In her new memoir, ‘Up Home,’ Ruth J. Simmons details how she defied the constraints of her segregated childhood and turned her humble origins into the key to her success.
A new biography makes clear that the acclaimed writer had an intense love-hate relationship with his home state. Which may have been the secret to his success.
Texas Monthly reporter Dan Solomon just published his first work of young adult fiction, ‘The Fight for Midnight.’ These are the books that inspired him.
Dallas journalist Roxanna Asgarian’s new book, ‘We Were Once a Family,’ examines a murder-suicide that made national news—and finds that the story behind the story is even worse than we thought.
In his first book, Houston physician and writer Ricardo Nuila argues that these publicly funded institutions don’t deserve their awful reputation—and offer a model for mending our broken health-care system.
One night in the fall of 1869, an angel visited a homeopathic physician in upstate New York named Cyrus Teed. She told him he was the Lamb of God, spoken of in the Bible’s book of Revelation, who was prophesied to open the seven seals and bring about the end-time.
‘More City than Water: A Houston Flood Atlas’ brings together a team of writers, scholars, designers, and eyewitnesses from the front lines of climate change in a grand experiment.
Lance Scott Walker's ‘DJ Screw: A Life in Slow Revolution’ is a worthwhile biography and oral history, even for those who already know the story of Screw's short, impactful life.
The compelling biography, by Amy Odell, tells the story of the ‘Vogue’ titan’s controversial decades at the helm of fashion.
A Wall Street Journal reporter’s book flips the script about the meme stock–trading frenzy that erupted around Grapevine-based retailer GameStop in 2021.
In ‘You Sound Like a White Girl,’ Julissa Arce combines memoir and history to reclaim the Latino identity she pushed away as an undocumented immigrant.
German writer Thomas Pletzinger has written a definitive biography of the seven-footer who brought a title to Dallas and a new era to the NBA.
Listen to the unforeseen collaboration between Shakey Graves and Trixie Mattel.
‘Blood and Money’ has it all: new oil money, an equestrian heiress, a handsome plastic surgeon, River Oaks mansions, and gossip-worthy trials.
Nico Martini's tome is part industry profile, part tasting notebook, and 100 percent—or 200-proof—Texas whiskey boosterism.
Austin author Nathan Harris dazzles in his first novel, which explores racial violence, family, and identity.
May Cobb’s second novel explores how the members of a women-only shooting club love, betray, and protect one another.
The San Antonio native's debut book, about a woman known for riding her burro along remote roads, recently won two major poetry awards.
In his recently released memoir, the Texan actor spins tall tales that just so happen to be true.
‘Wall Street Journal’ reporter Russell Gold’s new book, ‘Superpower,’ crafts an engaging narrative of one man’s quest to modernize the American energy business.
In ‘Spying on the South,’ the author of the bestselling ‘Confederates in the Attic’ offers a few pungent opinions about the Lone Star State.
The author of the just-out ’The Which Way Tree’ discusses her favorite Texas novel.
In his sixth novel, Names on a Map, Benjamin Alire Saenz writes about America’s hypercharged Vietnam era with the stoic calm that you might expect from a former priest (which he is). The war has crossed the Pacific to visit the Espejo family in their El Paso home:
The Jim Crow realities of a forties Mississippi cotton farm form a somber background for Mudbound, the long-awaited debut by Texas native Hillary Jordan. It’s a bitter tale of two World War II heroes, a bomber pilot and a tank commander, who return from the war to quite
Meet Sonny Bravo, the sweet but surly almost-sixteen-year-old who shrugs his way through The Flowers, Austinite Dagoberto Gilb’s first novel since 1994’s The Last Known Residence of Micky Acuña. At Los Flores— the East L.A. apartment building where Sonny lives with his mother, Silvia, and her redneck husband,
Cormac McCarthy’s latest is bloody good.
Photographer Kurt Markus spent years tracking down modern working cowboys for his new book, ‘Cowpuncher.’ He corralled the genuine article at several Texas spreads.
Hot CDsInevitable baggage accompanies an album whose sessions splintered a great band, ousted three producers, and outlasted a record company. But if ex-Austinite Lucinda Williams is a paragon of self-doubt, she’s also a gifted writer who gets to the core of a character in the course of a three-minute tune.
Hot CDs and Hot Books
Hot CDs and Hot Books
Hot CDsThis month Texas music shines on the silver screen. The soundtrack for The Horse Whisperer (MCA) not only features cuts from Don Walser, George Strait, and Steve Earle but also a Butch Hancock—Joe Ely— Jimmie Dale Gilmore reunion (long removed from Lubbock, they are now called the Hill Country
Hot CDsSan Antonio’s Monte Montgomery is a guitarist’s guitarist, but he doesn’t let that get in the way of the music on 1st and Repair (Heart Music). He brings taste, precision, economy, and a playful sense of timing to poppish songs with sturdy hooks and sings in a voice that’s
Hot CDsTalk about a “solo artist”: On You Coulda Walked Around the World (rainlight records), Butch Hancock is record label boss, co-producer, photographer, singer, songwriter, and lone musician. The Lubbock-born Hancock left Austin for Big Bend about a year ago, and the result is a casually haunted album that’s suffused
Hot CDsSure, you can waltz across Texas to the Cornell Hurd Band’s Texas Fruit Shack (Behemoth), but you can also shuffle, two-step, boogie, and maybe even jitterbug. Joined by guest stars like Johnny Bush, Austinite Hurd fronts a versatile group that puts an authoritative stamp on the full run of
Hot CDsThe 33 selections on My Time: A Boz Scaggs Anthology (1969— 1997) (Columbia/Legacy) are as sleek and as shiny as a Highland Park Mercedes. Despite the ex-Dallasite’s irresistible sense of flow-as-melody, several tracks on the two-CD set are also vapid enough to reconfirm that all that glitters is not
Hot CDsFew voices evoke the pathos of country and western tragedy as genuinely as the rich, honeyed timbre of George Jones. By 1962, the year Jones signed with the United Artists label, the East Texan had been divorced, jailed, and was already as legendary for his hard drinking as his
Hot CDsRunning on equal parts inspiration and gumption, Austin’s Damnations are the alternative to alternative country, going way back for tunes like “Copper Kettle,” forward for a romp through Lucinda Williams’ “Happy Woman Blues,” and their own way with impressively traditional-progressive originals. The mostly acoustic Live Set (Damnations), pressed in
Hot CDsWest Texas bluesman Long John Hunter plays even more guitar than usual on Swinging From the Rafters (Alligator), and that’s a lot of guitar. Hunter represents the party-down end of the blues spectrum; he’s gotta poke fun at himself even when he’s ostensibly down-and-out, as on “I’m Broke.” With
Hot CDsThe Horsies are an extremely unusual outfit, so it figures that the perverse, polymorphously percussive Austin combo’s second record, Touch Me Columbus, is only available on the relatively obscure Japanese label Benten (though some Texas record stores will be carrying it). A giddy three-man, three-woman band with five often
Hot CDsAbra Moore’s wispy, quivering voice works hard to be heard among the loud, rude guitars of Strangest Places (Arista/Austin). It’s a far cry from her earlier, softer work with Poi Dog Pondering and as a solo artist. Even when she falters, the Austinite’s transformation into a rocker adds resonance
Hot CDsSing, Cowboy, Sing: The Gene Autry Collection (Rhino) is a three-CD set featuring 84 favorites by the singing cowboy from Tioga. But these aren’t always the best-known versions; many are previously unreleased transcriptions from his Melody Ranch radio show that measure up well and thus add to the Autry
Hot CDsIn the sixties, Mayo Thompson’s The Red Krayola was a Houston psychedelic band with a writer—Frederick Barthelme—for a drummer. Thirty years later, the amorphous experimental outfit has a new lineup that makes music with the help of such guests as Minutemen alumnus George Hurley, but time has not tarnished
The latest star pupil of the so-called Houston school.
Hot CDsAlong with Nat “King” Cole, Texas City native Charles Brown became the father of late-night “cocktail blues” in Los Angeles in the forties. Half a century later, Honey Dripper (Verve/Gitanes) vividly conjures up Brown’s suave, stylish world. His voice is sweet and smoky like a rich cigar and as
Houston attorney-novelist Eric L. Harry flashed on the idea for his new technothriller while rafting on a river. In Society of the Mind (Harper Collins, $25), due out in June, a mad genius lures a young Harvard professor to his secret island compound to psychoanalyze an equally disturbed computer…New York
The best books and CDs from Texas.
The best books and CDs from Texas.
Three new books deliver sordid stories of drugged-up cops, kinky murderers, and a real-life drug kingpin.
In The Path to Power Robert Caro brings the Texas of the twenties and thirties to hot, scrubby life, but tries to fit the young Lyndon Johnson into a prefabricated and constricting mold.
About the AuthorDebbie Deepsheet Takes a Dive, by Mary Margaret WisheyMISS WISHLEY LIVES IN NICE ‘n Rustic, Connecticut, with a pet ‘coon and her two nuns. She is presently at work on the third volume of the Debbie Deepsheet trilogy, titled Debbie Deepsheet, Astronaut. Miss Wishey hopes that the story
