Each in Its Own Language [01-07-05]
BY SHAWN BADGLEY
The year in books, 2004

Readings [12-31-04]
BY DAVE OLIPHANT
Lorenzo Thomas of Houston is a thinking-man's writer. His critical studies of folklore, modernism, and music are substantial works, and in both prose and poetry he always addresses the difficult issues.

Readings [12-31-04]
BY JESSE SUBLETT
No. 26 in Richard Stark's, aka Donald Westlake's, Parker series finds the master thief taking us on a thrill ride among armored cars and badass female bounty hunters

Readings [12-24-04]
BY JOSH ROSENBLATT
'The writing and the ideas here are unimpeachable, and one could hardly question the audacity of the premise,' writes Josh Rosenblatt of Philip Roth's terrifying look at a reimagined America, 'but there is something vital missing'

Readings [11-12-04]
BY NORA ANKRUM
Culled mostly from interviews with plaintiffs, witnesses, and lawyers, this book breathes life into the names and numbers likely to become familiar to us as 'Betty Dukes v. Wal-Mart' plays out

Readings [11-12-04]
BY JAY TRACHTENBERG
In his half dozen previous books, the French writer Toussaint has created a bevy of common heroes who painstakingly and humorously navigate the treacherous straits of everyday existence

2004 Texas Book Festival Preview [10-29-04]
The 2004 Texas Book Festival

State of Affairs [10-22-04]
BY ROGER GATHMAN
The current political season is reflected equally in an angry Iraq analysis and a soapy novel with a Sirkian sweep

Readings [09-24-04]
BY JOHN FREEMAN
A naturalist on the varied, extreme track of the 'wandering foreigner'

Readings [09-24-04]
BY RUSSELL COBB
Rachel Seiffert's sparse, airy prose belies a profound concern with individual identity and historical memory

Readings [09-17-04]
BY DOMINIC LUXFORD
The 10 stories comprising 'No Man's Land,' all of which are set in Mexico's northern borderland, are inhabited by transsexual prostitutes, petty clerks, dusty pickups, broken bottles, sadistic police officers, and wind-blasted prairie

Readings [09-17-04]
BY JAY TRACHTENBERG
In this powerful, largely autobiographical novel that was originally published in 1967, award-winning author and journalist Williams crafts the story of the irrepressible 'Negro' writer Max Reddick as he fights to make a difference in the world of the press and the letters

Readings [09-10-04]
BY WAYNE ALAN BRENNER
Art Spiegelman's response to September 11 is an invigorating obstacle course for the eyes and a workout for the reader's mind

Readings [09-10-04]
BY ROGER GATHMAN
This novel is not so densely felt or immediate as Arthur Phillips' first, the excellent Prague, but the reader is urged to persevere

Readings [09-03-04]
BY LEE NICHOLS
"The stories told here do not recount dead issues from our shameful past," Lee Nichols writes. "Instead, we see them with here-and-now vitality, the eyes of the time."

Readings [08-27-04]
BY WAYNE ALAN BRENNER
After the success of Persepolis, there was only one question for Satrapi. What would she do for an encore?

Readings [08-27-04]
BY MARC SAVLOV

Readings [08-20-04]
BY RUSSELL COBB
'You might call Lawrence Weschler's most recent collection of peripatetic musings, 'Vermeer in Bosnia,' a series of tangents or digressions,' Russell Cobb writes, 'but this would ignore the fact the tangent is often the tale.'

Readings [08-20-04]
BY RICK KLAW
Afro-Canadian political activist, poet, and playwright Minister Faust's first novel, The Coyote Kings of the Space Age Bachelor Pad, begins at the end.

The McCormick Method, Revealed [08-13-04]
BY WAYNE ALAN BRENNER
Analyze anything in three words!

Readings [08-13-04]
BY JESSE SUBLETT
Despite the abundant emphasis on social message, the suspense plotting seems more tautly crafted than ever in Walter Mosley's eighth Easy Rawlins mystery

Readings [08-13-04]
BY WAYNE ALAN BRENNER
After two previous studies, what Pamela Nagami is focusing on now is the misery and degradation that can result when we run afoul of the teeth and piercing instruments of our cherished wildlife – and of our fellow humans

The Latest in Paper [08-06-04]
BY JOHN FREEMAN
"Like any expert in a marginalized genre that's gone mainstream, Neate can be tedious," writes John Freeman. "But he also has a knack for sussing out the cutting edge of the hip-hop scene."

In Print [07-23-04]
BY ROGER GATHMAN
Beware: As recommended as this debut novel comes, if it were a movie, they could not honestly put the disclaimer in the credits that 'no animals were hurt'

Readings [07-16-04]
BY ROGER GATHMAN

Readings [07-16-04]
BY SHAWN BADGLEY

Readings [07-16-04]
BY SHAWN BADGLEY

Readings [07-16-04]
BY SHAWN BADGLEY

Readings [07-16-04]
BY SHAWN BADGLEY

Readings [07-16-04]
BY SHAWN BADGLEY

Readings [07-16-04]
BY SHAWN BADGLEY

Readings [07-16-04]
BY SHAWN BADGLEY

Readings [07-16-04]
BY SHAWN BADGLEY
Local bestsellers are based on sales at Austin bookstores selected to reflect a variety of reading interests. This week's list comes from BookPeople, 603 N. Lamar.

