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Humanities Texas "Summer Reading" List
Mary Cassatt, Nurse Reading to a Little Girl, 1895.
We recently asked Humanities Texas board members, former board members, and various friends of the organization to recommend a book or books for summer reading in the humanities. The result was a remarkably wide-ranging list, encompassing fiction and nonfiction, prose and poetry, and works in English and Spanish. We hope you'll enjoy reading the list (and the books on the list) as much as we enjoyed compiling it. (Book summaries in quotation marks are from the recommenders themselves.)
Click here to see recommendations by teachers for student reading.
J. Larry Allums, executive director, Dallas Institute of Humanities and Culture
Mohsin Hamid, The Reluctant Fundamentalist. The narrator of this novel is a young Pakistani who, despite having emigrated to America, graduated from Princeton, and found a job with a financial firm, finds himself in sympathy with the perpetrators of the 9/11 attacks.
Sonia Nazario, Enrique's Journey: The Story of a Boy's Dangerous Odyssey to Reunite with His Mother. This account of a seventeen-year-old Honduran boy's efforts to find his mother, who has emigrated to the United States, won a Pulitzer Prize when originally published in the Los Angeles Times.
Cormac McCarthy, The Road. A dark, post-apocalyptic novel about a man and his son, survivors of a global nuclear catastrophe, trying to avoid roving bands of cannibals while trying to avoid freezing or starving to death.
Gary M. Bell, dean of the Honors College, Texas Tech University, Lubbock
Ron Rosenbaum, Explaining Hitler: The Search for the Origins of His Evil. An examination of the origin of Hitler's character, and of the various historians and journalists who have attempted to explain him.
Stephen Bungay, The Most Dangerous Enemy: A History of the Battle of Britain. An authoritative account of one of the pivotal encounters of World War II.
Doris Kearns Goodwin, No Ordinary Time: Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt: The Home Front in World War II. Goodwin's account of the president, his wife, and their intimates and advisors during wartime.
John Lukacs, The Duel: The Eighty-Day Struggle Between Churchill and Hitler. On May 10, 1940, Churchill became prime minister; on July 31, 1940, Hitler decided to invade the Soviet Union. This book tells the story of what happened in between, using alternating viewpoints.
Michael Berberich, instructor of English and humanities, Galveston College
Pat Mora, Aunt Carmen's Book of Practical Saints. "The sure sign of a good book is that when you lend it to someone it gets passed on and before long no one knows where it is. Thus it was with Pat Mora's novella Aunt Carmen's Book of Practical Saints, which I started a few years ago, lent to someone before I finished it, and, having purchased a new copy, will now be reading again."
Leslie Blanton, civic leader, Houston
David Oshinsky, Polio, an American Story: The Crusade That Mobilized the Nation Against the Twentieth Century's Most Feared Disease. The Pulitzer Prize-winning account of the social, political, and scientific dimensions of the race to find a cure for the dread disease.
Bruce Bumbalough, reference librarian, Grapevine Public Library
Wendell Berry, the Port William series. "Berry is a Kentucky farmer and conservationist. He creates a small town struggling to survive against the advances of civilization and filled with memorable characters who espouse traditional family values."
Mark Busby, director, Center for the Study of the Southwest, Texas State University-San Marcos
Steven L. Davis, ed., Land of the Permanent Wave: An Edwin "Bud" Shrake Reader. "This book offers an introduction to one of Texas's most interesting writers—sportswriter, journalist, screenwriter, novelist, long-time 'dancing partner' of Ann Richards."
Clifton and Shirley Caldwell, 2007 Humanities Texas Award winners, Albany
Sallie Reynolds Matthews, Interwoven: A Pioneer Chronicle. A memoir of life on the famed Lambshead Ranch north of Albany, including accounts of encounters with Comanche Indians, the coming of the railroad, and the effects of the introduction of barbed wire.
Norma E. Cantú, professor of English, University of Texas at San Antonio
Helena María Viramontes, Their Dogs Came with Them. "A gritty dark novel set in LA with memorable characters and beautiful writing."
Daniel D. Arreola, Tejano South Texas: A Mexican American Cultural Province. A cultural geography of a unique region.
