Hundreds of kids in Texas’ Child Protective system sleeping on office floors. Will a new panel find a way to fix the problem? We’ll explore. Other stories we’re tracking: an effort by a state lawmaker and candidate for Attorney General to inventory books about race and sexuality in Texas schools. And Texas jails pushed to the brink by the pandemic. Also, an effort to build a better house with a 3D printer, Texas could be home to the biggest development of its kind. And a seasonal ritual comes to Williamson county, a firsthand view from its inaugural fair and rodeo. Those stories and a whole lot more today on the Texas Standard:
Books
Larry McMurtry and the Lonesome Dove Quadrilogy
Of the thousands of mourners who posted their goodbyes and gratitudes to Texas writer Larry McMurtry across last month, there was one stand-out theme. It was to thank McMurtry for his Pulitzer Prize-winning novel “Lonesome Dove.” Most considered it his premiere gift to them personally, a gift that had immeasurably enriched their lives, as culturally vital as Homer’s Iliad was to the Greeks. To many, “Lonesome Dove” is a book of proverbs, with advice such as: “The best way to handle death is to ride on away from it.” Or “Yesterday’s gone on down the river and you can’t get it back.” In fact, “Lonesome Dove,” the day after McMurtry died, rocketed up into the top 100 best selling books on Amazon, and became the #1 bestseller in Westerns.
Without a doubt, many who thanked Larry for “Lonesome Dove,” have read the other three books in the quadrilogy. Yet, I also know, from long experience, that some fans of the book and film, are unaware that there are three other books. There’s a great deal more trail to ride with Augustus McCrae and Woodrow Call.
The first is “Dead Man’s Walk.” Call and Gus are young men, in their early twenties. I’ve always thought of Gus and Call as part of the “buddy cops” genre. Here, we meet them for the first time as Texas Rangers on guard duty, west of the Pecos in pursuit of Comanches. McMurtry writes: “Gus took guard duty a good deal more lightly than his companion, Woodrow Call.” Gus annoys Call when he brings out a jug of mescal and takes a swig in front of him. Call remarks, “If the major caught you drinking on guard he’d shoot you.” There you see already the contrast that will define their friendship throughout the next two books. Gus the free-spirited, fun-loving sociable rule-breaker and Call the disciplined loner.
“Comanche Moon” is the second book in the series. Gus and Woodrow are both now Ranger captains, but that comes later in the book. It opens as Gus and Woodrow are part of a troop of 13 Rangers trying to run down Comanche Chief Kicking Wolf. They are pursuing him along the edge of the Palo Duro Canyon. Out on the Llano Estacado, Gus feels disoriented. McMurtry steps in to provide one of his iconic descriptions of the Texas landscape: “There was not a feature to stop the eye on the long plain: no tree, ridge, rise, hill, dip, animal or bird. Augustus could see nothing at all, and he was well known to have the best vision in the troop. The plain was so wide it seemed you could see to the rim of forever, and yet, in all that distance, there was nothing.”
“Lonesome Dove” comes next in the story’s chronology. I won’t say much here as this book is the best known of the four. I will say only that it was the first “Game of Thrones” in the sense that McMurtry killed off a great number of characters we came to love. As McMurtry himself wrote in “Lonesome Dove,” “Death and worse happened on the plains.”
The final book is “Streets of Laredo.” It was the original name for “Lonesome Dove” when it was just a screenplay. In this last book, Captain Call is hired to pursue a violent, psychopathic killer named Joey Garza who is a thinly-disguised Billy the Kid. In this book, we get a better look at Call and what he’s made of. For instance, here are his thoughts about loyalty: “It seemed to him the highest principle was loyalty. He preferred it to honor. He was never quite sure what men meant when they spoke of their honor, though it had been a popular word during the War. He was sure though, about what he meant when he spoke of loyalty. A man didn’t desert his comrades, his troop, his leader. If he did, he was in Call’s book, useless.”
I envy those who have not read the quadrilogy. I would love to be able to have the singular joy of reading them all again for the first time. But a second or third read is mighty enjoyable, too.
