Going back at least to the 1920s, Texans have been making literary lists of books about Texas.
The first informal catalog of required Texas books to become popularwas born in 1929 as a mimeographed guide to reading for J. Frank Dobie's"Life and Literature of the Southwest" class at the University of Texas.
It would eventually become the basis for almost all subsequent lists published in the popular press, even for those critics who reject some or all of Dobie's canon.
1943:The University of Texas Press publishes J. Frank Dobie's "Guide to Life and Literature of the Southwest."
The Old Man of Texas Letters, who started out as a folklorist and ended up mainly as a newspaper columnist with a statewide audience, was not the first Texan to make a comprehensive list of our state's best reads, but most current discussions start with this published accounting.
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He divides the chapters by subjects and themes such as "Indian Culture," "Women Pioneers," "Mountain Men" and "Pony Express." On the literary end, much is made of poetry, drama, folk songs and tales. Dobie provides sharp notes about most of his choices.
By this time, the view of Texas and the Southwest had begun to gel around the idea of rugged individualism. Dobie contributed mightily to this concept, but, even in 1943,he was open-mindedabout how it was manifested. Early on, he paid close attention, for instance, to Hispanic and Black folklorists and folklore.
1952: Southern Methodist University Press publishes J. Frank Dobie's "Guide to Life and Literature of the Southwest: Revised and Enlarged in Both Knowledge and Wisdom."
Dobie's extensively revised and enlarged version of his popular list — which includes hundreds of titles — reveals how his mind had changed substantially, as described in Steven L. Smith's fine biography, "J. Frank Dobie: A Liberated Mind." He still focuses on the land and its native life, especiallyfrontier backgrounds, but he links southwestern writing to global literature and rejects exclusive and self-laudatory provincialism. He is looking for larger themes.
A free ebook version of this edition can be found at gutenberg.org.
Greene vs. McMurtry and others
1981:Texas Monthly magazine publishes A.C. Greene's essay, "The 50 Best Texas Books."
The late journalist, bookstore owner and author of more than 20 books stepped on literarytoes with this widely distributed list, while he lionized his favoredtomes. By no means definitive, it still contains some surprises and delightsin the best Texas Monthly tradition.
I didn't remember, or instance, this item,but it would make timely reading now: "Journal of the Secession Convention of Texas,"1861, edited from the original by Ernest W. Winkler, state librarian.
"This is the most tragic document in Texas history — and the most dramatic," Green notes. "Officially and meticulously — 469 pages, not one of them wasted — it details the enveloping tornado that swept even Texans with better sense into the catastrophe that history knows as 'the Southern cause.'”
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1981: Texas Observer publishes Larry McMurtry's essay, "Ever a Bridegroom: Reflections on the Failure of Texas Literature."
McMurtry, who died earlier this year, was pretty sure that he could not name 50 great books about Texas. He especially derided the emphasis on tales of the Old West by the "Holy Old-timers," then he went on to write perhaps the greatest Western of them all, "Lonesome Dove."
Almost 40 years later, theHouston Chronicle's Joe Holley caught up with McMurtry at a book signing in San Antonio.
"But Larry," Holley said, "I thought you said Texas writers should stop writing about the Old West."
He looked up from the book he was signing. "I didn't say they should stop writing about the Old West," he said. "I said they should stop writing badly about the Old West."
Point well taken.
1998: University of North Texas Press publishes A.C.'s Greene's hardback book, "The 50+ Best Books on Texas."
We had seen this rock fight before.
Greene contends that he remained friends with authors, academics and critics, including McMurtry,who took issue with his first attempt in 1981.
I didn't pay much attention in 1998, but I was especially disappointed that he dropped Katherine Anne Porter's "Pale Horse, Pale Rider" for not being Texan enough, even though it is often collected with "June Wine" and other short works set in her native state.
I'll discuss Greene's revised list in a little more detaillater in this column.
March 10, 2019:American-Statesman publishes "The 53 Best Books about Texas," by former colleague Dave Thomas and me.
