We may not be able to connect with you in person this year, but at Texas Book Festival, we celebrate the power of literature as a community and stay connected through our love of books and reading.

Below, we’ve shared the Books Connect Texas videos of Texas Book Festival supporters and listed the featured books in the order in which they appear. We thank you for your support and encourage you to join our mission by becoming a Festival Friend today!

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We may not be able to connect with you in person this year, but at #txbookfest we celebrate the power of literature as a community and stay connected through our love of books and reading. You can join our mission by becoming a Festival Friend. Donate today at the link in our bio! Video description: An edited clip of TBF supporters passing books to each other, showing the book covers to the screen.

A post shared by Texas Book Festival (@texasbookfest) on Aug 31, 2020 at 12:15pm PDT

Video 1 Books (in order featured)

• The Charioteer by Mary Renault
• Complete Stories by Dorothy Parker
• The Essential Tales and Poems of Edgar Allen Poe
• The Long Goodbye by Raymond Chandler
• Telephone by Percival Everett
• Weather by Jenny Offill
• One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel García Márquez
• Daughter of a Daughter of a Queen by Sarah Bird

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TBF staff, volunteers, authors, and community members love to share books with each other and all of you…and we're especially passionate about putting books into the hands of kids who need them through our Reading Rock Stars and Real Reads programs, which bring books and authors to students in Title I schools statewide. Become a Festival Friend today at the link in our bio to support our outreach programs!

A post shared by Texas Book Festival (@texasbookfest) on Sep 3, 2020 at 9:14am PDT

Video 2 Books (in order featured)

• From Scratch: A Memoir of Love, Sicily, and Finding Home by Tembi Locke
• Heaven, My Home by Attica Locke
• American Born Chinese by Gene Luen Yang
• In Sunlight and in Shadow by Mark Helprin
• Dune by Frank Herbert
• A Song Below Water by Bethany C. Morrow

Shop our BookPeople page for books from this year’s Festival and Gala authors!

This September, as we are gearing up for our 25th Anniversary and virtual Festival, we are adding this month’s new releases to our to-read lists! Below, we’ve listed ten recent and upcoming reads that have caught our attention. We recommend continuing the celebration of Independent Bookstore Day, which took place in late August, and preordering and purchasing these captivating reads from your favorite independent bookstore.

Email us at bookfest@texasbookfestival.org if there are any additional books we’ve missed that you think we should share.

The Lying Life of Adults by Elena Ferrante

Released September 1st, 2020

In this new Ferrante novel, protagonist Giovanna transitions from childhood to adolescence to adulthood and searches for refuge and understanding in the city of Naples. This gripping, highly addictive, and totally unforgettable Neapolitan story is translated by Ann Goldstein, known for her previous translations of Elena Ferrante’s works.

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Transcendent Kingdom by Yaa Gyasi

Released September 1st, 2020

Transcendent Kingdom is a deeply moving portrait of a family of Ghanaian immigrants ravaged by depression and addiction and grief–a novel about faith, science, religion, love. Exquisitely written, emotionally searing, this is an exceptionally powerful follow-up to Gyasi’s phenomenal debut. We are honored to feature Author Yaa Gyasi at this year’s Festival.

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Fifty Words for Rain by Asha Lemmie

Released September 1st, 2020

The child of a Japanese aristocrat and her African American GI lover, Nori has long felt like an outsider. From debut author Asha Lemmie comes a sweeping, heartrending coming-of-age novel about a young woman named Nori’s quest for acceptance in post-World War II Japan.

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Homeland Elegies: A Novel by Ayad Akhtar

Coming: September 8th, 2020

Author Ayad Akhtar writes a deeply personal work about identity and belonging in a nation coming apart at the seams. Homeland Elegies blends fact and fiction to tell an epic story of longing and dispossession in the world after 9/11. Part family drama, part social essay, and part picaresque novel, the story of a father, a son, and the country they both call home.

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A Better Man: A (Mostly Serious) Letter to My Son by Michael Ian Black

Coming: September 15th, 2020

Honest, funny, and hopeful, one of this year’s featured authors, Michael Ian Black skillfully navigates the complex gender issues of our time and delivers a poignant answer to an urgent question: How can we be, and raise, better men?