Texas Standard: December 23, 2020
Read any good books lately? We sure have. As we fast approach the end of the year, and a certain holiday known for gift giving we hit the stacks. They served on the front lines of a revolution in Mexico that revolutionized Texas, too. A new book reclaims the often overlooked stories of revolutionary women. Also, living the dream: the Texas author who’s writing the books she wished she’d been able to read as a kid. And a how-to book with a Texas twist you won’t find stashed away in the tool shed: how to be an astronaut and much more as we chat with authors about some memorable books of 2020 on todays Texas Standard:
Texas Standard: November 25, 2020
You now the saying so many books, so little time? Well if you’ve got an hour, we’ve got a page turner for you. We’ll take a trip to the library. From ideas about voting and civic duty, the untold story of a war often repeatedly revisited, an agent of change who might otherwise have been lost to history, the tale of a Texas music scene that breaks all the stereotypes and loving sports when they don’t love you back. Conversations with authors from across the Lone Star State and beyond as we hit the bookshelves for a very special edition of the Texas Standard:
Children’s Stories
Some stories just work. They are pleasurable to listen to and to tell. But why is that?
In this edition of Two Guys on Your Head, Dr. Art Markman and Dr. Bob Duke explain the psychology behind what makes a good children’s story.
Texas Standard: March 20, 2020
The latest on efforts to develop a Cornonavirus vaccine and speed up research on medical treatments. Also with stay at home the order of the day, some tips on how to get more work done, even with the kids around. And diversionary tactics that don’t involve a screen. They call them books. Hot tips for cool reads, plus the the week in Texas politics and more today on the Texas Standard:
Texas Standard: November 29, 2019
No matter where you are, tis the season to be shopping. But if you’d rather be reading, or giving the gift thereof, you’re gonna enjoy this special edition of the Texas Standard. They are, as Stephen King once wrote, a uniquely portable magic. The quietest and most constant of friends, the most accessible and wisest of counselors, the most patient of teachers, wrote Charles W. Elliott. And a lot of them focus on or are written about the greatest place we know. This hour, we’re talking about books, albeit with a distinctly Texas accent:
Texas Standard: November 13, 2019
Two Texans, a republican and a democrat both facing unexpected challenges. What do these candidacies tell us about Texas politics? We’ll take a look. Plus, how a Texas child custody case appears to set the stage for the next chapter in the culture wars. Also, the rise in subprime lending for wheels. When it comes to auto loans in Texas is a bubble beginning to form? We’ll take a closer look. And what are the most essential Texas books? Got any suggestions? So does commentator W.F. Strong. That and a Politifact check and more today on the Texas Standard:
101 Essential Texas Books
By W. F. Strong
If I have an addiction, it’s definitely books. I read about two books a week and order two more I’m unlikely to ever get to. But I like them on the shelf as backup the way survivalists hoard food supplies. Admittedly, I’m often short of shelves. When you have more books than shelves, you know you’re overdoing it.
I’m the book equivalent of the cat lady. I take in more books than I should. I recently took a pickup load of recyclable metals to a solid waste depot. As I paid the man I noticed he had 20 books on a little shelf outside his office. I said, “Well, you have plenty to read there when things are slow.” He said, “No, I’m not much of a reader but I can’t stand seeing good books go to the dump so I save ’em. These are rescue books for anyone who wants them.” I rescued 5 of the rescue books. To show the extent of my addiction, I also have a massive stash in the cloud, just in case I need a book when traveling or when stuck at the dentist’s office.
Doing some math I figured that if I live to my allotted average age, I figure I have only 2,000 books left to read in my life. And probably only 1500 because I’ll re-read 500 of my favorites, leaving 1500 new books over the next 20 years – out of billions in the world. A sad fraction. So, I must choose well. To borrow from the old dicho, “Life is too short to read bad books.”
So how does one choose well? First, you have recommendations from friends whose taste you trust. As I am into Texana books, I rely also on sites like Texas Booklover on Facebook for suggestions worth my time. But my favorite of all are books about books. Larry McMurtry has an exquisite book called simply Books. It’s truly spellbinding. A similar sort of work that I want to recommend to you today is 101 Essential Texas Books by Glenn Dromgoole and Carlton Stowers, both authors and experts on Texas literature.
Each book in the 101 is tightly summarized. You’ll find your favorites here for sure: All the Pretty Horses, The Time it Never Rained, Lone Star by Fehrenbach, Michener’s Texas, Friday Night Lights, and Lonesome Dove. But you will also find numerous gems you’ve perhaps never come across.
I like that the collection is in genres. You have first-rate works in history, literature – in this case books about books and writing – fiction, people, place, law and order, sports, food and drink, and books for young readers.