The Latest in Paper [07-09-04]
BY DOMINIC LUXFORD
Based loosely – very loosely – on the Seventies German film actress and cabaret singer of the same name, Ingrid Caven's is a world psychologically damaged, and perpetually haunted, by the horrors of the 20th century

Readings [06-11-04]
BY WAYNE ALAN BRENNER
All this 'represents my hobbies, my diversions, my day jobs,' says Adrian Tomine, who will be at BookPeople on June 15, in his brief introduction. But it's so much more.

The Latest in Paper [05-07-04]
BY MARRIT INGMAN
Mother Knows: 24 Tales of Motherhood

Readings [04-02-04]
BY DOMINIC LUXFORD
The Essential Neruda: Selected Poems

Readings [04-02-04]
BY MARK FAGAN
The Flash of Lightning Behind the Mountain contains a collection set aside by Charles Bukowski to be published, yet there are no grand revelations into the life and times of the author to be discovered within

Readings [03-26-04]
BY MARC SAVLOV
Armchair travelers have rarely had it so good as they do with Texas native Griest's memoir, which reads like one part informative history lesson on the People's Revolutionary struggle and one part Hope 'n' Crosby road movie.

In Print [03-19-04]
BY ROGER GATHMAN
Julia Preston and Samuel Dillon want to do two things in their book. Roger Gathman finds out if they pull it off.

The Latest in Paper [03-05-04]
BY WAYNE ALAN BRENNER
You couldn't really call these kiddie books, although even the youngest readers will enjoy them, doubtless reveling in the just-getting-through-the-day antics and verbal jousting of this cross-species odd couple

Readings [01-16-04]
BY ROGER GATHMAN
Aux armes, citoyens!

Readings [01-16-04]
BY MELANIE HAUPT

The Latest in Paper [12-26-03]
BY WAYNE ALAN BRENNER
Kurt Wallender, a senior detective with the Ystad Police Department, is the focus of a series of international bestsellers by Swedish author Henning Mankell. Police procedurals, these kinds of novels are called, but these books are about police procedure the way Philip K. Dick's science fiction was about star wars: not really.

Readings [12-26-03]
BY JAY TRACHTENBERG
The characters that inhabit the four short stories and a novella in Alan Rifkin's slim volume are all strikingly out of place and emotionally disconnected.

Readings [12-26-03]
BY JESSICA GARRATT
Because the jacket of Sheila Kohler's new collection of short stories bears warm endorsements from Amy Tan and J.M. Coetzee, her fellow South African native and recent winner of the Nobel Prize, it has a lot to live up to.

Readings [12-26-03]
BY KATE CANTRILL
In this, her third novel, Julianna Baggott joins her poetic voice with her consummate sense of story to craft a jazzy, soaring tale of the lives of women in West Virginia, circa 1924.

Readings [12-19-03]
BY JAY TRACHTENBERG
The characters that inhabit the four short stories and a novella in Alan Rifkin's slim volume are all strikingly out of place and emotionally disconnected.

Readings [12-19-03]
BY KATE CANTRILL
In this, her third novel, Julianna Baggott joins her poetic voice with her consummate sense of story to craft a jazzy, soaring tale of the lives of women in West Virginia, circa 1924.

Readings [12-19-03]
BY JESSICA GARRATT
Because the jacket of Sheila Kohler's new collection of short stories bears warm endorsements from Amy Tan and J.M. Coetzee, her fellow South African native and recent winner of the Nobel Prize, it has a lot to live up to.

Readings [11-28-03]
BY ROGER GATHMAN
Toni Morrison, like Aeschylus and Eugene O'Neill, has a fondness for tragic houses.

Readings [11-28-03]
BY TIM WALKER
Paulin has been publishing good poetry for more than 25 years, but the rest of his background -- as a scholar of literature, as an essayist, and as a deeply political writer -- serves him well as he journeys across a large physical and mental landscape of rich historical and literary allusion.

Readings [11-21-03]
BY ROGER GATHMAN
Robert Hughes' description of Goya is tinged, unconsciously, with the image he himself presents to the public: the art critic as macho, for whom the acuteness of response to the occasions of sensibility becomes one of the fine tests of masculinity.

Readings [11-21-03]
BY MARION WINIK
Traveling to exotic places with very little money presents many, many pitfalls, and author Ayun Halliday has encountered every one of them. Fortunately, she never leaves home without her solid gold sense of humor.

2003 Texas Book Festival Preview [11-07-03]
BY MELANIE HAUPT
In his latest novel two-time Booker Prize winner Peter Carey dares to retell the Frankenstein story by imagining the possibility that poetry can breathe life into a monster. Carey will be at the Texas Book Festival on Sunday, Nov. 9, 11:45am, in the House Chamber.

Readings [10-24-03]
BY JESSICA GARRATT
Reading Heather McHugh's new collection Eyeshot, you realize that not only does every word count, but many of them in two or three directions at once.

