Left out...

two from Shawn's stash:



The Selected Stories of Patricia Highsmith (Norton)

Lone Star Literature: From the Red River to the Rio Grande, edited by Don Graham* (Norton)



*I had a class with Don Graham as an undergrad in Austin. He was one of my favorite professors. I remember him saying once that "compared to Austin, I think Paris is a hick town," in his unapologetic twang. The Norton page doesn't list many of the authors, but it's all prose, from Molly Ivins to O. Henry, Katherine Anne Porter to Dave Hickey, Donald Barthelme to Kinky Friedman.** Patricia Highsmith was also a Texan, so it's seems odd she's not included here, but Norton has reissued most of her short stories in the collection listed above and in Nothing that Meets the Eye: The Uncollected Stories. In fact, they've designed a whole web site for her. And the movies haven't hurt. (The Talented Mr. Ripley and Strangers on a Train are both based on her books.)



**Thinking of Tom Beckett's recent post (03/21/04--can't get his archive anchors to work for me) on Kinky Friedman, I've been remembering his reading at the bookstore where I used to work in Austin, in like 1994 or so. Big fat cigar in his mouth, lit, despite the fact that one does not generally smoke in a bookstore. He played guitar and handed out custom Kinky guitar picks to the pretty girls. I still have one around here somewhere. He's a laugh riot.



What am I doing up so early? Can't you hear that lightning?