Ma Ferguson Featured in Texas Highways

The August issue of Texas Highways has an article about Miriam “Ma” Ferguson. Ma was the second woman in the United States to take an oath to office and the first female governor of Texas. The first time she ran for office she didn’t know until her husband announced her candidacy to the press. She told voters that said she would follow the advice of her husband and Texas thus would get "two governors for the price of one." As a governor for two terms, she tackled some of the tougher issues of the day.

To learn more about Ma Ferguson, read Hood, Bonnet, and Little Brown Jug: Texas Politics, 1921-1928.

" Captures the rough 'n' tumble nature of Texas politics in the 1920s when three main issues--the Ku Klux Klan (Hood), `Ma' Ferguson (Bonnet), and Prohibition (Little Brown Jug)--were the focus of attention. . . . the Texas political state, always fascinating and colorful, comes to life in Brown's book." --Southern Historian

25 years later: Lonesome Dove

This month's Texas Monthly features a cover story about the 25th anniversary of Lonesome Dove. It is characterized as "our Gone with the Wind," an enduring tale of adventure, friendship and the western frontier. For more on the Texas Monthly cover story, click here.

TexasMonthlyReads is a new blog by John Spong and magazine that welcomes Larry McMurty's novel as its first review. Spong writes that "they were able to explain it in terms of the history of Texas, the myth of the West, and McMurtry's career. It was like being back in a college lit class, and almost as much fun as rereading the book."

University of North Texas Press, one of the Texas A&M University Press' consortium partners, has the first major book in twenty years to examine the life and work of Texas' foremost novelist. Mark Busby's Larry McMurtry and the West: An Ambivalent Relationship is available here.

Related titles that may be of interest:

Larry McMurtry and the Victorian Novel by Roger Walton Jones