For Texas Independence Month, Thomas and I poked at that old Texas literary hornet's nest. We endured some minor stings, specially since we deliberately left out James Michener's novel, "Texas."
I wrote a follow-up column on June 24, 2019, about readerfavorites that we had ignored. Some, such as Noah Smithwick's "Evolution of a State,"I have since read and enjoyed enormously.
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Oct. 24, 2019: Texas Highways publishes "Texas Books for 100 Ages," by S. Kirk Walsh and the magazine's staff.
This long, excellent list earns extra points for its novel structure that tags books for Texan readers at each age of life from1 to 100. Now that is some editor hard at work.
For the imagined age 100, TH picked Gabriel García Márquez's "One Hundred Years of Solitude," not only for its numerical significance, butalso because the Nobel Prize-winning author's papers reside at the University of Texas' Ransom Center in Austin.
So sort of Texan.
May 1, 2020: The American-Statesman publishesmy breezy column, "On Second Thought, Make that 60 Essential Books About Our State."
At this point,I was just having fun. I added some superb books that had come out during the intervening months, such as Stephen Harrigan's "Big Wonderful Thing" and Elizabeth Crook's "The Which Way Tree."
May 2, 2020: the Houston Chronicle publishes Andrew Dansby's "The 30 Most Essential Books about Texas."
By this time, Texas readerswere looking at a lot of the same titles. And not just picks from Dobie and Greene's canons, which were, after all, heavy on Texana, but a good number of books by and about Texas communities that didn't fit into what old-timers thought constituted the state's literature.
These nine lists don't come close to enumerating all the published lists of best Texas books, but I would be remiss if I didn't include two more titles that have helped me recently seek out more candidates: Dagoberto Gilb's "Hecho en Tejas: An Anthology of Texas Mexican Literature," and Sergio Troncoso's very recent "Nepantla Familias: An Anthology of Mexican American Literature on Families Between Worlds."
Expect an interview with Troncoso in this space in the near future.
There's another place to look for Texas book lists, especially those that focus on Hispanic, Black, Native American and other communities not always well represented in the media— the bibliographies printed in the back of many volumes of histories. Consider those best book lists, too, especially if well-annotated.
Frank de la Teja, former official Texas State Historian and retired as a professor from Texas State University and as the head of the Texas State Historical Association, once told me the first thing that he does when he opens a new book is turn to the bibliography.
Especially regarding Spanish-American history, his are priceless.
What do we do with these Texas lists?
Read them. Think about them. Act upon them.
I recently purchased twovolumes of Texas book lists that take aim at two different readerships.
"Basic Texas Books" by John H. Jenkins (revised, 1988) attempts to lay out whatany decent research library should collect in orderto give a student of Texas history a sense of what really happened. Jenkins pointedly does not select the "best books," meaning the most pleasurable reads, but rather key historical material, including memoirs, diaries and official records.
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To balance that out, I bought a copy ofGreene's "The 50+ Best Books on Texas" for the first time. While I had read his original 1981 Texas Monthly list several times with relish — the magazine's digital archives are easy to use —I had never owned a copy of his hardback 1998 follow-up.
Let me start by saying that both bibliographers approach their subjects with similar temperaments. They are not picking fights or grinding axes. They admit to their biases and encourage further exploratory reading. They are, thank goodness, also witty writers, easy to read and quick to enjoy. I am quite happy with both books and they will stand side by side on my Texana shelves.
Although it relies too heavily on Old West themes, I'd recommend Greene's for the beginner. The entries are short and conversational.
Now, all lists are out of date the day that they are published, but this one is worth pulling out every now and again to remember one's first romance with the words of Texans. And to see what people were reading decades ago.
"Basic Texas Books," on the other hand, is for scholars, serious enthusiasts,and, I suppose, antiquarian book sellers.
Which means I love it. There's no way in the world I could collect all of his 224 entries, much less the numerous published bibliographies listed in his appendix.
But it's good to know it's there.
Michael Barnes writes about the people, places, culture and history of Austin and Texas. He can be reached at mbarnes@statesman.com.
