Texas Book Festival

October 16 — 17 • State Capitol

Texas Book Festival Guide

Christopher A. Smith The Texas Book Festival is an annual event held at the State Capitol that showases author
Editor-in-Chief readings and presentations, panel discussions, book signings and musical entertainment.
Below are a just a few of the events Editor-in-Chief Christopher A. Smith recommends.

The violence around us Science explains it all Politics

C.J. Chivers
Sunday Oct. 17, 4:15 p.m.
The Sanctuary at First United
Methodist Church
The AK-47, the gun of choice
for terrorists and revolutionaries
the world over, is the subject
of C.J. Chivers new book, The
Gun. The book is part history,
part good journalism and all great storytelling
by Chivers. Chivers is a senior writer and former
Moscow bureau chief for The New York Times
and a frequent contributor to Esquire.
The Drug Wars: Dispatches from
the Border
Sunday, Oct. 17, 1:30 p.m.
C-SPAN/Book TV Tent
For a conversation about
the drug wars in Mexico that is
sure to be more intelligent and
knowledgeable than any being had
by politicians in Washington or Austin, check out
the panel hosting writers Ed Vulliamy, Charles
Bowden, and Malcolm Beith. All three have
written in-depth accounts about drug violence in
Mexico. Bowden spent extended amounts of time
Juárez, one of the most deadly cities in the world,
for his book Murder City: Ciudad Juárez and the
Global Economy’s New Killing Fields.
You don’t need facts to find
the truth
Big Stories, Small Towns
Sunday, Oct. 17, 12:30 p.m.
Capitol Auditorium Room E1.004
Great myths can often produce
the greatest truths. While there
seems to be an emphasis on non-
fiction works at this year’s book
festival, there is still plenty of great
discussions about the golden standard of book
writing, the novel. Rick Bass will be talking about
his latest book Nashville Chrome about fame and
how it was won and lost by the first female country
stars. He’ll be joined by Jake Silverstein, Antonya
Nelson and Philipp Meyer who have novels that
explore desperation, death, infidelity, the loss of
the American dream. All the subjects that make a
novel worth reading.
The Way We Were: New Novels
about a Bygone Texas
Saturday, Oct. 16, 10:00 a.m.
Capitol Extension Room E2.012.
Texas is a changing place and
it often takes a novelist and not a
historian to show us who we were
and where we come from. Texas is
an urban state now we are told but the
myth that holds Texas together is not
one of high rise condos or miles of urban
sprawl. ACC Professor Mary Helen Specht
leads a panel on a Texas that, even
for natives, is a place we travel to
only in the confines of a book.
Back to Life: Humanizing Medical Laura Bush
Mysteries Saturday, Oct. 16, 10:00 a.m.
Saturday, Oct. 16, 10:00 a.m. Paramount Theatre
C-SPAN/Book TV Tent Laura Bush memoir, Spoken
Good storytelling can rescue any from the Heart, gives readers a
subject, even science and medicine, glimpse of what it was like to go
from the list of heavy subjects nobody from Midland, TX to Washington
wants to read about. Rebecca Skloot and back. The memoir has received
recently wrote, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, a lot of attention and her talk at the Festival, which
that even while being good, hard journalism still she founded and is an honorary chair, will probably
allows readers to see the world of research medicine be well attended.
with all its flaws, triumphs and interesting characters.
The book and the panel are well worth checking out. Karl Rove
Sunday, Oct. 17, 1:15 p.m.
Cradle of Gold: The Story of a Real-Life Indiana The Sanctuary at First United
Jones and the Search for Machu Methodist Church
Picchu Another memoir by someone
Sunday, Oct. 17, 11:00 a.m. from former-President George W.
Capitol Extension Room E2.010 Bush’s inner circle, this one by Karl
One man’s adventure and realization Rove. Rove sets out to set the record
of a dream is another country’s theft of straight and take swipes at Democrats while he’s at
cultural heritage. American explorer it in Courage and Consequence.
and Yale historian Hiram Bingham
reached Machu Pichu in Peru in 1911 Obama: Year One
and this real-life Indiana Jones was able to bring back Sunday, Oct. 17, 12:15 p.m.
a treasure trove of skulls, bones and artifacts. Writer C-SPAN/Book TV Tent
Christopher Heaney’s book, Cradle of Gold: The Story Three writers, three books
of Hiram Bingham, A Real-Life Indiana Jones and the about President Obama’s first year
Search for Machu Picchu, tells the story of Bingham’s in office. There is a lot of attention
swashbuckling adventures and of the ongoing dispute on the Democrats and questions
between Yale University and Peru over who owns the about what has happened to the
Incan artifacts he brought back. energy and promise Obama brought with him after
the election in 2008. The panel is moderated by
Evan Smith, editor-in-chief of the Texas Tribune.
Good stories that happen to be And while this panel might not have answers for
true the Democrats’ woes, the insights on the president
and the inner workings of the White House are
sure to be interesting.
Literature on the Lam: Famous
Fugitives
Sunday, Oct. 17, 11:00 a.m.
C-SPAN/Book TV Tent Music and film? Yes!
Not all high octane books that’ll
keep you up all night have to be poorly The Best of God
written airport bookstore novels. Saturday, Oct. 16, 7:30 p.m.
Writers James Swanson, Hampton Alamo Drafthouse South Lamar
Sides, Jonathan Eig and Malcolm Beith have each (1120 S. Lamar)
written a book with topics worthy of a pulp novel: Local writer Owen Egerton won
Mexican drug lords, Al Capone, the plot to assassinate an Austin Chronicle Best of 2010
Martin Luther King Jr. and the misguided search for local writer/poet award. Who has
Lincoln’s killer. But what sets these writers and their ever heard of a writer winning a
books apart is their attention to good reporting and “best of award?” Well maybe it’s because he does
historical accuracy. Their books are exciting to read something like co-hosting an irreverent event
and the fact that it is all true makes it that much better. where clips of over-the-top televangelists and their
cohorts will be screened for the audience’s delight.
Texas Monthly and Texas Book Festival
present The Art of Fact Shinyribs
Saturday, Oct. 16, 2:00 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 16, 1:00 p.m.
Capitol Extension Room E2.028 Music Tent
Great storytelling is great storytelling, There’s more to do at the
but when the story happens to be Texas Book Festival than go to
true, the effect on readers is all the panels. This is Austin of course.
more powerful. Jake Silverstein, Texas So if you need a break from
Monthly editor and author of Nothing Happened and the all the literary talk, head to the music tent.
Then It Did which mixes fiction and non-fiction, leads Kevin Russell, also known as the lead singer of The
a panel discussion on the art of factual writing. Joining Gourds, writes some beautiful songs. Song lyrics
him are authors Max Watman, Hank Stuever, David as poetry? Depends. But what isn’t up for debate is
Grann who have written about moonshine, Christmas how much fun you’ll have listening to Shinyribs.
and stranger-than-life mysteries respectively.

