Books like Armadillo World Headquarters — picked by fans

This is one of the books that had me inserting an unsolicited “did you know that...” into just about every conversation I had while reading it. Terry Allen is a singular visual and musical artist whose story exemplifies what a rich and contrarian place Texas is. 

I knew something of what I might find in a Terry Allen biography, and yet there’s so much more: 1950s Lubbock wrestling promoters and Thai psychedelic bands, David Byrne and Marcel Duchamp, and, most compellingly, the lifelong love of partners Terry and Jo Harvey Allen. I cannot imagine many authors up for the task.

Brendan Greaves expertly delivers as one of those rare characters who understands that Allen’s roles in fine art and country music are not only on equal footing but of a piece. Greaves also oversaw the masterful reissue of Allen’s iconic albums Juarez and Lubbock on Everything, which makes it all… show more.

Tara Lopez suggests something new, prioritizing punk’s diverse expression over its tired origin myths. By turning our attention to the 1990s El Paso scene that produced bands like At the Drive-In, Lopez gives us a granular, expressive take on all the things that draw us to punk: its liberatory potential, DIY ethos, and ability to impact individual lives.

Through accessible oral histories, we get a sense of how vital punk rock could be against the backdrop of border politics and in a scene off the beaten path where DIY takes on new meanings. As a punk-curious 90s adolescent myself who listened in on El Paso from Austin, Dallas, and South Texas, this account resonated deeply—there was much that was familiar, but even more to learn. 

If the Armadillo World Headquarters is one central node of countercultural country music in Texas, Willie Nelson’s Fourth of July Picnics was the other. Where the Armadillo closed down in 1980, though, Willie’s picnics persist as an annual institution to this day. Author Dave Thomas has extensively researched the phenomenon and crafts its half-century history well.

The resulting volume is a riveting account that uses the sun-baked Texas ritual as a launching pad for stories encompassing all of America. A newspaper journalist, Thomas has an eye for detail and an ear for turns of phrase that kept me turning the pages long after I should have turned out the lights. If you ever wanted to read about a sort of country music, Woodstock Groundhog Day, this is that book.

Lead Belly is a ghost that haunts all of American music. His voice is at the center of Bob Dylan’s folk revival as much as it is behind the Beatles’ British Invasion. When Nirvana made their final live recording, they closed with a Lead Belly tune, Kurt proclaiming that Lead Belly was his favorite artist. And yet, when most people talk about Lead Belly, they are repeating lore propagated by a small group of white folklorists and gatekeepers rather than seeing Lead Belly—that is, Huddie Ledbetter—as a full historical individual with agency in his own story. 

In this deeply researched account, Curran corrects the record. I was riveted by her ability to re-center Ledbetter and draw a complex portrait of the man while also placing him within the wider context of racial exclusions and white supremacy in the midcentury music industry and academy. Much of the world’s popular and vernacular… show more.

Taking us inside the artist balls, music halls, and into the hidden bohemian enclaves of Paris, Kerley examines the myriad ways that the sexualized female body was commodified and spectacularized at the turn of the twentieth century. At this time, the nude female body reigned supreme as a subject of fine art as well as on the commercial stages of the bustling metropolis. Nude women were everywhere, even as respectable women were increasingly told to cover up. How to reconcile the contradiction between woman as housewife, woman as a harlot? This is a central question of Kerley’s beautifully written, thoughtful book.

Who doesn’t like to eat something yummy? But do you ever think about how this food came about? The serendipitous events that led to the creation of a favourite snack – nachos – begin with a Mexican boy, Ignacio Anaya. He loved to eat and cook and was nicknamed . . . Nacho. One day, when asked to create a snack at short notice at a restaurant, Ignacio used whatever he had to hand – corn tortillas, cheddar cheese, and jalapeño peppers. His creation soon became a favourite, and now global, snack – nachos. This delicious true story will inspire young readers to create spontaneously with whatever ingredients are available, and to discover how being inventive in the kitchen, just like this young chef, can be heaps of fun!

I’m cheating here a bit. I know Kathy and I like her a lot. Unlike me, she is a genius. I don’t need to tell any of her readers that. She is a well-respected forensic anthropologist who goes out of her way to uncover the secrets that the remains conceal. She writes about bones with the same affection we usually reserve for loved ones. I would be delighted to have her run her massive intellect over my skeleton when I’m gone.

Cheffes explores the lives and the challenges facing female chefs and chefs-in-training in Lyon, France.

It also provides compelling first-hand experiences of the author who went through training while pregnant as well. Black’s account of the tribulations of professional female "cheffes" against a background of prejudice and harassment seemed very relevant to our contemporary discussions.

But what really stood out for me about this is that she contextualizes the story within the history of Lyon, famous both for its cuisine and for its legendary female cheffes. Black ties together past and present beautifully in her account, giving a real sense of continuity and change in the food world.

This was a feel-good read about a 3-generation rivalry between two sisters in a small town involving fried chicken. (You cannot go wrong with southern food in a novel, I’m just saying.)

What I thoroughly enjoyed about this book was how the plot got thicker and thicker, revealing the backstory throughout the story in a way that made me #TeamAmanda one minute and #TeamMae the next. I like digging deep into a character’s life, and this one did so in a way that made me sympathetic to both sisters, rooting for their reunion until the very end.

I’m trying my best not to give away the ending…suffice it to say; it helped me reframe my thinking around getting to the heart of a long feud that started before you even got here.

When I think of Maine, I think of mill towns. When I think of mill towns, I think of Empire Falls. And to consider Russo’s titular town is to consider what happens to a community when its once-lucrative mills are abandoned.

I have witnessed it repeatedly through the years, all around the state of Maine—first our mills go out of business, then the towns that grew around those mills gradually, inexorably decline. Russo captures this struggle, creating characters as real as the millworkers I grew up with.

He also emphasizes a strange thing that happens in these blue-collar communities: even though the people who live there know their town will never be as it once was, most of them still can’t bring themselves to leave.