The foibles of the Texas "lege" -- along with those of Congress and the rest of Washington -- are hilariously pilloried by Molly Ivins, Austin's resident scourge, in two collections of her syndicated newspaper columns: Molly Ivins Can't Say That, Can She? and Nothin' But Good Times Ahead. George W. Bush was a more recent target in Ivins's Shrub: The Short but Happy Political Life of George W. Bush. Austinite Lou Dubose and Jan Reid give more insight into the inner workings of Texas (and national) politics with The Hammer: Tom DeLay, God, Money, and the Rise of the Republican Congress. Serious history buffs might want to dip into Robert Caro's excellent multivolume biography of Lyndon B. Johnson, the consummate Texas politician, who had a profound effect on the Austin area.
For background into the city's unique music scene, try Jan Reid's The Improbable Rise of Redneck Rock. Barry Shank's Dissonant Identities: The Rock'n'Roll Scene in Austin, Texas, does a more scholarly take on the same topic.
William Sydney Porter, better known as O. Henry, published a satirical newspaper in Austin in the late 19th century. Among the many short tales he wrote about the area -- collected in O. Henry's Texas Stories -- are four inspired by his stint as a draftsman in the General Land Office. Set largely in Austin, Billy Lee Brammer's The Gay Place is a fictional portrait of a political figure loosely based on LBJ.
The city's most famous resident scribe, the late James Michener, placed his historical epic Texas in the frame of a governor's task force operating out of Austin. The city is also the locus of several of Austin resident Mary Willis Walker's mysteries, including Zero at the Bone and All the Dead Lie Down; it is also the setting for The Boyfriend School, a humorous novel by San Antonian Sarah Bird. Shelby Hearon, who attended the University of Texas, lovingly and humorously contrasts old and new Austin in Ella in Bloom. Her novel Armadillo in the Grass is also set in Austin.
It's only logical that the king of cyberpunk writers, Bruce Sterling, should live in Austin; he gets megabytes of fan mail each week for such books as Islands in the Net, The Difference Engine (with William Gibson), and Holy Fire. His nonfiction work, The Hacker Crackdown, details a failed antihacker raid in Austin. His latest, Tomorrow Now: Envisioning the Next 50 Years, moves him from cyberpunk to prognostication. For a unique take on Austin, check out The Great Psychedelic Armadillo Picnic: A "Walk" in Austin, a travel guide and music history of the city where the writer grew up, by Kinky Friedman -- a mystery writer, musician (his most famous band was Kinky Friedman and the Texas Jewboys), aspiring politician (he ran for governor of Texas in 2006) and all-around curmudgeon.
