March|April 2017 Good Reads

By Danielle Lopez in 40 Acres, Good Reads, March | April 2017 on March 1, 2017 at 8:00 am | No Comments

New books of interest to the Longhorn Universe

Miles and Miles of Texas: 100 Years of the Texas Highway Department 
by Carol Dawson, BA ’75, and Roger Allen Polson, BS ’83
foreword by Willie Nelson

Created as a way “to get the farmers out of the mud,” the Texas Highway Department (now the Texas Department of Transportation) has become the mastermind behind the state’s 80,000 miles of road, connecting the top of the panhandle to the Rio Grande Valley. In honor of the department’s centennial, Dawson and Polson’s book invites readers to take a trip through the politics, progress, and history of one of the state’s most important agencies.

 

Call an Audible
by Daron K. Roberts, BA ’01, Life Member

In football, an “audible” is when a quarterback calls for a sudden change in the offensive play—and that’s just what NFL coach Roberts did. With only a year left toward earning his law degree at Harvard, Roberts left school and transitioned to the NFL, eventually coaching for teams like the Kansas City Chiefs, Detroit Lions, and Cleveland Browns. Now the founding director of UT’s Center for Sports Leadership & Innovation, Roberts encourages readers to call their own audible in his debut book.

 

Fonda San Miguel: Forty Years of Food & Art
by Tom Gilliland & Miguel Ravago
foreword by Robert Rodriguez, BS ’08, Life Member, Distinguished Alumnus

Since 1975, Austin’s Fonda San Miguel has been home to the standout authentic Mexican cuisine in a city full of Tex-Mex. Stars like Francis Ford Coppola, Bruce Willis, and Robert Rodriguez have pined for their next visit to the romantic hacienda-style restaurant, with walls lined by an impressive collection of art. To celebrate their four decades in Austin, co-owners Gilliland and Ravago offer up a taste of their most decadent recipes in the reissue of their cookbook.

 

Seeing Texas History: The Bob Bullock Texas State History Museum
Introduction by Victoria Ramirez and Jan Bullock

With just one small book, Texans everywhere can hold nearly 4,000 years of state history in their hands. To mark the 15th anniversary of the Bob Bullock Texas State History Museum, the institution has published a photographic documentation of the most popular and important artifacts from more than 50 special exhibits. From Cabeza de Vaca’s La Relacion to Stevie Ray Vaughan’s guitar, the artifacts represent “all eras, regions of the state, and genres” as seen through the museum.

Tags: bob bullock, call an audible, daron k roberts, good reads, mile and miles of texas, Robert Rodriguez, Willie Nelson