S.C. GWYNNE’S LONE STAR STATE PICKS
1. Goodbye to a River (John Graves; Vintage): This book covers a mid-1950s run down the soon-to-be-dammed (in more ways than one) Brazos River. The best book about Texas, period.
2. The Captured (Scott Zesch; St. Martin’s Griffin): A wonderfully researched book about hostages taken by Indians in 1870s Texas.
3. The Time It Never Rained (Elmer Kelton; Forge): A novel about the great drought of the 1950s. It has amazing echoes of what is going on today.
4. Adventures with a Texas Naturalist (Roy Bedichek; University of Texas Press): One of the most brilliant books about nature I have ever read.
5. The Longhorns (J. Frank Dobie; University of Texas Press): Dobie can be a bit pedestrian at times, but he is at his best here in this book about the central Texas myth.
—S.C. Gwynne, author of Empire of the Summer Moon (Scribner)
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