Culture

Direct Quote: Helping the Blind Experience the Arts

“I’ve done audio description in a theater where people would come up to me and say, ‘What does it matter? They’re blind!’”

Ornette Coleman Documentary, Made in America, Honors a Jazz Pioneer

Filmmaker Shirley Clarke’s Ornette Coleman documentary, Made in America, honors the jazz pioneer.

Ben Sargent’s Loon Star State: Pocket Greg Abbott

Eye On Texas: Michael O’Brien Collects the Faces of Texas

Michael O’Brien’s photography in “The Face of Texas” celebrates the spirit and individuality of the state with a human mosaic.

Texas Book Festival 2014

This year’s Texas Book Festival will host the largest lineup in the festival’s storied 19 year history.

Ezra Greenspan Rescues William Wells Brown from Obscurity in New Biography

Except in households steeped in African-American history, William Wells Brown is not a household name. Ezra Greenspan hopes to change that with a new biography.

Texas Book Festival 2014: The Observer Picks

There must be a million ways to approach the 2014 Texas Book Festival. Here are the authors and events that struck our fancy.

Jeff Danziger’s The Conscience of a Cartoonist Dissects Post-9/11 America

Jeff Danziger’s The Conscience of a Cartoonist is politically spot-on and beautifully rendered, offering a fascinating peek behind the drawing board.

The Observer Review: Bret Anthony Johnston’s Remember Me Like This

Remember Me Like This is a stereotypical young literary author’s debut novel. It comes heavily hyped and praised, features beautiful prose and almost no plot, flirts with the trappings of a genre novel but dares not dirty its hands with the actual workings of one, and generally disappoints.