Some of this summer’s best reading comes straight from the Forty Acres.
Every year, The University of Texas Press publishes about 100 new books. Here’s a look at nine titles to add to your reading list:
Homegrown: Austin Music Posters, 1967 to 1982
Edited by Alan Schaefer with essays by Joe Nick Patoski and Nels Jacobson
From mind-melting psychedelia and surreal treatments of Texas iconography to inventive interpretations of rock and roll, western swing, and punk, this book offers the definitive, long-overdue survey of music poster art by legendary Texas artists
All Tore Up: Texas Hot Rod Portraits
By George Brainard
Iconic portraits of greasers and gearheads, families and pinup girls, rockers and regular Joes capture the distinctive people and scene around hot rod and custom cars.
It Starts with Trouble: William Goyen and the Life of Writing
By Clark Davis
Celebrating a “writer’s writer” whose friends and rivals included Katherine Anne Porter, Stephen Spender, and Truman Capote, this definitive biography of William Goyen (from Trinity, TX) offers the first complete account of the life and writings of the acclaimed author of “The House of Breath” and “Arcadio.”
Betting the Farm on a Drought: Stories from the Front Lines of Climate Change
By Seamus McGraw
The award-winning author of “The End of Country: Dispatches from the Frack Zone” offers a lively, thought-provoking overview of climate change from the perspectives of people who are dealing with it on the ground.
John Prine: In Spite of Himself
By Eddie Huffman
From singing mailman to Nashville legend, John Prine traces the crooked road traveled by the brilliant songwriter responsible for “Angel from Montgomery,” “Sam Stone,” “Paradise,” and “That’s the Way That the World Goes ‘Round.”
Flatlanders: Now It’s Now Again
By John T. Davis
Spotlighting three legends of American music-Joe Ely, Jimmie Dale Gilmore, and Butch Hancock, The Flatlanders recounts the band’s epic forty-year journey from a living room in Lubbock, Texas, to the release of their extraordinary long-lost demo, The Odessa Tapes.
Mike, Spike, Slackers, and Dykes: A Guided Tour Across a Decade of American Independent Cinema
By John Pierson
The legendary figure who launched the careers of Spike Lee, Michael Moore, and Richard Linklater offers a no-holds-barred look at the deals and details that propel an indie film from a dream to distribution.
Into the Field: A Foreign Correspondent’s Notebook
By Tracy Dahlby
In this lively memoir and how-to handbook for aspiring journalists, a veteran correspondent who has reported for National Geographic and Newsweek tells “the stories behind the stories” that reveal the hard work, skill, and luck it takes to be a successful foreign correspondent.
Being Miss America: Behind the Rhinestone Curtain
By Kate Shindle
Kate Shindle weaves an engrossing memoir of her year as Miss America 1998 with a fascinating, insightful history of the pageant to reveal why confident, ambitious young women still compete in a beauty contest that struggles to remain culturally relevant.
[Looking for more book recommendations? Check out the 2015 Freshman Reading Round-Up list for more suggestions of what to read this summer.]