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Grown by Tiffany D. Jackson

Coming: September 15th, 2020

In this heart-wrenching Young Adult Mystery, Enchanted Jones wakes up with blood on her hands and zero memory of the previous night. Who killed R&B artist Korey Fields? In her pursuit of the truth, she discovers behind Korey’s charm and star power was a controlling dark side. Now he’s dead, the police are at the door, and all signs point to Enchanted.

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Watch Over Me by Nina LaCour

Coming: September 15th, 2020

Recent high school graduate, Mila is used to being alone. So when she’s offered a teaching job and a place to live on an isolated part of the Northern California coast, she immediately accepts. Maybe she will finally find a new home—a real home. The farm is a refuge, but it’s also haunted by the past. And Mila’s own memories are starting to rise to the surface.

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Never Look Back by Lilliam Rivera

Coming: September 15th, 2020

Featuring contemporary Afro-Latinx characters, Rivera writes a Young Adult retelling of the Greek myth Orpheus and Eurydice. Eury comes to the Bronx as a girl haunted after losing everything in Hurricane Maria. Pheus is a golden-voiced, bachata-singing charmer, ready to spend the summer on the beach with his friends, serenading his on-again, off-again flame. That changes when he meets Eury. All he wants is to put a smile on her face and fight off her demons. A touching story of first love, Eury and Pheus must fight for each other and their lives.

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Conditional Citizens: On Belonging in America by Laila Lalami

Coming: September 22nd, 2020

Author Laila Lalami recounts her journey from Moroccan immigrant to U.S. citizen, using her experience as a lens for her exploration of the rights, liberties, and protections that are traditionally associated with American citizenship. Conditional citizens, she argues, are all the people with whom America embraces with one arm and pushes away with the other.

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Jack by Marilynne Robinson

Coming: September 29th, 2020

The story of John Ames Boughton, the loved and grieved-over prodigal son of a Presbyterian minister in Gilead, Iowa, a drunkard and a ne’er-do-well. In segregated St. Louis sometime after World War II, Jack falls in love with Della Miles, an African-American high school teacher, also a preacher’s child, with a discriminating mind, a generous spirit and an independent will.

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Additional September 2020 releases on our to-read lists:

• Booklist Queen: The Most-Anticipated Upcoming Book Releases
• Bookweb: The September 2020 Indie Next List Preview
• The New York Times: 15 Books to Watch For in September

We’re so excited to share the details of our First Edition Literary Gala with all of you!

Like our 2020 Festival, the annual Gala will be completely virtual this year. Held on November 6 at 7:30 p.m., this year’s virtual evening will feature some of the most notable authors in publishing, including acclaimed novelist and memoirist Nick Hornby, National Medal of Arts recipient Julia Alvarez, and Pulitzer Prize-winning author and former United States Poet Laureate Natasha Trethewey. Comedian and author Michael Ian Black will emcee the virtual evening.

Every year, the Texas Book Festival gala is a can’t-miss event,” says Sarah Queen, TBF Board of Directors Chair. “That still holds true for this year’s Virtual Gala, and we’re excited that the virtual program will allow our friends across Texas and beyond to join us in supporting literacy and literary programming in Texas.”

This year, Gala attendees will partake in the exclusive program from the comfort of their homes. Each ticket and sponsorship comes with access to the virtual program and to headlining ticketed author sessions during the Festival, as well as other literary favors and benefits. The Gala will also feature a virtual silent auction with exceptional vacation homes, private author experiences, and other packages generously donated by local businesses and artists. Anna Hargrove and Dalton Young are this year’s Gala co-chairs.

Gala sponsorship options start at $600 for a single ticket, which includes a pass to all ticketed Festival events as well as the Virtual Gala, a printed Gala program, a Festival author book, and sponsor recognition on the TBF website. Additional sponsorship levels include a viewing gift basket with a cocktail kit or bottle of wine, snacks, guest passes to the Virtual Gala, virtual author meet-and-greets, Gala author books, virtual cooking demonstrations, and more. Find out more about the sponsorship opportunities here.