Here’s a few I think are lesser known standouts:
Texas Post Office Murals by Philip Parisi is a full color book of 115 photographs of depression era murals painted in Texas Post Offices across the state. They were painted by famous artists like Tom Lea, Xavier Gonzalez, and Jerry Bywaters and were meant to lift the spirits of people going through hard times.
A History of Texas Music by Gary Hartman. Not limited to Country-Western, Hartman covers “German, Czech, Tejano, Cajun, rock and roll, and rhythm and blues.”
100,000 Hearts: A Surgeon’s Memoir by Denton Cooley. It’s an autobiography by one of the world’s best heart surgeons of all time. And I’m not just saying that because one of those 100,000 hearts still beating is mine.
Under the category of “place” you have Goodbye to a River by John Graves, and A.C. Greene’s A Personal Country, as one would expect. The lesser known standout for me is Great Lonely Places of the Texas Plains by the Texas Poet Walt McDonald and Texas’ genius photographer Wyman Meinzer. It is a stunning book wherein poems illuminate photographs and photographs animate poems.
Rainwater by Sandra Brown. Sandra Brown is best known for her bestsellers in romance and suspense so this work is a departure for her. Set in a small Texas town during the depression, it has been compared to The Grapes of Wrath because it is the story of a tough woman barely surviving while running a boarding house in the dust bowl.
That’s a quick preview. Check out the 101 Essential Texas Books and you’ll be sure to find many you’ll cherish having on your shelves, or if you’re like me, stacked on your desk or on top of the dining room table, piano, refrigerator, night table, etc.
Texas Standard: October 2, 2019
Guilty. A jury has convicted a former Dallas Police officer of murdering her neighbor in his own apartment. We’ll have reaction and a look ahead to sentencing. Also, Texas State University under scrutiny for under-reporting sexual assaults on campus. We’ll take a look at what happened and why. Meanwhile, the state’s first black city is at risk of being overtaken by developers. A look at the history we’re about to lose. And California is going to let college athletes profit off their images despite NCAA rules. Why Texas should care. All of that and then some today on the Texas Standard:
Olivia Gatwood **Trigger Warning** Explicit Content and Adult Language
**Trigger Warning** This episode contains explicit content and adult language.
Olivia Gatwood author of Life of The Party talks on This is Just To Say with poet and novelist Carrie Fountain about her practice of reading poetry out loud while writing, taking a feminist look at true crime, embracing obsessions, and much more.
See Oliva Gatwood read in Austin September 15th at the North Door
Best of “Higher Ed:” The Well-Read Grown-Up
This episode was originally posted on Nov. 18, 2018.
In school, our reading choices are mostly dictated by what is assigned for classes or from reading lists. But once we are out of school, the decisions are up to us. In this episode of KUT’s podcast “Higher Ed,” Southwestern University President Dr. Ed Burger and KUT’s Jennifer Stayton discuss the joys and impacts of lifelong reading.
Ed believes that there are a couple of keys to staying well read beyond our school years.
One: expand the canon of what is considered “must reads” in school and beyond.
“Those canons traditionally are Western, usually written by white dead men,” says Ed. “What about the voices of individuals who are out there, in history and beyond, who were creative beings, or even not, but just having their story told….And so now, the question is, how do we find a balance where we can get a diversity of voices and perspectives?”
Two: read books that will push us in reading and in other arenas.
“Reading can transport you to a world where you might not be comfortable but you can actually find your way,” Ed believes. “That’s really the exciting world of ideas which can be reflected through reading.” Ed says exploring new ideas in our reading can lead us to exploring new ideas in other aspects of our lives.
What are on Ed’s and Jennifer’s bookshelves? Ed says he prefers non-fiction and likes reading about the art of comedy. But he also was completely mesmerized by the “Harry Potter”series. Jennifer also favors non-fiction but cites “The Thorn Birds” and “The World According to Garp” as favorite reads from the past.
What is the one classic series that Jennifer has never touched? And what is the one book that Ed suggests everyone read?
Listen to the full episode to find out, and to get the answers to the riddles about veggies and witches!
This episode was recorded on Oct. 30, 2018.
Chen Chen
On this edition of This is Just to Say the poet Chen Chen reads his poem “Poem” from his new book When I Grow Up I Want to Be a List of Further Possibilities and talks with poet and novelist Carrie Fountain about craft, humor, and how he came to poetry.
