Discover Texas
Texas is too large and varied to be understood through a single landscape or story. Its identity stretches from the Gulf Coast and the Hill Country to the deserts of West Texas, the forests of the east, and cities shaped by music, food, energy, immigration, and ambition. Spanish missions, cattle trails, border communities, oil booms, and modern creative centers have all contributed to a state that remains fiercely distinctive.
The books featured here offer different ways into that complicated story. Through fiction, history, memoir, food, photography, and travel writing, they reveal both the mythology of Texas and the lives lived beyond it—helping travelers see the state not simply as a destination, but as a place shaped by contradiction, reinvention, and an extraordinary sense of scale.
Travel Writing & Fiction
God Save Texas, by Lawrence Wright
In God Save Texas, Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist Lawrence Wright travels across his native state, from Houston, Dallas, and Austin to El Paso, the Panhandle, the Rio Grande Valley, and the remote landscapes of Big Bend and Marfa. Along the way, he considers the forces reshaping Texas: the continuing power of oil, the rise of its technology industry, the rapid growth and increasing diversity of its cities, and the political divide between its urban centers and conservative state government. Wright also explores the state’s distinctive cultural hierarchy, visits the Texas Legislature, reflects on Austin’s transformation, and writes candidly about his own decision to remain in a place he has sometimes found maddening. The result is part travelogue, part cultural history, and part personal reckoning—an insightful introduction to a state that rarely fits the simple stories told about it.
Lonesome Dove, by Larry McMurty
Larry McMurtry’s Lonesome Dove begins in a dusty Texas border town, where former Texas Rangers Augustus McCrae and Woodrow Call decide to drive a herd of cattle north to Montana. Their journey draws in cowboys, outlaws, settlers, scouts, and old companions, turning what begins as an ambitious cattle drive into a sweeping story of friendship, endurance, violence, and loss. McMurtry fills the novel with memorable characters and hard-earned detail, from life along the Rio Grande to river crossings, storms, stampedes, and the constant dangers of the trail. Yet the book is more than a grand Western adventure. It also strips away much of the romance surrounding frontier life, revealing its loneliness, brutality, humor, and emotional cost while capturing the immense scale of the Texas landscape and the mythology built around it.
Guides for the Journey
Lonely Planet Texas
Lonely Planet Texas is our recommendation for a practical companion for navigating a state whose size can make trip planning feel overwhelming. The guide covers the major cities of Austin, San Antonio, Dallas, Fort Worth, and Houston while also reaching into the Hill Country, the Gulf Coast, the Panhandle, and the remote landscapes of Big Bend and West Texas. Suggested itineraries, maps, cultural background, and recommendations for restaurants, accommodations, museums, music venues, outdoor adventures, and lesser-known stops help travelers shape a trip around their own interests. It is especially useful for anyone planning a Texas road trip and trying to understand how the state’s widely scattered regions fit together.
Food, Art & Culture
The Homesick Texan Cookbook, by Lisa Fain
The Homesick Texan Cookbook began with Lisa Fain’s attempt to recreate the flavors she missed after leaving Texas for New York City. A seventh-generation Texan, Fain draws on family memories and regional traditions for more than 125 recipes, including cheese enchiladas, breakfast tacos, chicken-fried steak, chili, kolaches, flour tortillas, and pecan pie. Her stories explain why these foods matter, connecting meals to Friday-night football, family farms, neighborhood restaurants, holiday gatherings, and the experience of longing for home from far away. The book reaches well beyond barbecue to show how Mexican, Southern, Czech, German, and other influences have helped shape the state’s remarkably varied food culture. Part cookbook and part love letter, it offers a warm and deeply personal introduction to Texas through the dishes its people continue to cook, share, and miss when they leave.
Austin to ATX, by Joe Nick Patoski
In Austin to ATX, longtime Texas writer Joe Nick Patoski traces how a relatively quiet government and university town became one of America’s most distinctive cultural centers. He follows the successive waves of hippies, musicians, artists, filmmakers, entrepreneurs, and technology workers who reshaped the city, with particular attention to the cosmic cowboy music scene, Willie Nelson’s arrival, the emergence of Austin City Limits, and institutions such as Antone’s, the Armadillo World Headquarters, and South by Southwest. Patoski also explores enduring Austin landmarks and traditions, from Barton Springs and its moonlight towers to local food, neighborhood gathering places, and the city’s devotion to individuality. Yet the book is not simply a celebration of “Keep Austin Weird.” It also examines rising costs, rapid development, traffic, and the uneasy transition from a proudly eccentric city into the globally recognized ATX—capturing both what Austin gained and what it risked losing along the way.
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