Tag Archives: Books
‘Trinity’ Offers a Beautifully Fragmented Portrait of the Inventor of the Nuclear Bomb
Hall paints a portrait of Oppenheimer through refraction, resulting in a novel that captures his life fully, but indirectly.
It’s been more than 73 years since the first nuclear bomb the world had ever seen exploded in the New Mexico desert. That bomb was the product of the Los Alam...Read More
‘Presidio’ is a Beautiful, Atmospheric Texas Novel that Doesn’t Cohere
Randy Kennedy’s debut is packed — sometimes bloated — with rich characters and lovely detail that conjures small-town Texas.
Epigraphs from luminaries like John Ashbery, Clarice Lispector and Robert Smithson hint at the high-art ambitions of Randy Kennedy’s debut novel, Presidio. Th...Read More
Announcing the Eighth Annual Observer Short Story Contest
Send us your stories, writers!
In “Muriel,” Wendy Lerner Lym’s 2017 Texas Observer Short Story Contest prize-winning story, the narrator spends full days watching YouTube videos and the...Read More
Chasing Tornadoes and Drama in ‘The Man Who Caught the Storm’
Dallas author Brantley Hargrove’s new biography of storm chaser Tim Samaras is a streamlined primer in tornado science — and a hell of a story.
At least he died doing what he loved. Brantley Hargrove doesn’t write a single sentence so crassly clichéd in The Man Who Caught the Storm. (He also doesn’...Read More
The Laugh Ceiling: A New Book on Women Comics Misses the Show
Hysterical! builds a big tent for women in American comedy, but stops short of looking forward at some of the most innovative work.
My reward, earlier this year, for convincing myself it would be worthwhile to find some stage time at a stand-up comedy open mic in San Francisco, was a beer th...Read More
‘Under Surveillance’ Author on the Hidden Costs of Being Watched
Randolph Lewis’ new book focuses on the “soft-tissue damage” caused by living in a surveillance state.
Photo by Ghost Presenter from Pexels There’s a moment in Under Surveillance — Randolph Lewis’ accessible, ruminative, anxiety-ridden new book on American ...Read More
‘Last Sheriff in Texas’ Tells True Story of State’s Deadliest Lawman
James P. McCollom’s "The Last Sheriff in Texas" paints the South Texas town of Beeville as a microcosm of Texas politics and policing — past, present and future.
James P. McCollom’s The Last Sheriff in Texas paints the South Texas town of Beeville as a microcosm of Texas politics and policing — past, present and futu...Read More
A New Book on Jellyfish is Filled with Wonder and Climate Change Woes
Berwald pops between scientific conferences and labs, fishes for giant jellyfish off the coast of Japan and dives with a swarm in Israel.
Jellyfish drift. It’s practically their defining feature. Many creatures have hard parts of one kind or another; jellies are 95 percent water, and look it. Th...Read More
An Observer Staff Guide to the 2017 Texas Book Festival
Seven author events our reporters and editors are excited to see....Read More