Readings [10-24-03]
BY ROGER GATHMAN
Louis Begley recently wrote a glowing preface to a reissue of The Other House, James' least known novel. Begley is one of the few fans of the book, and writes that "James makes manifest in this very remarkable novel the overpowering force and ignominy of the sexual drive." Obviously Begley is after something like that here. But if this was the inspiration, it was not a fortunate one.

Readings [10-10-03]
BY MICHAEL SCHAUB
Debut author Julie Orringer, who is 30, belies the old bromide that young people can't write about youth convincingly, and she'll be at BookPeople on Friday, Oct. 24.

Readings [10-10-03]
BY JESSE SUBLETT
Almost 150 years after the death of François Eugène Vidocq, criminal investigators of all stripes still follow his basic methods of detection. Likewise, all manner of thieves and con artists follow in his footsteps, and that includes writers, too.

Readings [10-10-03]
BY CINDY WIDNER
We've seen the holy fool before, of course; perhaps we're well acquainted. In The Ecstatic -- the debut novel by Victor LaValle, who cannonballed into the young / urban / big-lit milieu with the award-winning short story collection Slapboxing With Jesus, made the PEN / Faulkner finalist list with this book, and, somewhere in there, got really fat and then thin again -- there are at least four, but first and foremost is Anthony James, 315-pound protagonist -- hero, maybe.

The Fortress of Solitude [10-03-03]
BY SHAWN BADGLEY
Why are we reviewing Jonathan Lethem's The Fortress of Solitude when everyone else is? Because it's the finest novel of the past five years.

Readings [09-12-03]
BY COURTNEY FITZGERALD

Readings [09-12-03]
BY MARC SAVLOV

Readings [09-05-03]
BY MARC SAVLOV

Readings [08-29-03]
BY JESSE SUBLETT
Jesse Sublett on Willeford anthologized

Readings [08-29-03]
BY KATE CANTRILL
Kate Cantrill on Vendela Vida's debut novel

Readings [08-29-03]
BY JAY TRACHTENBERG
Jay Trachtenberg on Paco Ignacio Taibo's sequel to The Shadow of the Shadow

Readings [07-25-03]
BY DAVID GARZA
"At the heart of these encounters is the burning knowledge that nobody seems ready to recognize," David Garza writes of the largely self-made "literary superdude" who will read at the Yarborough Branch Library on Wednesday, July 30. "Gilb is a legitimate and undeniable talent."

Readings [07-18-03]
BY JESSA CRISPIN
"Sherman Alexie might be going soft," writes Jessa Crispin of the author's new collection, Ten Little Indians. "Underneath the humor and adept storytelling of his previous novels and short story collections was always a thin line of rage. But now he's working with hope and redemption."

Book Review [06-20-03]
BY JESSICA GARRATT
"Everything about this book -- the racy subject matter, the present-tense prose, the episodic form and dramatic use of white space -- points to an edgy, emotional train wreck of a tale," writes Jessica Garratt of Hollis Hampton-Jones' debut. "And yet there I was, not caring nearly enough."

Summer Reading 2003 [06-06-03]
BY SARAH HEPOLA
Summer Reading 2003: Augusten Burroughs' follow-up memoir to his bestselling Running With Scissors

Book Review [05-30-03]
BY SHAWN BADGLEY
When it comes to coming of age novels, "Manuel Luis Martinez's protagonist, Robert Lomos, is a bit different, and Martinez's first novel, Drift, is, too. Robert moves, all right -- from San Antonio to Los Angeles and back -- but his erratic path in the footprints of Martinez's expert narrative one is anything but linear." Martinez will be at the Cepeda Branch Library on Wednesday, June 4, at 7pm.

The Latest in Paper [05-23-03]
BY MARC SAVLOV
"The Minotaur, half-man, half-bull, offspring of King Minos' wife Pasiphaë and an ivory bull gifted by Poseidon, doomed to wander the Labyrinth until felled by Theseus' sword, has one of the more interesting lineages in a myth cycle full of obscurantist wild cards," writes Marc Savlov in reviewing Steven Sherrill's debut novel. "The Minotaur Takes a Cigarette Break anthropomorphizes the bastard bullman way past what the Greeks found satisfactory -- here, he's a line cook in a backwater chowbarn, single and at loose ends."

Eric Schlosser at BookPeople [05-16-03]
BY NICK BARBARO
"When government makes a free-market activity illegal -- smoking pot, buying porn, being an illegal alien -- it creates a black market that's untaxed, unregulated, and often dangerous," observes Nick Barbaro of Eric Schlosser's follow-up to Fast Food Nation. "And if you want to see where the government is interfering with the workings of the market, look at the underground economy."

Book Review [05-02-03]
BY RUSSELL COBB
"As with any good crime thriller / mystery, the plot -- as chilling as it is -- serves as a subterfuge to explore the darker realms of the hero's psyche," writes Russell Cobb of Stephen Graham Jones' All the Beautiful Sinners, "as well as themes of collective memory and identity." Jones will be at BookPeople on Tuesday, May 6, at 7pm.

Readings [04-25-03]
BY MARIA HONG
Maria Hong reviews Anne Carson's translation of Sappho.