Thomas L. Charlton, director, The Texas Collection, Baylor University, Waco
Elizabeth Cruce Alvarez and Robert Plocheck, eds., Texas Almanac 2008–2009: The Source for All Things Texan Since 1857. "These days I tell all my friends and students that I highly recommend the Texas Almanac for its fascinating information and most useful and helpful content about the Lone Star State."
Light T. Cummins, Bryan Professor of History, Austin College, Sherman
Howard J. Erlichman, Camino del Norte: How a Series of Watering Holes, Fords, and Dirt Trails Evolved into Interstate 35 in Texas. "The author does a wonderful job of blending together Texas history, popular culture, and modern Texas politics as he tells the story of the development of Interstate 35 and its predecessors. The book provides a well-written narrative that explains how a collection of Native American trails prior to European contact became pathways for Spanish explorers before they provided the early roads for Anglo Texans which, in turn, later became early twentieth century highways and—finally—an interstate. Any Texan who drives the interstates of Texas should read this book, which is a drive into history itself."
Gregory Curtis, author, Austin
John Williams, Stoner. "I learned about this book from Tom Staley. It's the great undiscovered American novel, although it is undergoing a revival and has just been reprinted. The book concerns the life of an unheralded English professor at the University of Missouri and yet has the most powerful emotional charge."
Glen David Gold, Carter Beats the Devil. "This is wonderful summer reading, an historical novel that recreates a world of seventy years ago. It has an absorbing, original plot and unusual yet completely believable characters. And a surprise around every corner."
Maceo C. Dailey, professor of history and director of African American studies, The University of Texas at El Paso
Kati Marton, The Great Escape: Nine Jews Who Fled Hitler and Changed the World. A group biography of nine influential Hungarian émigrés, including scientists Edward Teller, Leo Szilard, and Eugene Wigner; mathematician John Von Neuman; filmmakers Alexander Korda and Michael Curtiz; novelist Arthur Koestler; and photojournalists Robert Capa and Andre Kertesz.
Paula J. Giddings, Ida: A Sword Among Lions. A biography of Ida B. Wells-Barnett (1862–1931), the daughter of slaves who led the nation's first anti-lynching crusade.
John Rechy, About My Life and the Kept Woman. This memoir, by a gay man of Mexican-Scottish descent, recounts his early life in El Paso and his life-changing encounter with Marisa Guzman, the mistress of Mexican politician Augusto de Leon.
Virginia Dudley, civic leader, Comanche
John Berendt, The City of Falling Angels. Using the suspicious 1997 fire that burned Venice's famed Fenice opera house as a starting point, Berendt moves on to portray several of the city's memorable characters.
George M. Fleming, founder and managing associate, Fleming and Associates L.L.P., Houston
John F. Kennedy, Profiles in Courage. A Pulitzer Prize-winning study of eight U.S. senators, including John Quincy Adams, Daniel Webster, Thomas Hart Benton, Sam Houston, and Robert A. Taft, who took courageous or unpopular stands.
Betty Sue Flowers, director, Lyndon Baines Johnson Library and Museum at The University of Texas at Austin
Lloyd Jones, Mister Pip. During a civil war on a tropical island, a teenaged native girl finds herself caught between her love for her mother and her increasing engagement with the world of ideas after her teacher begins reading Great Expectations aloud.
Juliet V. García, president, University of Texas at Brownsville
Jared Diamond, Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed. An analysis of how some societies, such as the Anasazi of the Southwest, Easter Island, the Greenland Vikings, and modern Rwanda, have brought about their own demise.
Marilynne Robinson, Gilead. An epistolary novel consisting of a letter from a seventy-six-year-old preacher to his seven-year-old son, written in the consciousness that death will soon part them and as an attempt to explain himself, his beliefs, and his family.
Doris Kearns Goodwin, The Fitzgeralds and the Kennedys: An American Saga. Traces the rise of an American political dynasty from 1863 to 1961.
Ana Córdova y Vázquez and Carlos De la Parra, eds., A Barrier to Our Shared Environment: The Border Fence Between the United States and Mexico. A series of essays on the environmental effects of the proposed fence along the border.
