Here's a small sampling of recent and forthcoming titles from five of Texas's university presses. Click through to learn more, or to order from the publishers' websites.
Texas A&M University Press
Houston Cougars in the 1960s: Death Threats, the Veer Offense, and the Game of the Century
Robert D. Jacobus
Jacobus tells the gripping story of the coaches, athletes, and supporters who blazed a trail not only for athletic success but also for racial equality in 1960s Houston. $29.95 cloth
Tattooed on My Soul: Texas Veterans Remember World War II
Edited by Stephen M. Sloan, Lois E. Myers, and Michelle Holland
The editors bring together seventeen of the most compelling narratives of World War II veterans from Baylor’s extensive collection of interviews, creating a mosaic of those critical years. $29.95 cloth
12 Texas Aggie War Heroes: From World War I to Vietnam
James R. Woodall; foreword by Thomas G. Darling
Woodall tells the stories of 12 servicemen—among tens of thousands of Aggies who served in the nation’s military and stand out as singular examples of bravery and heroism. $29.95 cloth
Forthcoming fall 2015
Texas Christian University Press
Danny Garrett
Danny Garrett began creating music poster art at the same time that such art began to chronicle the establishment of the Austin music scene in the early 1970s. Garrett richly and poignantly details the history of the music, musicians, and venues that spread the surprising harmony of “the Austin Sound.” $29.95 paperback
Chili Queen
Marian L. Martinello
It’s 1886, and the Perez family is struggling to make a living off their chili stand on Military Plaza in San Antonio. Seventeen-year-old Lupe works to turn things around. Facing obstacle after obstacle, Lupe must act boldly to save the family business. Chili Queen is full of true tales of trail drives, corridos, maps, photos, and recipes. $22.95 paperback
The Garden of Eden: The Story of a Freedmen’s Community in Texas
Drew Sanders
The Garden of Eden neighborhood in Fort Worth has endured for over a century as a homeplace for freed African American slaves and their descendants. The great-great-grandson of one such family, Drew Sanders recounts engaging tales of his family’s life against the backdrop of Fort Worth and Tarrant County history. $24.95 paperback
Texas Tech University Press
Carrying the Black Bag: A Neurologist’s Bedside Tales
Tom Hutton, M.D.
During his thirty-plus years of practicing in West Texas and Minnesota, physician and neurologist Tom Hutton discovered that a doctor’s best teachers are often his patients. Carrying the Black Bag invites readers to experience what it is like to be a doctor’s hands, eyes, and heart. $27.95 hardcover
Finding the Great Western Trail
Sylvia Gann Mahoney; foreword by Ray Klinginsmith
The Great Western Trail is a nineteenth-century cattle trail that originated in northern Mexico, traversed the United States for some two thousand miles, and terminated after crossing the Canadian border. Finding the Great Western Trail documents the first multi-community effort made to recover evidence and verify the route of the Great Western Trail. $34.95 hardcover
Gail Folkins; foreword by Andy Wilkinson
A memoir of home, nature, and change in the American West, Light in the Trees makes cultural and environmental topics personal through a narrator’s travels between past and present, rural and urban. Gail Folkins explores challenges of the natural world, navigating new versions of home and self along the way. $35.00 hardcover
University of North Texas Press
Anshel Brusilow and Robin Underdahl
Brusilow worked with the Cleveland and Philadelphia Orchestras before conducting then-troubled Dallas Symphony Orchestra and founding their pops series. Brusilow later directed conducting programs at UNT and SMU. Tinged with humor and heartache, Shoot the Conductor is an inspiring story of a working-class immigrant in a tough arena. $29.95 hardcover
Tales of Texas Cooking: Stories and Recipes from the Trans-Pecos to the Piney Woods and High Plains to the Gulf Prairies
Edited by Frances B. Vick
Forthcoming December 15, 2015
This latest Texas Folklore Society publication contains stories and more than 120 recipes from long ago and yesterday, organized by the ten Texas vegetation regions. Herein you’ll find Senator Kay Bailey Hutchinson’s Family Cake, Hank the Cowdog’s John Erickson’s memories of sassafras tea, and Sam Houston’s barbecue sauce.
A History of Fort Worth in Black & White: 165 Years of African-American Life
Richard F. Selcer
Forthcoming November 15, 2015
A history of Fort Worth’s black community that ranges from the beginning with Ripley Arnold and the early settlers to current battles over education, housing, and city planning representation. The sidebars on African Americans of note make it appealing as a school text as well as for the general reader. $29.95 hardcover
University of Texas Press
Ray Benson and David Menconi
A who’s who of American popular music fills this lively memoir, in which Ray Benson recalls how a Philadelphia Jewish hippie and his bandmates in Asleep at the Wheel turned on generations of rock and country fans to Bob Wills–style Western swing.
Forthcoming October 1, 2015; $24.95 hardcover
Freddie Steinmark: Faith, Family, Football
Bower Yousse and Thomas J. Cryan
A new biography of legendary University of Texas football player, Freddie Steinmark, whose courage on the field and battling cancer inspires not only the Longhorn nation, but people everywhere. See the major motion picture My All American this November inspired by Freddie Steinmark story. Available now; $24.95 hardcover
Picturing Texas Politics: A Photographic History from Sam Houston to Rick Perry
Chuck Bailey, with historical text by Patrick Cox
With rare, previously unpublished photographs and iconic images of politicians from the state’s founders to Ann Richards, George W. Bush, and Rick Perry, this is the first-ever photographic album of Texas politicians and political campaigns. Available October 1, 2015; $45.00 hardcover
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