Readings [04-25-03]
BY MARGARET MOSER
Margaret Moser reviews Rosalind Miles' take on Tristan and Isolde.

Readings [04-25-03]
BY TOM DOYAL
Tom Doyal reviews John Irsfeld's latest collection.

Book Review [04-18-03]
BY KEN LIECK
"Between its title and proximate April Fools' Day release, the casual observer might assume Gerald Nachman's Seriously Funny is some sort of joke book," writes Ken Lieck. "However, its subtitle and subject offer the advanced student of dry humor the opportunity to quip that no, it is the anti-joke book!"

The Latest in Paper [03-21-03]
BY ANNE HARRIS
'Portis' characters are painfully human; they are often complicated, sometimes plain wretched, and always worth the price of admission," writes Anne Harris of the great man's True Grit. "And his frugal comic dexterity can be so subtle as to just whisper beneath catastrophe."

Book Reviews [03-14-03]
BY JORDAN SMITH
Jordan Smith reviews Adrian Nicole LeBlanc's Random Family.

Book Reviews [03-14-03]
BY JAMES MCWILLIAMS
James McWilliams reviews Hugh Thomson's The White Rock.

Book Reviews [03-14-03]
BY JAY TRACHTENBERG
Jay Trachtenberg reviews Robert Kaplan's Warrior Politics, which is now in paperback.

Book Reviews [03-14-03]
BY HARVEY PEKAR
Harvey Pekar discusses the Dalkey Archive's reissue of Douglas Woolf's Ya! and John-Juan.

Book Review [03-07-03]
BY KATE CANTRILL
"Eden is an important story, not to be categorized by race or gender or region," Kate Cantrill writes of Olympia Vernon's debut. "Its truths are universal -- its women, all women; its men, all men; its earth, a part of all worlds." Vernon will be at BookPeople on March 12 at 7pm.

Book Review [03-07-03]
BY RICK WHITTEN-KLAW
"Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom is not for everyone," Rick Whitten-Klaw writes of Cory Doctorow's debut novel. "If you prefer your literature linear or your ideas staid, then give this one a pass."

Book Review [02-28-03]
BY ROGER GATHMAN
"Casares has been listening," Roger Gathman writes of the Brownsville native's Brownsville: Stories. "His dialogues seem to hang just outside the realm of literature, which is where real writing happens." The recent Dobie-Paisano fellow will kick off his book tour at BookPeople on Thursday, March 6, at 7pm.

Nasdijj Reviewed [02-14-03]
BY MICHAEL ROBERTSON
"More than the inherent unfairness of life, Nasdijj is angry at man's cruelty and a culture which fosters the abuse of the young," writes Michael Robertson. And as a writer, he "rough-hews the English language until it takes stunning forms."

The Latest in Paper [02-07-03]
BY JESSE SUBLETT
"No doubt about it," writes Jesse Sublett of Javier Marías' When I Was Mortal, "this is fairly odd stuff, and the patterns of quirks pile up like clues in a baroque murder mystery."

Readings [01-03-03]
BY TOMMI FERGUSON
"To say that Kathy Hepinstall's third novel demonstrates her accomplishment in the suspense genre doesn't go far enough (previous books include The Absence of Nectar and The House of Gentle Men)," writes Tommi Ferguson of the author who will be at BookPeople on Tuesday, Jan. 7, at 7pm. "What distinguishes her fiction is the sincerity and candor she allows her characters."

Stan Rice's Final Message [12-20-02]
BY DAVE OLIPHANT

It's the Thoughts That Count [12-06-02]
BY MARION WINIK
Comics to cut through everything

It's the Thoughts That Count [12-06-02]
BY ROBIN BRADFORD
To essay meaning

It's the Thoughts That Count [12-06-02]
BY RUSSELL COBB
Franzen after the frenzy

It's the Thoughts That Count [12-06-02]
BY RACHEL FEIT
The folklore of love

The Latest in Paper [11-22-02]
BY CINDY WIDNER
Kathy Acker's "work cut a swath of influence through literary and pop culture so wide that she might have entered the strange, paradoxical state to which all cultural goliaths are prey: waning visibility by virtue of social penetration," writes Cindy Widner. "Two new publications could help keep that from happening."

Readings [11-15-02]
BY SHAWN BADGLEY
Greg Garrett's surprisingly funny debut, Free Bird, "doesn't hide its convention and occasional sentimentality: It capitalizes on it."

Readings [11-15-02]
BY SHAWN BADGLEY
John Taliaferro's biography of a man and a mountain

Book Review [11-08-02]
BY JAY TRACHTENBERG
Jane Leavy, who will be at the 2002 Austin Jewish Book Fair, "goes out of her way trying to distinguish the 'real' Sandy Koufax from the perception held by many of an aloof recluse" in her new biography of the Dodgers lefty.

Readings [11-08-02]
BY MIKE CLARK-MADISON
"We all know that Americans don't vote -- 51% turnout, what we saw for Bush-Gore in 2000, is about as good as we get, and in most elections (like the one on Tuesday, and certainly in Austin local races), we settle for far less," writes Mike Clark-Madison in his review of Thomas Patterson's The Vanishing Voter. But why?