Jonathan K. Gerland, director, The History Center, Diboll
Harrell Odom, Over on Cochino. A memoir of the Texas Pineywoods.
Thad Sitton, Backwoodsmen: Stockmen and Hunters Along a Big Thicket River Valley. Examines the history and folkways of the Big Thicket region.
Alfred Runte, Allies of the Earth: Railroads and the Soul of Preservation. Argues that a revitalized passenger rail system will foster environmentally responsible and sustainable growth.
Julius Glickman, managing partner, Glickman and Hughes L.L.P., Houston
Doris Kearns Goodwin, Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln. A moving examination of Lincoln's relationships with three political opponents—William H. Seward, Salmon P. Chase, and Edward Bates—and how he ultimately won their loyalty and admiration.
Dan Gonzalez, interim executive director, Guadalupe Cultural Arts Center, San Antonio
Juan Tejeda and Avelardo Valdez, eds., ¡Puro Conjunto! An Album in Words and Pictures. "A wide-ranging collection of writings taken from the Tejano Conjunto Festival's program magazine, Tonantzin. These writings include scholarly essays, articles by journalists and music critics, interviews with legendary performers, autobiographical accounts, short stories, and poetry. This collection should interest conjunto and folk-music fans, as well as students and scholars. Like the music, this book can be used in a variety of ways: as an entertaining survey of the genre, a valuable supplement to college textbooks, or a handy resource for research."
Miguel Gonzalez-Gerth, professor emeritus of Spanish Peninsular and Mexican literature, The University of Texas at Austin
Dave Oliphant, Texan Jazz. An encyclopedic survey of the lives and careers of Texas's many notable jazz musicians.
Ana Castillo, So Far from God. A novel in the magic realism tradition about a family of Hispanic women in Tome, New Mexico.
Rudolfo Anaya, Bless Me, Ultima. A classic coming-of-age novel about a boy growing up in New Mexico and his aunt Ultima, a curandera.
Tita Valencia, Urgente Decir Te Amo (1932–1942). A love story, in Spanish, based on a collection of letters.
Ian McEwan, Atonement. A novel about how a young girl's unthinking actions have life-changing effects on those around her.
Ian McEwan, Amsterdam. Death and scandal involving three men who have all been the lover of the same woman.
Ian McEwan, Saturday. A crucial and unexpectedly violent day in the life of a middle-aged London neurosurgeon.
Don Graham, J. Frank Dobie Regents Professor in American and English Literature, The University of Texas at Austin
James Dickey, To the White Sea. "Metaphysical adventure novel about an American airman making his way across Japan in 1945; nail-biter."
Tim O'Brien, In the Lake of the Woods. "Overshadowed by the author's The Things They Carried, this is his best Vietnam novel, mixing murder mystery, political thriller, and the My Lai Massacre into one unforgettable read."
Sebastian Faulks, Birdsong. "The centennial of the Great War is coming up in just six years, and there's no better entry into that crucible of the twentieth century than Faulks's powerful, straight-ahead, naturalistic novel reminiscent of Flaubert and Stendahl."
Robyn Davidson, Tracks. "In late 1970s a young woman sets out on a journey of 1,700 miles across the Australian outback with three camels and a dog. Feminism with grit."
Kate Jennings, Snake: "Australian family saga compressed into 157 pages of scintillating prose."
John Fowles, The Collector. "Chilling novel of a British psychopath's abduction of a beautiful young college girl."
Patrick McGrath, Asylum. "Gripping British novel of sexual obsession and life in an institution for the insane."
David Lodge, Nice Work. "British p.c. professor confronts the real world in a very funny satire of academic vs. business culture in modern England."
John Updike, Rabbit Is Rich and Rabbit at Rest. "The last two volumes of Updike's tetralogy about an ex-basketball star and his attempts to find meaning in life after high school. Superb portraits of U.S. middle-class culture."
James Carlos Blake, In the Rogue Blood. "Ultra-violent novel set at the time of the Mexican War (1846–48); reminiscent of Cormac McCarthy in manner and massacres."
