tradition
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News & Politics|
January 21, 2013

The Last Liberal

As Jan Reid's new biography makes clear, Ann Richards was one of the most magnetic politicians of the past thirty years. So why didn’t she leave much of a legacy?

Books|
January 21, 2013

The Writes of Spring

Robert Caro on LBJ. Marcus Luttrell on war. Douglas Brinkley on Walter Cronkite. James Donovan on the Alamo. Steve Coll on ExxonMobil. Ben Fountain on a surreal Dallas Cowboys halftime show. Dan Rather and Sissy Spacek on themselves. For some reason, May has turned out to be a month like

Book Review|
January 21, 2013

Exxposé

What lies beneath the hood of ExxonMobil, the world’s largest oil company?

Books|
January 21, 2013

The One-Question 
Interview With 
Steve Coll

The author of Private Empire: ExxonMobile and American Power answers the question: In terms of difficulty, how would you compare reporting on Exxon with the reporting you did for your previous book, The Bin Ladens?

Books|
January 21, 2013

The Ron Paul Effect

In the forthcoming Ron Paul’s rEVOLution, journalist Brian Doherty takes an up-close look at the libertarian Texas congressman.

Books|
January 21, 2013

Like a Writer

Bizarre similes pour forth from debut novelist Jonathan Woods’s fingers like wine from a bottomless bottle that is also missing its cork.

Books|
January 21, 2013

Irregular Joe

His stories are grotesque, disturbing, and award-winning: Meet Nacogdoches’ Joe R. Lansdale, the most twisted writer in Texas.

Books|
January 20, 2013

Katherine the Great

Indian Creek native Katherine Anne Porter is the finest author ever to come out of Texas. But only recently has her home state stopped writing her off.

Books|
January 20, 2013

Pretty Ugly

Why a lavish two-volume attack on the border fence, with photos by Maurice Sherif, misses the mark.

Books|
January 20, 2013

Writers Bloc

What did Graham Greene observe about crossing the border into Mexico in 1938? Would you believe Molly Ivins was born in California? Here are my picks for the fifty greatest literary moments in Texas, plus a roster of leading lights who are from here—and some who aren't.

Books|
January 20, 2013

Pen Pals

Dobie, Bedichek, and Webb were the leading Texas writers and intellectuals of their age. But as ribald raconteurs, they were ahead of their time.

Books|
January 20, 2013

True West

Twenty-five years ago, Larry McMurtry published a novel called Lonesome Dove—and Texas hasn’t looked the same since. Listen in as more than thirty writers, critics, producers, and actors, from Peter Bogdonavich and Dave Hickey to Tommy Lee Jones, Robert Duvall, and Anjelica Huston, tell the stories behind the book (and

Books|
January 20, 2013

Join Texas Monthly at the Texas Book Festival

TEXAS MONTHLY is proud to be a sponsor of the Texas Book Festival, which is held in Austin on October 16 and 17. For a complete listing of events, check out the official schedule. To see which sessions TEXAS MONTHLY editors and writers are participating in, see the schedule

Books|
January 20, 2013

Rick Riordan

“You have to have action, you have to have humor, and you have to have emotional situations. And you have no time to waste. You have to get it all in there economically.”

Sports|
January 20, 2013

Legends of the Fall

Texas football heroes Darrell Royal, Doak Walker, Sammy Baugh, and John David Crow are off the field, but they’re still having a ball.

Books|
January 20, 2013

Expatriate Act

While some Texas-born writers had to leave home to do their best work, for John Graves the reverse was true.

Books|
January 20, 2013

The Uncertain Sage

A cool, brilliantly blue day in early February found me driving north from Austin on a sort of pilgrimage. I was going to see John Graves, the writer and gentleman farmer, now 73 years old, at his place on four hundred acres of rocky blackland prairie near Glen Rose.My visit

Books|
January 20, 2013

Lady Bird

In this excerpt from Means of Ascent, the shy, withdrawn young wife of Lyndon Johnson reveals a presence and command that took everyone by surprise—including her husband.

Texas History|
January 20, 2013

Lyndon Johnson on the Record

Working on his memoir one day in 1969, LBJ spoke more frankly into a tape recorder about the Kennedys, Vietnam, and other subjects than he ever had before. The transcript of that tape has never been published—until now. Michael Beschloss explains its historical significance.

Books|
January 20, 2013

If you’ve never read or seen Lonesome Dove . . .

The opening scenes of Lonesome Dove take place at the Hat Creek Cattle Company, a small ranch in Lonesome Dove, Texas, just north of the Rio Grande. Hat Creek is operated by two old Texas Rangers, the taciturn Woodrow Call and the talkative Augustus “Gus” McCrae. Among their hands are

Books|
January 20, 2013

A Tale Of Two Endings

– 1 –Gus and Call’s friendship may be at the heart of Lonesome Dove, but the book’s ending points in another direction. When Call returns to Lonesome Dove after burying Gus, he encounters the town’s barber, Dillard Brawley. “What happened to the saloon?” Call asks, having noticed that the local

Books|
January 20, 2013

Catcher in the Raw

Forty years after its publication, Horseman, Pass By is still one of Larry McMurtry's finest novels—and as groundbreaking as J. D. Salinger's masterpiece.

Books|
January 20, 2013

King of Diamonds

Larry L. King is at work on a novel about minor league baseball in Texas in the fifties. Breaking Balls is a fictionalized account of his experiences covering the “miserable 144-game schedule” of the Midland Indians as a $55-a-week reporter for the Midland Reporter-Telegram in 1951. “I went to all

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