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Summer Reading, Texas-Style
The current issue of Madeworthy is all about summer fun, and what’s more fun than lying on a beach or by the pool, immersed in a fabulous book? Whether you prefer a light and fluffy beach read or a deep dive into history or business, there’s just something about summer reading. Fortunately, Texas has a wealth of great authors, so you can find something to enjoy, no matter what kind of summer read you prefer. We’ve gathered some of the best from the past up to the present.
Attica Locke, Houston
Attica Locke was born in Houston and raised by parents who were active in the Civil Rights Movement. She is a novelist and writer/producer for film and television.
Recommended Reading
Bluebird, Bluebird
A beautifully written thriller set in East Texas, Bluebird Bluebird explores what happens when race, love, and justice collide.
John Graves, Fort Worth and Glen Rose, 1920-2013
John Graves was one of the giants of Texas literature. His observations of life in rural Texas and the environment in the latter part of the 20th century are breathtaking in their stark simplicity.
Recommended Reading
Goodbye to a River
The story of Graves’ canoe journey down the Brazos before a proposed but never-realized plan to dam the river. Graves combines memories and history with lyrical simplicity. A must-read for all Texans.
Estella Portillo-Trambley, El Paso, 1926-1998
Much of the literature of the Chicano Movement of the last century focused on the experiences of Chicano men in America. Estella Portillo-Trambley’s poetry, plays, and short stories gave millions of Chicana women a voice.
Recommended Reading
Rain of Scorpions and Other Writing
A collection of stories about Chicana women who dare to hope and change.
Tillie Walden, Austin
While she was born in New Jersey, many of Tillie Walden’s works are influenced by her family’s move to Austin as a child. Her graphic novels and webcomic have gained her a loyal following among the comic cognoscenti.
Recommended Reading
The End of Summer
Lars, chronically sick and stuck in a secluded castle in a winter predicted to last three years, dreams of fantastical adventures in a never-ending summer with his giant cat, Nemo.
Joe Coomer, Fort Worth and Springtown
Born in Fort Worth, Joe Coomer wrote his first books while working in his family’s lumber yard. In addition to his literary career, he now runs three antique malls in Azle and Burleson. He once admitted in an interview that he writes in the kitchen to be close to the food.
Recommended Reading
Apologizing to Dogs
A quirky yet heartwarming exploration of the mundanity in the lives of antique dealers. Trust me, it’s laugh-out-loud hilarious.
Rachel Caine (pen name of Roxanne L. Conrad), El Paso, 1962-2020
Writing as Rachel Caine, Roxanne L. Conrad was a prolific writer of both young adult and adult urban fantasy fiction. Not only was she a talented writer, but she was also a musician who played with Henry Mancini and John Williams. In between writing and playing, she was a multinational company’s director of corporate communications. Whew!
Recommended Reading
Prince of Shadows
The retelling of Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet as told by Romeo’s cousin and sidekick, Benvolio Montague.
Frank Dobie, Live Oak County, 1888-1964
Folklorist and newspaper columnist J. Frank Dobie is best known for his lyrical books on life in Texas at the turn of the 20th century and his outspoken views on religious prejudice and the rise of a mechanized world. He also helped local oilman Sid Richardson save the Texas longhorn from extinction.
Recommended Reading
Tales of Old-Time Texas
Possibly the greatest collection of Texas folktales ever. It’s a classic that every Texan should own.
Gail Giles, Galveston
A former high school teacher, Gail Giles uses her experiences with teenagers to inform her writing. Her young adult novels are complex and unflinching examinations of the lives of modern American teens.
Recommended Reading
Girls Like Us
Two girls graduate from their high school’s special ed program and are thrown together as roommates. They must learn to work together to move forward in the real world.
Katherine Anne Porter (born Callie Russell Porter), Indian Creek and Kyle, 1890-1980
Katherine Anne Porter was a novelist, journalist, essayist, short story writer, and political activist who began her writing career as the society writer for the Fort Worth Critique. While her novel Ship of Fools was the best-selling novel of 1962, her short stories won her a greater following.
Recommended Reading
Pale Horse, Pale Rider: Three Short Novels
Time Magazine, in its review of Pale Horse, Pale Rider, said it “is a collection of three short novels which belong with the best of contemporary U.S. writing in this difficult [literary] form. A distinctive book, it has the subtlety that has marked all of Miss Porter’s writings, but not of the preciousness that had previously marred it.”
Benjamin Alire Sáenz, El Paso
Not every Texas author writes for adults! While author and poet Benjamin Alire Sáenz was the first Latino author to win the prestigious PEN/Faulkner book award for his novel Everything Begins and Ends at the Kentucky Club, his bilingual children’s books are beautiful evocations of Latino life in America.
Recommended Reading
A Perfect Season for Dreaming/Un Tiempo Perfecto Para Soaar
Seventy-eight-year-old Octavio Rivera has beautiful dreams and wants to share them with someone. Then he remembers that his granddaughter, Regina, also loves beautiful and fantastic things.
Dorothy Scarborough, Mount Carmel and Sweetwater, 1878-1935
Baylor alumna Dorothy Scarborough wrote about what she heard growing up in West Texas – cotton farming, ghost stories, and the lives of women in the unforgiving landscape of the Southwest. J. Frank Dobie (see above) wrote that her unflinching look at life in West Texas, The Wind, “excited the wrath of chambers of commerce and other boosters of West Texas – a tribute to its realism.” The Wind was later made into a movie of the same title starring Lillian Gish.
Recommended Reading
The Wind
A gritty and unyielding novel that depicts life in a small West Texas town and on the cattle ranches surrounding it in the 1880s.
Larry McMurtry, Archer City, 1936-2021
The grand old man of Texas literature, Larry McMurtry was a novelist, essayist, and well-known book hoarder. (His bookstore in Archer City, Booked Up, is one of the largest antiquarian bookstores in the U.S.) His books, several of which were adapted by Hollywood, have become some of Texas’ most famous literary exports.
Recommended Reading
Lonesome Dove [Editor’s Note: Duh]
If you have only seen the admittedly wonderful mini-series adaptation of Lonesome Dove, run, don’t walk, RUN to your local independent bookstore. You’ll thank me.