Larry McMurtry, All My Friends Are Going to Be Strangers. "A fast-paced road novel about a young writer, done in the manner of Kerouac, and filled with comic zest and sex."
Richard A. Holland, senior lecturer, Liberal Arts Honors program, The University of Texas at Austin
Edwin Shrake, Blessed McGill. "The best short novel about nineteenth-century Texas, combining realistic Comanches, an accurate description of what is now the Hill Country, and a stunning buffalo stampede. McGill is the observant and ironic narrator, who after his death in Taos, New Mexico, becomes the first North American beatified by the Vatican."
Kathleen Jameson, director of program support, Museum of Fine Arts, Houston
Alice A. Carter, Cecilia Beaux: A Modern Painter in the Gilded Age. A biography of the unconventional American woman who was the contemporary and artistic peer of Claude Monet, Winslow Homer, and John Singer Sargent.
James Tottis et al., Life's Pleasures: The Ashcan Artists' Brush with Leisure, 1895–1925. Explores the work of major American artists such as George Bellows, Robert Henri, Edward Hopper, Rockwell Kent, and other members of the Ashcan School.
Nicolás Kanellos, Brown Foundation Professor and director of Arte Público Press and Recovering the U.S. Hispanic Literary Heritage, University of Houston
Eduardo González Viaña, Dante's Ballad. "A wonderful upbeat novel on the Mexican immigrant experience in the United States. It's lyrical and magically real, humorous and serious in a deft and sensitive way. A great read."
Michael L. Klein, independent oil and gas exploration, Midland/Austin
James U. Cross with Denise Gamino and Gary Rice, Around the World with LBJ: My Wild Ride as Air Force One Pilot, White House Aide, and Personal Confidant. A behind-the-scenes memoir by a former member of Lyndon Johnson's inner circle.
Cokie Roberts, Founding Mothers: The Women Who Raised Our Nation. A study of the often-overlooked women of the Revolutionary War era.
Joseph R. Krier, former president and CEO, The Greater San Antonio Chamber of Commerce
Michael Korda, Ike: An American Hero. An admiring appraisal of a shrewdly self-deprecating military leader and president, focusing primarily on his role in defeating Nazism in World War II.
Wright L. Lassiter Jr., chancellor, Dallas County Community College District
Marc Freedman, Encore: Finding Work That Matters in the Second Half of Life. "One of my special interests is helping individuals connect with their true purpose in life."
William S. Livingston, senior vice president emeritus, The University of Texas at Austin
Robert Harris, The Ghost. "The fictional autobiography of a ghost writer ostensibly writing the autobiography of a former British prime minister, possibly Tony Blair."
Stephen Greenblatt, Will in the World: How Shakespeare Became Shakespeare. A biography of the greatest English playwright that also sets him and his work in the context of his time and place.
Duff Cooper, Old Men Forget: The Autobiography of Duff Cooper. An account of a privileged upbringing in turn-of-the-twentieth-century England by a British diplomat and man of letters.
John Julius Norwich, Shakespeare's Kings: The Great Plays and the History of England in the Middle Ages: 1337–1485. The lives of the monarchs portrayed in Shakespeare's history plays and an examination of the playwright's use of his historical sources.
Simon Winchester, The Professor and the Madman: A Tale of Murder, Insanity, and the Making of the Oxford English Dictionary. An account of the friendship between James Murray, the major force behind the magisterial Oxford English Dictionary, and W. C. Minor, an expatriate American murderer confined in the Broadmoor Criminal Lunatic Asylum who contributed thousands of entries.
Nelson D. Lankford, The Last American Aristocrat: The Biography of Ambassador David K. E. Bruce. Bruce, born to an aristocratic Virginia family, served in the OSS during World War II; administered the Marshall Plan; and was ambassador to France, Great Britain, West Germany, and NATO, and envoy to Beijing.
Nashid Madyun, director, Bob Bullock Texas State History Museum, Austin
Robert Wolf, ed., An American Mosaic: Prose and Poetry by Everyday Folk. "I have had the opportunity to work with Mr. Wolf on several occasions. This is a powerful slice of American life."
Howard Zinn, A People's History of the United States: 1492–Present. "We often overlook the people's perspective of American's triumphs and failures in her path toward being the greatest nation in the world."