What Austin Is Reading
Find out what Austin’s reading and why! Listen back as KUT’s Rebecca McInroy talk with Julie Wernersbach of The Texas Book Fest, writer Kirk Walsh founder of Austin Bat Cave, writer, and bestseller at Malvern Books Fernando Flores and Adeena Reitberger of American Short Fiction, to talk about Austin’s thriving literary scene and why it matters.
Texas Standard: April 1, 2019
It may be April first, but the President’s team is doubling down: the threat to close the southern border is quite serious. Mexico is Texas’s top trading partner, and concerns are growing over the possibility and the viability of a border shutdown. Also, the border agent who had a secret: he too, was an undocumented immigrant. And Houston, we have liftoff: a race for space-related books on the 50th anniversary of the 1st moon landing. Plus researchers trying to save Texas bats: a danger of doing more harm than good? All that and more today on the Texas Standard:
Texas Standard: January 8, 2019
It’ll be 140 days unless things get crazy and the Texas lege goes into overtime. In recent years, hot button issues have made for rather explosive headlines coming from the Texas capitol, but the 86th session that starts today could be different. 3 veterans of the Capitol Press Corps tell us what to expect. Also, it’s been called the best Texas history museum most Texans have never heard of, and now it’s in trouble. We’ll hear why. Plus a macro problem for Texas micro brews? We’ll explore that and so much more today on the Texas Standard:
Texas Standard: November 22, 2018
Kids are taught of how they traveled across the sea to escape persecution: what of those making pilgrimages to safety in modern times? We’re reconsidering what many describe as a global refugee crisis. But is it truly a crisis? And just how overwhelming does it have to be? From the UN High Commission for Refugees, to groups here in Texas working directly to help resettled the displaced, to the reasons for the persistent role of religion and faith, refugees are our focus – today on a special Thanksgiving edition of the Texas Standard.
Literature, Poetry, Activism, and Immigration
Listen back as KUT’s Rebecca McInroy talks with novelist Natalia Sylvester, poet Emmy Pérez, and activist Maria Oliveira, about the power of sharing stories, how poetry can unite, and the links between vintage clothing and resistance.
Higher Ed: Good Reading In And Out Of School
In school, our reading choices are mostly dictated by what is assigned for classes or from reading lists. But once we are out of school, the decisions are up to us. In this episode of KUT’s podcast “Higher Ed,” Southwestern University President Dr. Ed Burger and KUT’s Jennifer Stayton discuss the joys and impacts of lifelong reading.
Ed believes that there are a couple of keys to staying well read beyond our school years.
One: expand the canon of what is considered “must reads” in school and beyond.
“Those canons traditionally are Western, usually written by white dead men,” says Ed. “What about the voices of individuals who are out there, in history and beyond, who were creative beings, or even not, but just having their story told….And so now, the question is, how do we find a balance where we can get a diversity of voices and perspectives?”
Two: read books that will push us in reading and in other arenas.
“Reading can transport you to a world where you might not be comfortable but you can actually find your way,” Ed believes. “That’s really the exciting world of ideas which can be reflected through reading.” Ed says exploring new ideas in our reading can lead us to exploring new ideas in other aspects of our lives.
What are on Ed’s and Jennifer’s bookshelves? Ed says he prefers non-fiction and likes reading about the art of comedy. But he also was completely mesmerized by the “Harry Potter”series. Jennifer also favors non-fiction but cites “The Thorn Birds” and “The World According to Garp” as favorite reads from the past.
What is the one classic series that Jennifer has never touched? And what is the one book that Ed suggests everyone read?
Listen to the full episode to find out, and to get the answers to the riddles about veggies and witches!
This episode was recorded on Oct. 30, 2018.
Texas Standard: July 27, 2018
After fears yesterday of a broader downturn following Facebook’s steep stock drop, a stunning new number on the state of the economy. 4.1%: that’s how fast the economy grew in the second quarter. We’ll look at what the numbers add up to in this time of tariffs and talk of trade wars. Also, Nicaragua reported to be in a state of siege, the people at the mercy of paramilitaries. We’ll take a look at what’s happening there and could it mean a new wave of asylum seekers. Plus, the hype around 5G: why all eyes are on Houston for what could be a disrupter for the cable industry. Plus the week that was in Texas politics and much more today on the Texas Standard: