The Class of ’63
The good, the bad, and the most self-indulgent of this year’s JFK assassination books.
The good, the bad, and the most self-indulgent of this year’s JFK assassination books.
By Don Graham
A new book looks at the links between Cynthia Ann Parker and an iconic John Ford western.
By Don Graham
The German novel, penned in 1867 and set in the just-settled Hill Country hamlet, gets a modern translation.
By Don Graham
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.
By Don Graham
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.
By Don Graham
Dobie, Bedichek, and Webb were the leading Texas writers and intellectuals of their age. But as ribald raconteurs, they were ahead of their time.
By Don Graham
An ambitious, sometimes bewildering, debut novel about Czech Texas.
By Don Graham
While some Texas-born writers had to leave home to do their best work, for John Graves the reverse was true.
By Don Graham
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.
By Don Graham
Our selections for some of the best contemporary Texas books.
By Don Graham
A Prince of a Fellow
By Don Graham
Does anyone outside of Texas care about Texas history? H. W. Brands hopes so, and he's not the only one.
By Don Graham
Is it time to revisit Larry McMurtry’s Berrybender Narratives?
By Don Graham
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.
By Don Graham
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
By Don Graham
Larry McMurtry’s new memoir plays it close to the vest.
By Don Graham
63 things that all Texans must do before they die.
Cormac McCarthy’s ubiquity problem.
By Don Graham
What to do about those controversial statues on the University of Texas at Austin campus.
By Don Graham
The famously crotchety writer’s hate-love relationship with Texas.
By Don Graham
Cormac McCarthy’s latest is bloody good.
By Don Graham
The awful truth about The Liars’ Club.
By Don Graham
One riot, one Ranger, one much-maligned historian: rereading Walter Prescott Webb.
By Don Graham
To read a Patricia Highsmith novel is to suspend one’s moral judgments. She irresistibly persuades us to side with killers and other amoral characters.
By Don Graham
Growing up in segregated Collin County, I was oblivious to the impact of Jim Crowuntil I read John Howard Griffin's American classic.
By Don Graham
So much is at stake that we almost—almost—believe the release date of Disney's epic-to-be was delayed from Christmas Day to April for the reasons the studio claims. But given the way historical movies usually turn out, can you blame us for smirking?
By Don Graham
Suzan-Lori Parks gets the culture and cadence of West Texas right, sort of; Annie Proulx doesn't.
By Don Graham
Fifteen years after Larry McMurtry announced he was through writing novels, he shows no sign of letting up. For this we should be thankful.
By Don Graham
No one took the literature of Texas or the Southwest seriously until J. Frank Dobie put it, and us, on the map.
By Don Graham
Did Richard King cheat his partner's heirs out of a chunk of the King Ranch nearly 120 years ago? He may have—and if the Texas Supreme Court permits Chapman v. King Ranch, Inc., to go to trial, the past could come back to haunt the state's most storied spread.
By Don Graham
Master of the Senate, Robert Caro's third volume on the life of Lyndon Johnson, is an exhaustive study of power, persuasion, and private parts.
By Don Graham
Rumor has it that director Ron Howard and screenwriter John Sayles are coming to Austin this spring to make a $100 million movie about the Alamo. It may be too much to ask that they get Texas' defining battle right (since no one knows what really happened), but I've got
By Don Graham
What's so funny about an oilman, a rancher, a golfer, and a carnival hobo? Watch the following top ten funniest Texas movies to find out why these main characters (and others) are so hilarious.
By Don Graham
A memoir conjures up Donald Barthelmeand sheds light on his talented siblings.
By Don Graham
Larry McMurty's latest.
By Don Graham
Aaron Latham's new novel about a cowboy Camelot gets lost in the bull.
By Don Graham
. . . And the Earth Did Not Devour Him.
By Don Graham
The Perfect Sonya.
By Don Graham
Confessions of a Washed-up Sportswriter (Including Various Digressions About Sex, Crime, and Other Hobbies.)
By Don Graham
Strange Peaches.
By Don Graham
Alpaca
By Don Graham
The problem with Mary Karr's latest confessional memoir, Cherry, is that she won't stop confessing.
By Don Graham
Blood Meridian.
By Don Graham
Sam Chamberlain's My Confession.
By Don Graham
My First Thirty Years.
By Don Graham
The Time It Never Rained.
By Don Graham
Rules for movies about music.
By Don Graham
The Log of a Cowboy.
By Don Graham
A flood, a fire, a car accident, a murder, and of course, a restaging of the battle for Texas’ independence: scenes from the making of The Alamo.
By Don Graham
Viva Max!
By Don Graham