Books

April 30, 1982

Beyond Greed is the tale of the Hunts’ journey from silver spoon to silver lust. In Sing Me Back Home Merle Haggard takes a quick look at his life (too quick). Billy Clayton has Gavels, Grit & Glory--or so says his biographer.

By John Bloom

March 1, 1982

The Writer Stumbles

Celebrity is Thomas Thompson’s flawed venture into fiction; The Last Texas Hero deserves a twenty-yard penalty; Peeper is to be read only to find out who the real Tom is.

By John Bloom

September 30, 1981

Waste Makes Money

In With No Fear of Failure you’ll learn how you, too, can turn rags into riches. Daddy’s Girl knows Southern discomfort. Petroleum Politics and the Texas Railroad Commission is the history of our own little OPEC.

By John Bloom

July 31, 1981

The Fifty Best Texas Books

One man’s favorite writings span a century and capture Texas in all its grimness and glory.

By A. C. Greene

May 31, 1981

A Crush on Love

In Painted Dresses Shelby Hearon tries to plumb the depths of love, but her characters turn out to be too shallow.

By Dominique Browning

March 1, 1981

Paper Cowboys

Southwest Fiction might make you think that the region is mostly metropolis and no mesquite. The Guadalupe Mountains of Texas hits a lot of high spots.

February 1, 1981

Blood Luster

Aztec is gripping buts so gory you may have to read it with you eyes closed; Darlin’ Billadds patina to the Wild Bill Hickok legend; as a major American writer, Thomas McGuane has An Outside Chance; Louise Gluck again proves her power as a poet.

January 1, 1981

Behind the Purple Page

Texas writers of historical romances spice up the old boy- meets-girl plot with more than a pinch of passion.

December 1, 1980

High Gloss

Laura Furman handles The Glass House with a little too much care; Elmer Kelton’s novels take you way out West; a new filed guide digs into Texas’ past; Hearts will win yours.

September 30, 1980

Measure For Measure

Three Texas poets word their way into print; two new novels trace the adventures of Neanderthals and knights-errant.

August 31, 1980

Capote Changes Coler

In Music for Chameleons it’s hard to tell whether Truman Capote is telling the whole truth or nothing at all of the truth; Conspiracy ferrets out much of the truth about John F. Kennedy’s murder.

July 31, 1980

The Crime and the Pity

Michael Mewshaw reopens the case of a boyhood friend who murdered his parents’ Rober Shattuck reexamines the story of the Wild Boy.

April 30, 1980

Angle of Reflection

Wallace Stegner’s love of the West and respect for its history make his works as distinctive as the region that inspired them.

April 1, 1980

Gonna Take a Sedimentary Journey

Roadside Geology of Texas makes traveling a rocky road fun. In the Shining Mountains finds nature tarnished, but The Spawning Run shows it unspoiled.

March 1, 1980

The Secret Life of Chester Seltzer

Gordon Baxter’s Village Creek is just barely navigable. Amado Muro was a bohemian before it was fashionable.

January 1, 1980

Dr. Updike

John Updike’s problems are our pleasures. Mean Scrooge McDuck returns in a nostalgic comic-book collection.

December 1, 1979

Memoir of the Soil

A.C. Greene’s singular, exquisite vision of West Texas; a thriller that’s better than it should be; and a historical novel with too much history.

September 30, 1979

The Right Wings

In his new book Tom Wolfe poses this question: were the Mercury astronauts men or monkeys? Thomas Thompson changes his journalistic setting from Houston to the far East to produce a book about an astonishing criminal.

By Stephen Harrigan and Nicholas Lemann

Border & Immigration|

September 1, 1979

The Promised Land

Two men from Mexico inherit the legacy of all immigrants—grueling labor, low pay, and a bleak existence on the edge of the American dream.

By John Davidson

August 31, 1979

Mexican Mystery Tour

Charles Portis’ new novel belongs to the tradition of great frontier yarns, but this time the young man goes south.

By Gregory Curtis

June 30, 1979

Wind, Winter, and Waste

Five new books: three thrillers, one chiller, and a swan song.

By Texas Monthly

May 31, 1979

A New Old West

Two novels with novel views of frontier days. And, Howard Hughes revisited by two reporters who leave no stone of his rocky history unturned.

By Stephen Harrigan and Harry Hurt III

April 30, 1979

Teachers’ Threat

A professional educator flunks the test. He asks all the wrong questions and gives the wrong answers.

March 1, 1979

Barthelme the Scribbler

Barthelme is a humane writer, but in Great Days he erased al his humans. Also, a look at two novels of the Texas hinterlands.

By Gregory Curtis and Raymond Carver

Politics & Policy|

February 1, 1979

Billy Lee

How a bountifully talented young Texas writer based a novel on Lyndon Johnson, won high praise, and then…

By Al Reinert

February 1, 1979

Just Whistlin’ Dixie

Way down up on the Suwannee River and uptown Saturday night; tracking a few Southern women.

By Carolyn Osborn

December 1, 1978

Days of the Hocus

Sleazy Holly inspires a book that is sleazier.

November 1, 1978

Down on the Delta

Emma Blue spins lovely wheels in muddy issues.

September 30, 1978

Dixie Drag

Sexual secrets in the Piney Woods.

August 31, 1978

Baker’s Dozen

Bobby Baker tells all and then some.

By Nicholas Lemann

July 31, 1978

Apple Encore

Max Apple’s oddball touches make a zany and endearing novel.

May 31, 1977

The Toughest Guys in Court

Anybody who thinks Jones, Jones & Baldwin is just a trio of small-time, small-town attorneys is headed for big-time trouble.

By Joseph C. Goulden

April 30, 1977

Soldiers of Misfortune

What happens to a mercenary when all the fighting stops?

April 1, 1977

Right On

In their hearts, these conservative writers knew they were right. Now the rest of us know it too.

March 1, 1977

He’s Got a Secret

The Mexican pyramids are an open book compared to Peter Tompkins’s rambling account of them.

February 1, 1977

Apple and Oranges

The Oranging of America is not about the Longhorn football team taking over the government, but Max Apple’s book is only slightly less bizarre.

January 1, 1977

Prosecution Complex

Being Watergate special prosecutor was hard; writing a book about it was harder.

December 1, 1976

Presents of Mind

Turn a few new leaves this holiday season.

November 1, 1976

Testing, Testing

Dan Jenkins and Bud Shrake find the Limo scene semi-amusing.

September 30, 1976

Pall in the Family

Domestic bliss has seen better days than it sees in Shelby Hearon’s new novel.

August 31, 1976

Lend Me Your Era

Why the best years of our lives weren’t.

July 31, 1976

Sourcery and Whichcraft

Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein's latest book "The Final Days" is just too much hocus-pocus.

June 30, 1976

Passions of the Mine

Start fooling around with Mother Earth and you end up getting accused of rape.

May 31, 1976

Only Yesterday

America and Texas: past and present.

April 30, 1976

Help Yourself

Peter Passel and Rollo May help those who help themselves.

April 1, 1976

The Last Kid on the Block

Elmer Wayne Henley is neither safe nor sorry.

By James Conaway

April 1, 1976

Fires and Brimstone

Spiritual desolation in Crawford’s The Backslider; spiritual warfare in Naipaul’s Guerrillas.

March 1, 1976

Tennessee Schmaltz

T for Texas, T for Tennessee Williams’ autobiography, and T for terrible.