While some Texas-born writers had to leave home to do their best work, for John Graves the reverse was true.
Books
In this excerpt from Means of Ascent, the shy, withdrawn young wife of Lyndon Johnson reveals a presence and command that took everyone by surprise—including her husband.
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.
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…
– 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…
Forty years after its publication, Horseman, Pass By is still one of Larry McMurtry's finest novelsand as groundbreaking as J. D. Salinger's masterpiece.
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…
As Sandra Scofield, Shelby Hearon, and Janet Peery are proving, you don’t have to live in Texas to be a Texas writer.
“All you’ve got is a famous name,” a Republican operative told George W. Bush. But six years later he was governor, and six years after that he was president. And six years after that, his place in history—not to mention the fate of the world—is a little uncertain.
Does anyone outside of Texas care about Texas history? H. W. Brands hopes so, and he's not the only one.
It took me half my life to figure out that most of what I thought I knew about J. Frank Dobie was wrong.
Once upon a time, Molly Ivins was just a kid from River Oaks with an internship at the Houston Chronicle. Her time there set her on the path to becoming the most famous firebrand in Texas.
A pivotal loss in the 1970 Senate race shaped George Bush’s future. An excerpt from a new book on the 1988 presidential campaign.
So what if Sandra Brown’s novels have wildly implausible plot twists, banal endings, over-the- top characters, and other literary no-no’s. She’s published nearly 70 of them since 1981, and 55 have gone on to be best-sellers. We’re sure the sex scenes have nothing to do with it.
The Austin-based writer's love of Kenneth Grahame's The Wind in the Willows inspired her to write a sequel to the 1908 classic.
Joe Nick Patoski takes on America's most storied football franchise in his new book, The Dallas Cowboys.
The San Antonio writer's novel, In Between Days, doesn't get its Houston setting quite right.
Brené Brown discusses her book Daring Greatly: How the Courage to Be Vulnerable Transforms the Way We Live, Love, Parent, and Lead (Gotham Books) and her 2010 TED talk on vulnerability.
The grand opening of a new H-E-B in McAllen drew crowds—including several who showed up to hear a native son read from his collection of locally set short stories.
The San Antonio-based author of the romance novels Roses and Tumbleweeds talks about her late literary success.
The New York Times columnist talks to Salon about her new book As Texas Goes... and gets reviewed by her own paper.
There’s more to Texas politics than Rick Perry. Gail Collins's new book demonstrates that the Northeastern media establishment doesn't understand that.
There are 1,101 Houstonians on the waiting list to read one of the 38 library copies of 50 Shades of Grey. But the libraries of North Texas have stocked 148 copies and still have 829 people on hold.
Houston Chronicle blogger Jenny Lawson (aka The Bloggess) found herself at the center of a two-day auction among twelve publishing houses for the rights to her debut memoir, Let's Pretend This Never Happened. How did she rise from unpaid blogger to New York Times bestseller?
The grumpy Texas literary legend rips the Texas art and music mecca in his review of a new book about Elizabeth Taylor, calling Marfa "as bleak a place as you'll find in America."
After three-plus decades toiling in semi-obscurity, the prolific Nacogdoches-based horror fiction author is having a moment.
Retired Border Patrol officer Hipolito Acosta remembers his time on the beat in The Shadow Catcher.
Cyberpunk pioneer Bruce Sterling speculates that the worst is yet to come.
Fifty years after it first electrified the nation, Dallas native John Howard Griffin’s classic book still has something to tell us.
In Donna M. Johnson's memoir of a Pentecostal childhood, religious zeal and illicit love nearly tear a family apart.
Fort Worth preacher J. Frank Norris paved the way for today’s televangelists. But he’s probably best known as the defendant in a wild 1927 murder trial.
Texas Christian University Press, long the hub of Elmer Kelton hagiography, has just released its newest paterikon, Elmer Kelton: Essays and Memories ($19.95), a collection of pieces written in honor of the beloved West Texas author, who died nearly two years ago. Among the memories are those of the Reverend…
Introduction Yes, I do have a Texas connection, but, as we’d say in the Midwest, where I grew up, not so’s you’d know it. I come from an immigrant family. Although my father sounded like Harry Truman and freely used phrases like “Haven’t had so much fun since the hogs…
"Readings," by Sandra Scofield with Jessica Scofield.