Discover New Fall Reads From the Longhorn Universe

By Alcalde Staff in 40 Acres, Good Reads, Sept | Oct 2022 on September 1, 2022 at 7:00 am | No Comments

BORN TO SHINE 

Do Good, Find Your Joy, and Build a Life You Love 

by Kendra Scott 

A familiar name in Austin and in jewelry stores around the world, Kendra Scott is a self-made millionaire who attended a year at Texas A&M before starting a business in her spare bedroom. In Born to Shine, she documents every misstep and failure in a vulnerable but humorous biography, starting from her humble beginnings in small-town Wisconsin. Scott is now a professor of practice at UT’s College of Fine Arts and helps give expanded opportunities to women in business through the university’s Kendra Scott Women’s Entrepreneurial Leadership Institute.  

PAINTED CLOTH 

Fashion and Ritual in Colonial Latin America 

edited by Rosario I. Granados 

Appearing at the Blanton Museum of Art now through January 2023, “Painted Cloth” is an exhibition organized by Granados showcasing textiles produced in Bolivia, Mexico, Peru, and Venezuela in the 1700s. The collection is also on display in this accompanying catalog, which further explores the production and societal role of these lavish garments. At the Blanton Museum, Granados holds the role of Marilynn Thoma Associate Curator, Art of the Spanish Americas. 

COUNTRY OF ORIGIN 

by Dalia Azim 

The debut novel from the manager of special projects at the Blanton Museum, Country of Origin recounts the journey of a fictional family’s migration from Egypt to Canada in the 1970s. The book opens in Cairo in 1952 with the city ablaze and the main character questioning her own independence before fleeing across the ocean. Azim, who moved to New York City one month before 9/11, wrote the multigenerational saga with the desire to see more relatable, everyday Middle Eastern characters represented in literature. 

THE DEVIL TAKES YOU HOME 

by Gabino Iglesias, PhD ’16 

Reluctant hitman Mario is buried in debt and sent to hijack a shipment of cash from the Mexican cartel. He soon finds himself amid an underworld of horrors and nightmarish encounters in a thriller that wrestles with demons from this world and beyond. Coming from Austin-based teacher and critic Iglesias, the book uses his award-winning blend of genres he describes as “barrio noir.”