Readings [11-08-02]
BY RIC WILLIAMS
Jonathan Carroll brings his White Apples to BookPeople on Saturday, Nov. 9, 3pm. Ric Williams brings you his review of it.

Readings [09-13-02]
BY TOM DOYAL
Kinky Friedman will be at BookPeople on Thursday, Sept. 19, and Tom Doyal takes a look at his latest novel, Meanwhile Back at the Ranch.

Readings [09-06-02]
BY MICHAEL KING
Michael King examines Rahul Mahajan's The New Crusade. Mahajan, who happens to be the Green Party's Texas gubernatorial candidate, will be at BookPeople on Thursday, Sept. 12.

Book Review [05-24-02]
BY DAN OKO

Readings [05-10-02]
BY JESSE SUBLETT

The Johnson Treatment [05-03-02]
BY DICK HOLLAND
It's been a dozen years since Robert Caro's previous book about Johnson, and now he's back, this time with Master of the Senate, an exhaustive and exhausting examination of the United States Senate during the years of Johnson's time there.

Edward O. Wilson: The Elegant Agitator [04-12-02]
BY RIC WILLIAMS

A 'Bullet' to the Gut [03-29-02]
BY CLAY SMITH
In The Bullet Meant for Me, his new memoir, Texas Monthly writer Jan Reid explains why he went to Mexico and was forced to return as a changed man.

Paula Kamen's New 'Strain' of Female [03-22-02]
BY LAURA DONNELLY

The Pine Curtain [02-01-02]
BY CLAY SMITH
First-time author Dina Temple-Raston's A Death in Texas pulls the James Byrd Jr. murder out of the East Texas woods.

Mad English [12-21-01]
BY DICK HOLLAND

Habana Viejo [12-14-01]
BY DICK HOLLAND
Two photography books recall a city that has fallen apart.

Bud Shrake: Touched by an Angel? [11-02-01]
BY CLAY SMITH
Bud Shrake has been communing with angels since he was a child, but why?

Full Exposure: Lily Burana's "Strip City' [09-28-01]
BY AMANDA EYRE WARD
From Anchorage, Alaska, to New Jersey to Tijuana, Mexico, Lily Burana takes her readers inside the glitziest and seediest strip clubs in the nation in Strip City: A Stripper's Farewell Journey Across America. But Burana, who will be at BookPeople on Monday, October 1, at 7pm, is also armed with a good deal of feminist theory, research, and unflinching opinions about the sex-worker trade.

Life After Death [08-31-01]
BY CLAY SMITH
A new life for almost-forgotten author Mary Gavell

Readings [08-31-01]
BY KATHERINE CATMULL

Readings [08-31-01]
BY DON WEBB

Readings [08-31-01]
BY SHAWN BADGLEY

Book 'Em [08-24-01]
BY MARION WINIK

Book 'Em [08-24-01]
BY DAVE OLIPHANT

Book 'Em [08-24-01]
BY ROGER GATHMAN

Book 'Em [08-24-01]
BY MARK BUSBY

Book 'Em [08-24-01]
BY ANDY LANGER

Readings [08-17-01]
BY SHAWN BADGLEY

Readings [08-17-01]
BY SUZY SPENCER

Readings [08-03-01]
BY LINDSEY SIMON

Readings [08-03-01]
BY AMANDA EYRE WARD

Readings [07-20-01]
BY MARC SAVLOV

Readings [07-20-01]
BY SHANNON MCCORMICK

Readings [07-20-01]
BY TIM WALKER

Readings [06-29-01]
BY SCOTT BLACKWOOD

Readings [06-15-01]
BY ANDY LANGER

Readings [06-15-01]
BY MARTIN WILSON

Readings [06-15-01]
BY ADA CALHOUN

Readings [06-08-01]
BY ROGER GATHMAN

Readings [06-08-01]
BY BARRY JOHNSON

Summer Reading [06-01-01]
BY MARC SAVLOV

Summer Reading [06-01-01]
BY MARTIN WILSON

Summer Reading [06-01-01]
BY SUZY SPENCER

Summer Reading [06-01-01]
BY SHAWN BADGLEY

Summer Reading [06-01-01]
BY STUART WADE

Summer Reading [06-01-01]
BY ANNA HANKS

Summer Reading [06-01-01]
BY STUART WADE

Summer Reading [06-01-01]
BY ADA CALHOUN

Readings [05-11-01]
BY DALE SMITH

Readings [05-11-01]
BY DAVID GARZA

Readings [05-11-01]
BY TIM WALKER

Readings [05-04-01]
BY TIM WALKER

Readings [05-04-01]
BY LISSA RICHARDSON

Readings [04-27-01]
BY TOM DOYAL

Readings [04-27-01]
BY BARRY JOHNSON

Readings [04-27-01]
BY ANNA HANKS

Readings [04-27-01]
BY LAURA DONNELLY

The Dreamer [04-13-01]
BY BELINDA ACOSTA
The Protagonist of Denise Chávez's New Novel Is in Love With a Long-Dead Movie Star