Spotlight on ACC Best of the Texas

Prof. Mary Specht
Mary Specht remembers enjoying writing as
a child but it wasn’t until she was in college that
she thought of doing it as a profession. Specht
is now a writer and a creative writing professor
at ACC. It was in college and later in graduate
school that she found a community of writers
that encouraged her to pursue writing as a
career. Writing and reading are often solitary
pursuits but Specht said that has again found a
community at the Texas Book Festival.
Christopher A. Smith • Editor in Chief
“If you are not part of a book club or taking
lit classes, you reading is in a vacuum,” said Specht, “but the at the book festival
you get to not only see the writers and hear them talk but you also ask questions,
Book Festival
Events Accent Editor-in-Chief
Christopher A. Smith plans to
attend at the festival
The Texas Book Festival is the
perfect time for all book worms,
writers, wannabe writers, and literati
to put down the books for a while
and head to the capital to hang out
with other bookish types and listen
to writers who have actually made
it big. But at this years book festival Karissa Rodriguez • Photo/Web Editor

talk to other people who love to read and see what new books are coming out.”
Specht Reccomends
Big Stories, Small The Norton Anthology of
Towns Latino Literature
Sunday, Oct. 17, with editor Ilan
12:30 p.m. Stavans and moderated
Capitol Auditorium by Cristina Garcia
Room E1.004 Sunday, Oct. 17,
3:15 - 4 p.m.
The Sanctuary at First
United Methodist Church
1201 Lavaca, enter from
Lavaca St.
there are hundreds of writers and events and
panels all day Oct. 16 and 17. So with so much going where will I be? I’m
definitely going to be at C.J. Chivers. Chivers is an amazing literary journalist
and the work he’s done for Esquire is awe inspiring. Saturday morning most
American Short people will probably be at Laura Bush’s panel at the Paramount Theatre. I’m
Fiction and Texas Book skipping that and instead going to the C-SPAN tent to catch Rebecca Skloot in
Festival present The Short the Humanizing Medical Mysteries panel. While listening to Laura Bush talk
and the Sublime about her bucolic upbringing in west Texas will draw all the cameras and the
with Doug Dorst, who’s who of folks here in Austin, I’d rather listen to a Skloot talk about how
David Means, and she turned a complicated medical research story into a great book. I’m really
Andrew Porter excited about The Drug Wars panel on Sunday. The writers on this panel had
Sunday, Oct. 17, the guts to go Juarez and other deadly places in Mexico to get the facts and the
2:30 - 3:30 p.m. stories for their books. Talk about going to hell and back. The book festival
Capitol Extension room doesn’t have to be just about books. I’m taking a break on Saturday to catch
E2.016 Shinyribs in the music tent.