Last year’s First Edition Literary Gala raised more than $700,000 for the Texas Book Festival. Proceeds keep the annual Festival and Texas Teen Book Festival free and open to the public and fund TBF’s outreach programs. This year, TBF awarded $100,000 in grants to 42 Texas public libraries and, through its Reading Rock Stars program, provided nearly 9,300 books to students in Title I schools across Texas.

This year’s featured authors include the following:

Julia Alvarez: Julia Alvarez left the Dominican Republic for the United States in 1960 at the age of ten. She is the author of six novels, three books of nonfiction, three collections of poetry, and eleven books for children and young adults. She has taught and mentored writers in schools and communities across America and, until her retirement in 2016, was a writer-in-residence at Middlebury College. Her work has garnered wide recognition, including a Latina Leader Award in Literature from the Congressional Hispanic Caucus Institute, the Hispanic Heritage Award in Literature, the Woman of the Year by Latina magazine, and inclusion in the New York Public Library’s program “The Hand of the Poet: Original Manuscripts by 100 Masters, from John Donne to Julia Alvarez.” In the Time of the Butterflies, with over one million copies in print, was selected by the National Endowment for the Arts for its national Big Read program, and in 2013, President Obama awarded Alvarez the National Medal of Arts in recognition of her extraordinary storytelling. Her latest novel, Afterlife, the story of a retired college English teacher who finds a pregnant undocumented teenager on her doorstep, will be featured at TBF. Buy Afterlife here.

Michael Ian Black: Michael Ian Black is an actor, comedian, and writer who started his career with the sketch comedy show The State on MTV and has created and starred in many other television shows. Movie appearances include Wet Hot American Summer, The Baxter, and Sextuplets. Black is the author of several books for children, including the award-winning I’m Bored, I’m Sad, and I’m Worried and the parody A Child’s First Book of Trump. His books for adults include the memoirs You’re Not Doing It Right and Navel Gazing and the essay collection My Custom Van. Black also co-authored with Meghan McCain America, You Sexy Bitch. As a stand-up comedian, Michael regularly tours the country and he has released several comedy albums. His podcasts include Mike & Tom Eat Snacks, with Tom Cavanagh; Topics, with Michael Showalter; How to Be Amazing; and Obscure. He lives in Connecticut with his wife and two children. His book A Better Man: A (Mostly Serious) Letter to My Son, heartfelt meditation on toxic masculinity addressed to his college-age son, will be featured at TBF. Buy A Better Man: A (Mostly Serious) Letter to My Son here.

Nick Hornby: Nick Hornby is the author of several internationally bestselling novels, including High Fidelity, About a Boy, and A Long Way Down, as well as several works of nonfiction, including Fever Pitch, Songbook, and Ten Years in the Tub. He has written screenplay adaptations of Lynn Barber’s An Education, which was nominated for an Academy Award, Cheryl Strayed’s Wild, and Colm Tóibín’s Brooklyn. He lives in London. At TBF, Hornby will be presenting Just Like You, a funny, charming portrayal of a middle-aged almost-divorcee who unexpectedly falls for a younger man. Buy Just Like You here.

Natasha Trethewey: Natasha Trethewey is a former US Poet Laureate and the author of five collections of poetry, as well as a book of creative nonfiction. She is currently the Board of Trustees Professor of English at Northwestern University. In 2007 she won the Pulitzer Prize in Poetry for her collection Native Guard. Memorial Drive, Tretheway’s memoir remembering the life of her mother, who was murdered by her former stepfather when Tretheway was 19, will be featured at TBF. Buy Memorial Drive here.

TBF’s full author lineup will be revealed in mid-September. The 2020 Virtual Texas Book Festival will take place online from October 31 through November 15. 

Purchase books by this year’s Festival authors from our friends at BookPeople!

We’re so happy to announce we are partnering with Genevieve Padalecki and her Now & Gen Book Club. An actor, entrepreneur, mom, and Texan, Gen launched her Now & Gen book club this year, which reaches fans and followers around the world to spark conversation and create community among fellow book lovers.

Gen’s enthusiasm for books and desire to create thoughtful dialogue about books align so well with everything TBF does. We’re excited to collaborate with Gen on some of Now & Gen’s monthly book club picks!

Gen is also a mom of three kids so has her storytime nailed. Check out her reading one of her and her kids’ favorite bedtime books: Slinky Malinki by Lynley Dodd.