Readings [04-13-01]
BY KATHERINE CATMULL

Readings [04-13-01]
BY SHANNON MCCORMICK

Readings [04-06-01]
BY SHAWN BADGLEY

Readings [04-06-01]
BY LISSA RICHARDSON

Readings [03-30-01]
BY MARTIN WILSON

Readings [03-30-01]
BY AMANDA EYRE WARD

Readings [03-30-01]
BY SARAH HEPOLA

Readings [03-23-01]
BY ADRIENNE MARTINI

Readings [03-23-01]
BY TIM WALKER

Readings [03-23-01]
BY DAVID GARZA

Readings [03-02-01]
BY ADA CALHOUN

Readings [03-02-01]
BY MIKE SHEA

Readings [03-02-01]
BY MARK BUSBY

• Ella in Bloom: A Novel [02-16-01]
  

Readings [02-16-01]
BY ROBIN BRADFORD

Readings [02-16-01]
BY DAVID GARZA

Readings [02-16-01]
BY AMANDA EYRE WARD

Readings [02-09-01]
BY MARC SAVLOV

Readings [02-09-01]
BY ADA CALHOUN

Readings [02-09-01]
BY MARION WINIK

Readings [02-02-01]
BY SCOTT BLACKWOOD

Readings [02-02-01]
BY KATE X MESSER

• The Lecturer's Tale: A Novel [01-19-01]
  BY MIKE SHEA
  

Readings [01-19-01]
BY STACY BUSH

Readings [01-19-01]
BY ADA CALHOUN

Readings [01-19-01]
BY MARTIN WILSON

Readings [01-12-01]
BY MIKE SHEA

Readings [01-12-01]
BY MARC SAVLOV

Readings [01-12-01]
BY ANNA HANKS

Take Me to the River [12-29-00]
"Why," began an e-mail after we published last Christmas' rock & roll book section, "do you say these books are about rock & roll when they are anything but?" Because, o best beloved, rock & roll was grand theft to begin with.

Take Me to the River [12-29-00]
BY RAOUL HERNANDEZ

Take Me to the River [12-29-00]
BY STUART WADE

Take Me to the River [12-29-00]
BY ED WARD

Take Me to the River [12-29-00]
BY CHRISTOPHER GRAY

Take Me to the River [12-29-00]
BY JAY HARDWIG

Take Me to the River [12-29-00]
BY KEN LIECK

Take Me to the River [12-29-00]
BY JAY TRACHTENBERG

Take Me to the River [12-29-00]
BY STEPHEN MACMILLAN MOSER

Take Me to the River [12-29-00]
BY DAVID LYNCH

Take Me to the River [12-29-00]
BY MICHAEL CHAMY

Take Me to the River [12-29-00]
BY JESSE SUBLETT

Take Me to the River [12-29-00]
BY MARGARET MOSER

Readings [12-29-00]
BY MARK BUSBY

Readings [12-29-00]
BY MARTIN WILSON

• Marcel Proust: A Life [12-22-00]
  BY SIDNEY MOODY
  
• My Life With Benjamin Franklin [12-01-00]
  BY CLAY SMITH
  Related Readings
• Founding Brothers: The Revolutionary Generation [12-01-00]
  BY CLAY SMITH
  Related Readings
• Wit and Wisdom From Poor Richard's Almanac [12-01-00]
  BY CLAY SMITH
  Related Readings
• Cherry [11-03-00]
  

Book Reviews [10-20-00]
BY DAVID GARZA

Book Reviews [10-20-00]
BY MICHAEL KING

Book Reviews [10-20-00]
BY JESSE SUBLETT

Book Reviews [10-20-00]

Book Reviews [10-20-00]
BY HARVEY PEKAR

Lansdale's Revenge [09-29-00]
BY MIKE SHEA
For umpty-some years now Joe Lansdale has been terrorizing the book world with radically weird, unsettlingly violent, and often indefinable short stories, novellas, and novels. What happens when he veers toward the mainstream?

Local Bestsellers [09-29-00]
Local bestsellers are based on recent sales at Austin bookstores selected to reflect varied reading interests.

Armchair Adventures [09-22-00]
BY DAN OKO
"Good adventure books do the same thing as a good adventure," Chronicle writer Dan Oko writes in this roundup of recently published adventure books.

• A Blind Man Can See How Much I Love You: Stories [08-25-00]
  BY CLAY SMITH
  

By the Book [08-18-00]
BY ERICA C. BARNETT

By the Book [08-18-00]
BY BARRY JOHNSON

By the Book [08-18-00]
BY MARTIN WILSON

By the Book [08-18-00]
BY KATHERINE CATMULL

By the Book [08-18-00]
BY ADRIENNE MARTINI

By the Book [08-18-00]
BY HARVEY PEKAR

Two for the Road [08-04-00]
Chronicle writers Dick Holland and Mark Busby on Larry McMurtry's two new books.