C. Vann Woodward, ed., Mary Chesnut's Civil War. "A Pulitzer Prize-winning look into the diaries of the wife of a Southern politician."
James Magnuson, director, Michener Writing Center at The University of Texas at Austin
Jim Crace, Being Dead. "A lovely and provocative book everyone might like to look at."
Robert Mallouf, director, Center for Big Bend Studies, Sul Ross State University, Alpine
Forrest Kirkland and W. W. Newcomb Jr., The Rock Art of Texas Indians. An older book, but still a useful reference.
Adair Margo, chairman, President's Committee on the Arts and the Humanities, El Paso
Tom Lea, The Wonderful Country. The fictional saga of Martin Brady/Martín Bredi, a pistolero caught between two cultures in the post-Civil War Texas-Mexico borderlands, distinguished by "Tom Lea’s beautiful language in describing our picturesque region."
Red McCombs, businessman, San Antonio
Hallie Crawford Stillwell, I'll Gather My Geese. In this classic memoir, now in its sixth printing, the author, who died in 1997 just two months short of her hundredth birthday, recounts her life as a teenaged schoolteacher in Presidio and as the wife and then the widow of a much older rancher in the Big Bend country.
Janie Strauss McGarr, civic leader, Dallas
Elithe Hamilton Kirkland, Love Is a Wild Assault. A classic Texas novel, based on the memoir of Harriet Potter Ames, widow of Robert Potter, one-time secretary of the Texas Navy.
Bryce Milligan, publisher and editor, Wings Press, San Antonio
John Howard Griffin, Available Light: Exile in Mexico. "After John Howard Griffin published the first of the articles that would lead to his American classic, Black Like Me, he and his family were besieged with death threats. Griffin fled with his family to Mexico, where he not only wrote Black Like Me, but took up photography as a serious art form. Available Light contains three essays written by Griffin and numerous photographs taken by him during this period of exile. It makes a fascinating adjunctive text to Black Like Me."
Kathi Appelt, The Underneath. "Ostensibly for young adults, this is a novel that transcends such categories. Appelt has taken the swamps, bayous, and woodlands of East Texas and created a mythology out of that dense air. The writing is absolutely beautiful. The imagination is stunning. This book will win a lot of awards."
Thomas R. Mitchell, professor of English, Texas A&M International University, Laredo
Marilynne Robinson, Gilead. An epistolary novel consisting of a letter from a seventy-six-year-old preacher to his seven-year-old son, written in the consciousness that death will soon part them and as an attempt to explain himself, his beliefs, and his family.
Cormac McCarthy, Blood Meridian: Or the Evening Redness in the West. A bleak novel about brutal bounty hunters seeking Indian scalps in the Southwest in the 1850s.
Philip Roth, American Pastoral. Another in the series of novels narrated by Nathan Zuckerman, this one about a tragic figure named Seymour "the Swede" Levov whose family, and thus his life, are undone by the turbulence of the 1960s.
J. Sam Moore Jr., attorney, El Paso
Gregory Curtis, The Cave Painters: Probing the Mysteries of the World's First Artists. "As art history is a part of the humanities, I can recommend this fine book by Greg Curtis of Austin, former editor of Texas Monthly. He writes for the general public and uses his skills as a writer and editor to good advantage."
Bettye Nowlin, civic leader, Austin
Cormac McCarthy, The Road. A dark, post-apocalyptic novel about a man and his son, survivors of a global nuclear catastrophe, trying to avoid roving bands of cannibals while trying to avoid freezing or starving to death.
Naomi Shihab Nye, poet, San Antonio
Barack Obama, Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance. "A book for our time, for being educated about race and identities, even if he weren't running for president."
David Oshinsky, Jack S. Blanton Chair in History, The University of Texas at Austin
David Halberstam, The Coldest Winter: America and the Korean War. "A superb narrative of the early months of the Korean War, featuring both the diplomatic and military blunders and the incredible suffering and courage of U.S. troops in this largely forgotten conflict."