Follow Gen on social media:
Instagram – @nowandgen 
Twitter – @realGpad
Facebook – @Genevieve Padalecki

 

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I’m so excited to announce that the N&G Book Club is officially partnering with @texasbookfest! Texas Book Festival is a wonderful nonprofit that connects authors and readers and helps put books into the hands of kids who need them. Keep an eye out for TBF partner book club picks! (Watch in IGTV for subtitles!)

A post shared by Genevieve Padalecki (@nowandgen) on Aug 27, 2020 at 1:03pm PDT

The Texas Book Festival is excited to unveil fifteen authors joining the two-week Virtual Festival this fall. 

In addition to the recently announced Texas Teen Book Festival keynotes, Elizabeth Acevedo and Nic Stone, the 2020 Festival will feature acclaimed suspense novelist Dean Koontz, award-winning novelist Yaa Gyasi, comedian Michael Ian Black, activist Erin Brockovich, and National Medal of Arts recipient Julia Alvarez, among others.

The 2020 Festival will feature more than 125 authors throughout two weeks of programming starting on October 31. The Texas Teen Book Festival will take place October 31 and November 1, followed by children’s programming from November 2 through 6. Adult programming will take place the final week of the Festival, November 6 through 15. TBF’s full lineup will be revealed in September.

• Order your copy! Find all our sneak peek authors’ books at BookPeople

The full list of fifteen sneak peek authors includes:

Julia Alvarez, Afterlife

Aimee Bender, The Butterfly Lampshade

Michael Ian Black, A Better Man: A (Mostly Serious) Letter to My Son

H. W. Brands, The Zealot and the Emancipator: John Brown, Abraham Lincoln, and the Struggle for American Freedom

Erin Brockovich, Superman’s Not Coming: Our National Water Crisis and What We the People Can Do About It

Candace Bushnell, Rules for Being a Girl

Yaa Gyasi, Transcendent Kingdom

Stephen Graham Jones, The Only Good Indians

Dean Koontz, Elsewhere

Kevin Kwan, Sex and Vanity

José R. Ralat, American Tacos: A History and Guide

Richard Santos, Trust Me

Natalia Sylvester, Running

Natasha Trethewey, Memorial Drive

Kathy Valentine, All I Ever Wanted: A Rock ’n’ Roll Memoir

August is the Sunday of Summer, where the days melt and slide into one another like melting poolside popsicles and students begin to return to school (whether in person or virtually this year). Though these final summer days may feel sleepy, there are many exciting, energizing books coming out this month that we can’t wait to read. Below, we’ve listed ten recent and upcoming releases that have caught our eye.

Email us at bookfest@texasbookfestival.org if there are any additional books we’ve missed that you think we should share.

The Comeback by Ella Berman

Released August 4th, 2020

Novelist Ella Berman shares her debut work: a psychological fiction thriller that tells of a mistreated child actress who ran away in order to protect herself. Finally, she has returned, deciding it is now her time to strike back.

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You Had Me At Hola by Alexis Daria

Released August 4th, 2020

This new romantic comedy features soap opera stars Jasmine Lin Rodriguez and Ashton Suárez. With their respective careers on the line, the two actors must work together to display convincing on-screen chemistry, and to not get too distracted by one another behind-the-scenes.

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Don’t Ask Me Where I’m From by Jennifer De Leon

Released August 4th, 2020

First-generation American LatinX Liliana Cruz faces bigotry towards she and her family at her new nearly all-white school. There comes a point where Liliana must decide whether she will stand up for herself and speak her truth or risk losing what matters most.

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Lobizona by Romina Garber

Released August 4th, 2020

As an undocumented immigrant on the run from her father’s Argentine crime-family, Manuela Azul feels suffocated by her life spent running and hiding. When her family is arrested by ICE, Manuela loses her home and must call on her internal, inherited strength, which brings her closer to her Argentinian heritage.

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The Black Kids by Christina Hammonds Reed

Released August 4th, 2020

Novelist Christina Hammonds Reed shares her debut work: a bildungsroman novel narrated by Ashley Bennett, a wealthy Black teenager whose family becomes caught in the vortex of the 1992 Rodney King Riots. As protests surge, Ashley embarks on a journey of self-reckoning alongside the City of Los Angeles.

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The Death of Vivek Oji by Akwaeke Emezi

Released August 4th, 2020

In Akwaeke Emezi’s electrifying novel of family and friendship, one afternoon, a Nigerian family discovers their son’s body has been wrapped in colorful fabric and left at their front doorstep. The reader comes to understand the brilliant protagonist Vivek whose life was mysterious to nearly all but one, his high-spirited cousin, Osita.

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The Night Swim by Megan Goldin

Released August 4th, 2020

Famous for her sensational true-crime podcast and her proclivity towards justice, Rachel Krall finds a letter left on her windshield, pleading for her help. She becomes wrapped up in two unsolved small town case trials that will alter the course of her life and her work forever.

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Wandering in Strange Lands: A Daughter of the Great Migration Reclaims Her Roots by Morgan Jerkins

Released August 4th, 2020

Author Morgan Jerkins explores The Great Migration, a time between 1916 and 1970, when six million Black Americans left their rural homes in the South for jobs in cities in the North, West, and Midwest. Following in her ancestors’ footsteps, Jerkins traces their stories back 300 years and seeks to understand the event that disconnected Black Americans from their roots, their land, and their sense of identity.

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The Disaster Tourist by Yun Ko-Eun

Released August 4th, 2020

The month of August is dedicated to honoring Women In Translation. This work was authored by Yun Ko-Eun and translated from Korean into English by Lizzie Buehler. In this novel eco-thriller, protagonist Yona works as a programming coordinator for Jungle, a travel company that specializes in sending their clients to destinations that have been ravaged by disaster. After a senior colleague acts inappropriately, Yona tries to speak up, and in an effort to silence her, Jungle sends her to the remote desert island of Mui, where Yona learns she and other customers face grave, intentional danger.

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Winter Counts by David Heska Wanbli Weiden

Coming: August 25th, 2020

When justice is denied by the American legal system or the the trial council, Virgil Wounded Horse, local enforcer on the Rosebud Indian Reservation in South Dakota, is enlisted to deliver his own punishment. However, after drugs make their way from outside into the reservation and raise the stakes, raising questions of money and power, Virgil witnesses first-hand how being Native American in the twenty-first century comes at an astonishing cost.

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Additional August 2020 releases on our to-read lists:

• Bustle: August’s Most Anticipated Books, from Luster to The Comeback
• The New York Times: 13 Books to Watch For in August
• TIME: Here Are the 12 New Books You Should Read in August

In the wake of the coronavirus pandemic and today’s political climate, there has been a surge of racism against Asian Americans. Books enable us to educate ourselves and expand our worldview. Below, we’ve compiled a few resources to help ourselves and our audiences grow in awareness and responsiveness to the discrimination faced by Asian Americans across the country and enact positive change in our communities.

Email us at bookfest@texasbookfestival.org if there are any additional resources we’ve missed that you think we should share.

No Good Very Bad Asian by Leland Cheuk

Join the world of the protagonist Sirius Lee, a fictive famous Chinese American comedian. This novel follows Sirius from his poor upbringing in the immigrant enclaves of Los Angeles to the loftiest heights of stardom as he struggles with substance abuse and persistent racism despite his fame. Ultimately, he must come to terms with who he is, where he came from, and the legacy he’ll leave behind.

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Minor Feelings by Cathy Park Hong

Cathy Hong Park writes a breathtaking collection of personal essays based on her theory of “minor feelings” when American optimism contradicts your own reality – when you believe the lies you’re told about your own racial identity.

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Yellow Peril! An Archive of Anti-Asian Fear by John Kuo Wei Tchen and Dylan Yeats

Two scholars examine one of the oldest racist concepts in Western culture.

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The Myth of the Model Minority by Rosalind S Chou and John R Feagin

Sociologists Rosalind Chou and Joe Feagin analyze Asian American racial stereotyping and discrimination.

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America Is in the Heart by Carlos Bulosan

Published in 1946, this semi-autobiographical novel shares the experiences of a Filipino American writer, immigrant, and member of the working class. This novel is about the United States in the 1930s from the perspective of a Filipino migrant laborer who endures racial violence and struggles with the paradox of the American dream.

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The Making of Asian America: A History by Erika Lee

Award-winning historian Erika Lee presents the history of Asian American life in the United States.

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Native Speaker by Chang-Rae Lee

In Chang-Rae Lee’s debut novel, meet the protagonist Henry Park who tries to assimilate into American society. This novel is a story of cultural alienation. It is about fathers and sons, about the desire to connect with the world rather than stand apart from it, about loyalty and betrayal, about the alien in all of us and who we finally are.

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All You Can Ever Know: A Memoir by Nicole Chung

An incredible memoir of Chung’s adoption and her search for identity and family. From childhood, she heard the story of her adoption as a comforting, prepackaged myth. She believed that her biological parents had made the ultimate sacrifice in the hope of giving her a better life. Yet as she grew older, she wondered if the myth was actually the truth.

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Additional resources:

• Clifford Chiu in the Austin American-Statesman: We must denounce hate against Asian Americans
• TIME: Asian Americans Share Experiences of Racism During COVID-19

The Texas Book Festival is excited to announce two keynote speakers for the 2020 Texas Teen Book Festival, which will be held during the 2020 Virtual Texas Book Festival from October 31 to November 1. The 2020 Texas Teen Book Festival will feature keynote panels with authors Nic Stone and Elizabeth Acevedo. 

Clap When You Land, Acevedo’s 2020 novel written in verse, received “a standing ovation” from Kirkus. Acevedo’s The Poet X was a New York Times bestseller and won the National Book Award for Young People’s Literature, the Michael L. Printz Award, the Pura Belpré Award, the Boston Globe–Horn Book Award, and the Walter Award. She is also a National Poetry Slam champion. Buy Clap When You Land here.

Stone is a New York Times-bestselling author and former TTBF keynote speaker. Dear Justyce, a much-anticipated follow-up to her young adult bestseller Dear Martin, will be published on September 29, 2020. Stone’s middle-grade fiction debut, Clean Getaway, and the first of a series based on Marvel’s Black Panther comics, Shuri: A Black Panther Novel, were published in January. Preorder Dear Justyce here. 

The Texas Book Festival is thrilled to reveal the 2020 Festival poster by the late Austin artist Bob “Daddy-O” Wade, whose larger-than-life work is beloved by many across Texas and the United States.

Wade, who passed away last December, is best known for designing massive eclectic sculptures, including a giant iguana on the rooftop of the Lone Star Cafe in New York (which now sits atop a roof at the Fort Worth Zoo), cowboy boots that stand 40 feet tall at the North Star Mall in San Antonio, a 70-foot saxophone at a Houston nightclub, and countless other critters and symbols.

The art for this year’s poster, titled Let ‘er Rip, depicts a rodeo cowgirl atop a horned toad. Showcasing Wade’s unique mixed-media style and use of technicolor hues, the poster conveys a vintage Texas feel and, of course, Wade’s signature humor.

“I know Bob would have been thrilled to be the poster artist for the Texas Book Festival. It’s something he had always wanted,” says Wade’s wife, Lisa. “He loved going to the Texas Book Festival and walking up and down the street and in and out of the tents for hours, as well as going to talks and seeing friends. We have been involved with the Festival since the beginning.”

Before his death, Wade was hard at work on a book showcasing his artwork and installations throughout the years. Daddy-O’s Book of Big-Ass Art is set to publish November 4 and will feature more than 100 images of Wade’s most famous pieces, as well as the stories behind the art. Lisa Wade describes the book as “a cocktail party with so many Texas writers contributing a chapter about a Daddy-O piece of art that they were connected with.” You can pre-order the book here.

“Bob ‘Daddy-O’ Wade is the perfect choice for the Texas Book Festival’s 25th anniversary,” says DJ Stout, a longtime friend of Wade, TBF Board of Advisors member, and partner at the design firm Pentagram. “For decades he helped to define the Texas myth and he did it all with a playful wink of his eye. Daddy-O’s eclectic works and his love of the state were as big as Texas.”

If you love the 2020 Texas Book Festival poster, featuring Let ‘er Rip, you can pre-order a poster or T-shirt below. Make sure you leave a comment describing which color of shirt and size you would like!

Buy a poster or poster T-shirt