By the Book [07-21-00]
BY CLAY SMITH

By the Book [07-21-00]
BY ROGER GATHMAN

By the Book [07-21-00]
BY AMANDA EYRE WARD

By the Book [07-21-00]
BY MARIE BLACK

By the Book [07-21-00]
BY HEATHER GARDNER

By the Book [07-21-00]
BY DAN OKO

By the Book [07-21-00]
BY SCOTT BLACKWOOD

Unhappily Ever After [07-14-00]
BY MARGARET MOSER
Three of the newest books about the Princess of Wales, Margaret Moser writes, are by people who played roles of varying degrees of intimacy in her life; they paint a more accurate, more vibrant picture of her life than the spate of cockeyed conspiracy theories, endless photo collections, and soggy coattail remembrances that traditionally make their appearance around the summer anniversary of her death.

Defining the Name of the World [07-07-00]
BY CLAY SMITH
Denis Johnson's new novel is about grief, but told anew, as if we didn't know anything about it.

America Gone Awry [06-23-00]
BY TOM GRIMES
Philip Roth's strength as a novelist, Tom Grimes says, is that he never writes as if he's finally reached a point of permanent self-definition. He's always searching for that definition, as a writer, as a Jew, and now, through the aging, reclusive Nathan Zuckerman, as an American.

Book Reviews [06-02-00]
BY CLAY SMITH

Book Reviews [06-02-00]
BY SARAH HEPOLA

Book Reviews [06-02-00]
BY LISSA RICHARDSON

Book Reviews [06-02-00]
BY BARBARA STRICKLAND

Book Reviews [06-02-00]
BY AMANDA EYRE WARD

Book Reviews [06-02-00]
BY MARTIN WILSON

Book Reviews [06-02-00]
BY CLAY SMITH

Book Reviews [06-02-00]
BY MARC SAVLOV

Book Reviews [06-02-00]
BY MIKE SHEA

Book Reviews [06-02-00]
BY MARTIN WILSON

Book Reviews [06-02-00]
BY BARBARA CHISHOLM

Confessions of a Cowboy [05-26-00]
BY JAMES C. SIMMONS
Working a cattle drive in Texas in the 1870s probably wasn't like what you imagine; ask Frank Harris -- he was there and he knows.

Book Reviews [05-19-00]
BY ROGER GATHMAN

Book Reviews [05-19-00]
BY AMANDA EYRE WARD

Book Reviews [05-19-00]
BY MIKE SHEA

Book Reviews [05-19-00]
BY ROBERT BELL

Book Reviews [05-19-00]
BY ANN GUIDRY

Book Reviews [05-19-00]
BY CHRISTOPHER HESS

Blessed Deliverance [03-31-00]
BY DICK HOLLAND

• The Gates of the Alamo: A Novel [03-24-00]
  BY MARK BUSBY
  Mark Busby reviews Stephen Harrigan's The Gates of the Alamo.

Let It Rock [03-17-00]
BY MARGARET MOSER

Let It Rock [03-17-00]
BY GREG BEETS

Let It Rock [03-17-00]
BY RAOUL HERNANDEZ

Let It Rock [03-17-00]
BY KENT H. BENJAMIN

Let It Rock [03-17-00]
BY KEN LIECK

Let It Rock [03-17-00]
BY ADA CALHOUN

Let It Rock [03-17-00]
BY HARVEY PEKAR

Book Reviews [02-18-00]
BY ROGER GATHMAN

Book Reviews [02-18-00]
BY BARBARA STRICKLAND

Book Reviews [02-18-00]
BY AMANDA EYRE WARD

Book Reviews [02-18-00]
BY DAVID GARZA

Book Reviews [02-18-00]
BY MARTIN WILSON

Book Reviews [02-18-00]
BY AMANDA EYRE WARD

Book Reviews [02-18-00]
BY KARL MONGER

Benevolent Agitator [02-11-00]
BY CLAY SMITH
Jim Hightower's undiluted populism is wittty, rousing, and engaging, Clay Smith asserts in a review of Hightower's new book If the Gods Had Meant Us to Vote, They Would Have Given Us Candidates

A Place of Her Own [02-04-00]
BY CLAY SMITH
In her two short story collections, Lasting Attachments and Crossing Shattuck Bridge, Annette Sanford can be laugh-out-loud funny, poignant, and tragic, sometimes in the same breath. But she couldn't do it if she lived in the city. The country is indelibly her metier.

Book Reviews [01-28-00]
BY LISSA RICHARDSON

Book Reviews [01-28-00]
BY MIKE SHEA

Book Reviews [01-28-00]
BY DAVID GARZA

Book Reviews [01-28-00]
BY KATHERINE CATMULL

Book Reviews [01-28-00]
BY MARTIN WILSON

Homegrown Don Quixotes [01-21-00]
BY MIKE SHEA
Austin writer Neal Barrett Jr.'s latest mind-over-matter comic thriller, Interstate Dreams, "has an oddly disorienting effect," Chronicle reviewer Mike Shea writes.

Money, It's a Gas [01-14-00]
BY ROGER GATHMAN
Economics, schmeconomics: Chronicle reviewer Roger Gathman compiles the latest books about the (almost) first commodity, money.

