Books
January 21, 2013
Dan Rather Pop Quiz!
Six interesting facts about the retired CBS news anchorman found in his new book, Rather Outspoken.
Books
Reviews, profiles, and interviews that capture the diverse voices adding to Texas’s rich literary tradition
News & Politics
January 21, 2013
Debating Robert Caro
The fourth volume of an epic LBJ biography stirs more controversy.
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
Ben Fountain Undoes Dallas
The acclaimed author is publishing his first novel, Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk. And some of his neighbors may not be happy.
Books
January 21, 2013
Hog Hunting With Marcus Luttrell
The author of Lone Survivor still has his gun at the ready.
Web Exclusive
January 21, 2013
An Extended Interview With Steve Coll
The New Yorker writer talks about his latest book, Private Empire: ExxonMobil and American Power.
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
Friedrichsburg Revisited
The German novel, penned in 1867 and set in the just-settled Hill Country hamlet, gets a modern translation.
Books
January 21, 2013
Dagoberto Gilb Returns to Writing After His Stroke
Before the End, After the Beginning, the author's first collection since his stroke, draws on his personal crisis for inspiration.
Books
January 21, 2013
Swamp Think
Joe R. Lansdale has made a career out of a hard-boiled vision of East Texas.
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.
News & Politics
January 20, 2013
So What’s the Truth About Dan Morales and Tobacco?
It's the question on everyone's mind now that the former attorney general is suddenly running for governor. The answer could determine whether his political prospects go up in smoke.
Books
January 20, 2013
Horse Sense
Redford, shmedford: If you think the aging Hollywood hunk is anything like the prototypical horse whisperer, you haven’t met Del Rio native Ernesto Rojas Serna.
Books
January 20, 2013
Bohemian Rhapsody
An ambitious, sometimes bewildering, debut novel about Czech Texas.
Books
January 20, 2013
Desperately Seeking Cormac
Cormac McCarthy’s birth date and birthplace are just two of the facts about him that have eluded his rabid fans—until now. A dossier on the most fiercely private writer in Texas.
Books
January 20, 2013
Bill Broyles and Mark Haynes
On their new book, Desert Duty: On the Line With the U.S. Border Patrol.
Books
January 20, 2013
Desert Duty: On the Line With the U.S. Border Patrol
Read an excerpt from the new book by Bill Broyles and Mark Haynes.
Arts & Entertainment
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.”
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.
Arts & Entertainment
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.
News & Politics
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
Books
January 20, 2013
Catcher in the Raw
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.
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
Books
January 20, 2013
The Texpatriates
As Sandra Scofield, Shelby Hearon, and Janet Peery are proving, you don’t have to live in Texas to be a Texas writer.
News & Politics
January 20, 2013
The Evolver
“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.
Books
January 20, 2013
Nation State
Does anyone outside of Texas care about Texas history? H. W. Brands hopes so, and he's not the only one.
Books
January 20, 2013
Ghost Writer
It took me half my life to figure out that most of what I thought I knew about J. Frank Dobie was wrong.
News & Politics
January 20, 2013
Newspaper Days
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.
Arts & Entertainment
January 20, 2013
Nice Guys Finish Last
A pivotal loss in the 1970 Senate race shaped George Bush’s future. An excerpt from a new book on the 1988 presidential campaign.
Books
January 20, 2013
The Woman On Top
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.
News & Politics
January 20, 2013
Words of Art
From Good Bull: More Aggie Escapades, by John Hoyle: One of the no-no’s in the Corps is to have a member of the opposite sex in your dorm room at the wrong hours. One night, a group of Fish saw a senior sneaking a young woman into his room. The
Books
October 31, 2012
Jacqueline Kelly Returns to the Willows
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.
Books
October 31, 2012
The Cold Eye of Larry McMurtry
Catching up with our leading unsentimentalist.
Books
September 30, 2012
Tackling the Cowboys
Joe Nick Patoski takes on America's most storied football franchise in his new book, The Dallas Cowboys.
Books
August 31, 2012
Andrew Porter’s Novel Has a Houston Problem
The San Antonio writer's novel, In Between Days, doesn't get its Houston setting quite right.