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As we prepare to bid good-bye to 2016, the editors of Lone Star Literary Life would like to say thank you to all of the authors who have written books about our state or set in our state, but we’d like pay special recognition to our Favorite Texas Fiction of 2016. We winnowed down an…

Five independent booksellers from Texas were recognized with James Patterson Holiday bonuses. On Thursday, Dec. 15, author James Patterson announced the names of 149 independent booksellers receiving grants totaling $250,000 as part of his Holiday Bookstore Bonus Program. Patterson partnered with the American Booksellers Association to distribute the funds, which were awarded to individual booksellers…

Lone Star Lit’s Literary Tour of Texas: Burnet, San Antonio The Texas Hill Country is a treat any time of year — but the opportunity to travel to San Antonio and the rolling, wooded country north of it in early December, when towns are a-twinkle with holiday lights, is a real treat. Kay Ellington and…

Michelle Newby is contributing editor at Lone Star Literary Life, reviewer for Kirkus, freelance writer, member of the National Book Critics Circle, blogger at www.TexasBookLover.com, and a moderator at the 20th annual Texas Book Festival. Her reviews appear in Pleiades Magazine, Rain Taxi, World Literature Today, High Country News, South85 Journal, The Review Review, Concho…

Xu Bing: Book from the Sky, a meditation on the nature of language, by celebrated Chinese artist Xu Bing, Austin, June 19-January 22 The Alchemy of Mind and Spirit: Intersections of Science and Poetry, Austin, September 26-January 13 Special Events Austin Writergrrls Book Fest, December 4 Sunday, December 4 Austin Malvern Books, Vision + Voice…

Each week Lone Star Literary profiles a newsmaker in Texas books and letters, including authors, booksellers, publishers. Kay Ellington has worked in management for a variety of media companies, including Gannett, Cox Communications, Knight-Ridder, and the New York Times Regional Group, from Texas to New York to California to the Southeast and back again to…

Texas Reads>> archiveGlenn Dromgoole 12.11.16    A coffee table book for history lovers The Bob Bullock Texas State History Museum presents an up-close look at 81 of its artifacts in a full-color coffee-table book, Seeing Texas History (University of Texas Press, $40 hardcover). The artifact photographs are arranged chronologically, beginning with an ancient tool made from…

Lone Star ReviewsMichelle Newby, NBCC, Contributing Editor HISTORICAL BIOGRAPHY Karl Jacoby The Strange Career of William Ellis, The Texas Slave Who Became a Mexican Millionaire W.W. Norton & Company Hardcover, 978-0-393-23925-6, 336 pages, $27.95, June 2016 Reviewed by Si Dunn William Henry Ellis was a toddler in a slave family on a cotton plantation near…

Lone Star Lit’s Literary Tour of Texas: Austin Members of the Lone Star Lit team are just now unpacking from trips to Austin (and more exotic places, like India) and downloading loads of digital photos. Here are a few highlights from our visit during Texas Book Festival week earlier this month — before we head…

HISTORICAL BIOGRAPHY Karl Jacoby The Strange Career of William Ellis, The Texas Slave Who Became a Mexican Millionaire W.W. Norton & Company Hardcover, 978-0-393-23925-6, 336 pages, $27.95 (paperback, ebook and audio versions available) June 2016 Reviewed by Si Dunn William Henry Ellis was a toddler in a slave family on a cotton plantation near Victoria,…