Rock & Roll Books [12-31-99]
BY CHRISTOPHER GRAY

Rock & Roll Books [12-31-99]
BY KATE X MESSER

Rock & Roll Books [12-31-99]
BY MARC SAVLOV

Rock & Roll Books [12-31-99]
BY JAY TRACHTENBERG

Rock & Roll Books [12-31-99]
BY DAVID LYNCH

Rock & Roll Books [12-31-99]
BY ANDY LANGER

Rock & Roll Books [12-31-99]
BY RAOUL HERNANDEZ

Rock & Roll Books [12-31-99]
BY STEPHEN MACMILLAN MOSER

Rock & Roll Books [12-31-99]
BY KENT H. BENJAMIN

Rock & Roll Books [12-31-99]
BY KEN LIECK

Rock & Roll Books [12-31-99]
BY ADA CALHOUN

Coffeetable Books [12-24-99]
BY ROBERT FAIRES

Coffeetable Books [12-24-99]
BY MARJORIE BAUMGARTEN

Coffeetable Books [12-24-99]
BY CLAY SMITH

Coffeetable Books [12-24-99]
BY DAVID GARZA

Coffeetable Books [12-24-99]
BY KATHERINE CATMULL

Coffeetable Books [12-24-99]
BY ANNE S. LEWIS

Coffeetable Books [12-24-99]
BY JESSE SUBLETT

Coffeetable Books [12-24-99]
BY BARRY JOHNSON

Coffeetable Books [12-24-99]
BY ANN GUIDRY

Coffeetable Books [12-24-99]
BY MARGARET MOSER

Coffeetable Books [12-24-99]
BY DICK HOLLAND

Coffeetable Books [12-24-99]
BY MATT WILLIAMS

Coffeetable Books [12-24-99]
BY MARTIN WILSON

Coffeetable Books [12-24-99]
BY STEPHEN MACMILLAN MOSER

Coffeetable Books [12-24-99]
BY LINDSEY SIMON

Coffeetable Books [12-17-99]
BY CLAY SMITH

Coffeetable Books [12-17-99]
BY MARGARET MOSER

Coffeetable Books [12-17-99]
BY DAVID GARZA

Coffeetable Books [12-17-99]
BY CARY L. ROBERTS

Coffeetable Books [12-17-99]
BY CLAY SMITH

Coffeetable Books [12-17-99]
BY BARRY JOHNSON

Coffeetable Books [12-17-99]
BY DAVID GARZA

Coffeetable Books [12-17-99]
BY KIM MELLEN

Coffeetable Books [12-17-99]
BY SARAH HEPOLA

Coffeetable Books [12-17-99]
BY ROGER GATHMAN

Coffeetable Books [12-17-99]
BY RAOUL HERNANDEZ

Coffeetable Books [12-17-99]
BY DICK HOLLAND

Coffeetable Books [12-17-99]
BY SIDNEY MOODY

Coffeetable Books [12-17-99]
BY ADRIENNE MARTINI

Coffeetable Books [12-17-99]
BY ADA CALHOUN

Coffeetable Books [12-17-99]
BY JESSE SUBLETT

Coffeetable Books [12-17-99]
BY ROGER GATHMAN

Coffeetable Books [12-17-99]
BY STEPHEN MACMILLAN MOSER

• The History of Counting reviewed [12-10-99]
  BY CLAY SMITH
  

David Shields Reflects on Race in the NBA [11-19-99]
BY TOM GRIMES
"In the NBA, as nowhere else in America, white people are utterly beholden to black people, and they're not about to let us off that easily; it's a kind of very mild payback for the last 500 years."

• Taboo Topics, True Subjects [11-19-99]
  BY DAVID SHIELDS
  Reflections on Race in the NBA
• Whompyjawed [10-29-99]
  BY CLAY SMITH
  
• Walter Benjamin at the Dairy Queen: Reflections at Sixty and Beyond [10-29-99]
  BY MARK BUSBY
  
• Places Left Unfinished at the Time of Creation: A Memoir [10-29-99]
  BY BARBARA STRICKLAND
  
• Isaac's Storm: A Man, A Time, and the Deadliest Hurricane in History [10-29-99]
  BY JESSE SUBLETT
  
• LBJ: A Life [10-29-99]
  BY JESSE SUBLETT
  
• Haley, Texas, 1959: Two Novellas of Texas [10-29-99]
  BY DICK HOLLAND
  
• A Cowtown Chronicle: William D. Barney Poetry [10-29-99]
  BY RIC WILLIAMS
  
• Eugenio Montale's Collected Poems 1920-1954 [10-29-99]
  BY CYRUS CASSELLS
  

A Portrait of the Artist as a Grad Student [10-22-99]
BY DAVID GARZA
Chronicle reviewer David Garza uses Tom Grimes' new history of the Iowa Writers' Workshop to question whether creative writing can be taught.

• Tom Grimes' The Workshop reviewed [10-22-99]
  BY CLAY SMITH
  

Celebrated for the Least of Reasons [10-15-99]
BY TOM DOYAL
Chronicle reviewer Tom Doyal has took to writin' just like Larry L. King, the playwright behind The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas (and much more, Doyal reveals, in his review of King's new book of letters).

Tom Zigal's Pariah Reviewed [09-17-99]
BY MIKE SHEA