Drew Gilpin Faust, The Republic of Suffering: Death and the American Civil War. "A magisterial account of the impact of Civil War battlefield deaths on the living—soldiers, families, political leaders, and civilians, both Blue and Gray."
Priscilla Rodriguez, executive director, Brownsville Historical Association, 2007 Humanities Texas Award recipient
Arturo Pérez-Reverte, Club Dumas. "Club Dumas is perfect for summer reading. It's been described as a 'beach read for intellectuals.' It's a mystery novel that is perfect for bibliophiles and it makes numerous references to classical and popular literature. It's perfect if you're a reader."
Ruth Ann Rugg, executive director, Texas Association of Museums, Austin
Robert J. Norrell, The House I Live In: Race in the American Century. "A history of black-white relations in America from Reconstruction to the year 2000. Both fair and insightful, Norrell examines the ideologies that influence attitudes, from white supremacy to black nationalism."
Anna Quindlen, Good Dog. Stay. "Our family includes an aging golden retriever who will not see another winter. My husband and I adjusted easily to the 'empty nest' without our grown children but find it difficult to bid farewell to the dog who grew up with them. After reading an excerpt in Newsweek, I discovered this fast-read little gem that balances poignancy with humor."
René Saldaña Jr., assistant professor of language and literacy, Texas Tech University, Lubbock
Dagoberto Gilb, The Flowers. "In his latest novel, Gilb does with language what only writers like Faulkner have done. A story about love for family, for friends, for self."
Aaron Michael Morales, From Here You Can Almost See the End of the Desert. "This slim collection includes three short stories by an up-and-comer with a voice of a veteran. There is a beautiful violence in each of the stories."
Walter Dean Myers, Sunrise Over Fallujah. "In his latest novel, Myers gives his readers a companion to his wartime classic, Fallen Angels. It's amazing how he's able to look at this war, our war, from every angle without ever showing his own hand."
Linda Sue Park, Keeping Score. "Newbery Award winner (A Single Shard) tries her hand at historical fiction once again in this novel about 1950s New York pro baseball. Told from a girl's perspective, the book explores the heroine in such a wonderful way. Though not allowed to play ball herself, the heroine knows the sport better than any boy."
Max Sherman, Max Sherman Chair Emeritus in State and Local Government, Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs, The University of Texas at Austin
Edward J. Larson, A Magnificent Catastrophe: The Tumultuous Election of 1800, America's First Presidential Campaign. An examination of the dramatic race which unexpectedly ended in an electoral tie between Thomas Jefferson and his running mate Aaron Burr, leading to the development of the two-party system.
Patricia H. Smith, executive director, Texas Library Association, Austin
Bill Moyers, Moyers on America: A Journalist and His Times. A collection of talks drawing on the author's experiences as deputy director of the Peace Corps, aide to Lyndon B. Johnson, and broadcast journalist.
Steven Smith, associate dean for collections and services, Texas A&M University Libraries, College Station
Geraldine Brooks, The People of the Book. "A gripping bibliomystery inspired by the real story of the Sarajevo Haggadah. Readers should warm up for this by reading The New Yorker article (December 3, 2007) about the real thing and the story of the very brave individuals associated with it."
Thomas F. Staley, director, Harry Ransom Center at The University of Austin
John Williams, Stoner. "I first read John Williams's Stoner when it was published in 1965. I picked it up again with much trepidation in the handsome new paperback edition published by the New York Review of Books last summer. To my great delight, I was as deeply moved by this stark novel as I was forty some years ago. Most academic novels are saturated with departmental politics, seduction, and scandal. This bleak novel has all three, but that doesn't begin to tell the story. A fine and rewarding book."
Lonn Taylor, historian, Fort Davis
Ferdinand Mount, Cold Cream: My Early Life and Other Mistakes. "A delightful account of growing up in post-World War II England in an aristocratic but impoverished and somewhat wacky family. Mount's mother was Lady Julia Pakenham; his father was a jockey. He went to Eton and Oxford and survived to become editor of the Times Literary Supplement."
Denis Johnson, Tree of Smoke. "Absolutely the best novel about the Vietnam War that I have read so far. Its hero is a civilian who works for the CIA."
Ellen C. Temple, civic leader, Lufkin
Richard M. Donovan, Paddling the Wild Neches. An account of a 200-mile canoe trip in East Texas, and a heartfelt plea to preserve the Neches River. The book was also the basis of the Humanities Texas traveling exhibit "Neches Journeys: Land, River, and People."
Thea Temple, executive director, The Writer's Garret, Dallas
Louise Erdrich, The Plague of Doves. "The Plague of Doves is being compared quite favorably to Faulkner, as it is a multi-generational novel-in-stories of the enmeshed lives of the Anglos in the town of Pluto, N.D., and the Indians, and mixed-blood Metis people (of French ancestry) who live on the reservation surrounding it. Moving back and forth in time, four narrators take turns uncovering layer after layer of past and present. The Los Angeles Times says that Erdrich is 'composing symphonies filled with a complex wisdom about the strands of darkness and light that make up a human life.'"
Cristina Henriquez, Come Together, Fall Apart. "Former Texas writer Cristina Henriquez has penned a wonderful debut collection of short stories that leads Sandra Ciseneros to ask, 'How does a young writer gather the wisdom, heart, and tenderness to write stories with such exquisite humanity?' Isabel Allende describes the collection as 'haunting' and 'truly unforgettable.'"
Dagoberto Gilb, The Flowers. "Another work by a Texan writer, this novel is told through the voice of a Chicano teen, Sonny Bravo, living in L.A. in an apartment complex called 'The Flowers,' where he moved when his very beautiful mother married an Okie contractor. Sonny takes care of the building and becomes entangled with the lives of many of the residents, exploring what it means to 'come of age' amidst social and urban unrest. Larry McMurtry claims that this is Gilb's 'best book. It's not to be missed.'"
Michael Tomor, director, El Paso Museum of Art
Rohinton Mistry, A Fine Balance. "A haunting story of four ordinary people in India in 1975."
Nancy Toombs, managing librarian, Spicewood Springs Branch, Austin Public Library
Sarah Addison Allen, Garden Spells. Two adult sisters, one a caterer renowned for the use of flowers in her cooking, coming to terms with their family's mysterious gifts.
William E. Tydeman, deputy director, Southwest Collection/Special Collections Library, Texas Tech University, Lubbock
Joanthan Rosen, The Life of the Skies: Birding at the End of Nature. "One reviewer called it 'an unexpected exploration of birding through the lens of history, literature, and loss.' It's terrific!"
Ron Tyler, director, Amon Carter Museum, Fort Worth
Deborah Davis, Strapless: John Singer Sargent and the Fall of Madam X. "A biography of John Singer Sargent and the sitter in his most famous portrait. Good read."
Frances B. Vick, president, Texas State Historical Association, Dallas
James Donovan, A Terrible Glory: Custer and the Little Bighorn, the Last Great Battle of the American West. "After reading and thoroughly enjoying Hampton Sides's Blood and Thunder: The Epic Story of Kit Carson and the Conquest of the American West, I moved on to A Terrible Glory: Custer and the Little Bighorn, the Last Great Battle of the American West by James Donovan. Terrific books, both, and they neatly dovetail into the story of the West."
Mary L. Volcansek, professor of political science, Texas Christian University, Fort Worth
Center for Texas Studies at Texas Christian University, Going to Texas: Five Centuries of Texas Maps. "A shameless plug, but it is a wonderful book; the catalogue for the exhibition that is touring the state."
Alice Wright, photographer, Abilene
Jason Goodwin, The Janissary Tree. In 1836 Turkey, a clever eunuch investigates a series of violent crimes in the sultan's court.
Bill Wright, photographer, Abilene
Ian Buruma, Murder in Amsterdam: The Death of Theo Van Gogh and the Limits of Tolerance. A Dutch-born journalist's exploration of the murder of the controversial filmmaker Theo Van Gogh by a young radical who accused him of blasphemy against Islam.
George C. Wright, president, Prairie View A&M University
Laurence Bergreen, Marco Polo: From Venice to Xanadu. A biography of the Italian merchant whose account of his thirteenth-century journey to the court of Kublai Khan had a profound impact on European and Asian culture.