A look at the music and musicians that make up an important part of the Texas Book Festival. Photos by Steve Hopson. If you can't view the Flash slideshow above, an alternate version appears after the jump.......

Image from SpyYard Texas Book FestivalSaturday November 3 - Sunday, November 4Downtown Austin [map]Free[info]We didn't think ten tips for the Texas Book Festival were enough, so here are ten more to help complicate things and confuse you you navigate the throngs of bibliophiles stalking the Austin streets this weekend. Keep in mind that seating and space is limited at most of these events. Arrive early and often! Saturday 10:00 - 10:45 Kristin Gore (Senate Chamber)......

This weekend, while many of our friends are shaking their fists across town at the Fun Fun Fun Fest, the bookworms among us will climb the Capitol steps to get our “shhh!” on at the Texas Book Festival. We’ve waited all year for this, the biggest literary event in Austin. All the great local writers will be on hand, along with a smattering of nationally recognized authors. For anyone looking for a thorough introduction to......

We have a big crush on Tom Perrotta. We lurve the tales he crafts about ordinary people who end up in extraordinary predicaments because they just can't seem to bring themselves to say what they are thinking, even when knowing that it would save them a boat load of grief. We identify with being well-intentioned but sometimes ill-advised and from time to time believe that our own inner monologue is actually the narration for......

Usually, street closures around the Capitol hail the arrival of one of Austin's many street festivals, where you can listen to a wishy-washy blues-rocker do his best to channel Stevie Ray Vaughn while you eat a turkey leg amongst a sea of fanny-packed families and homemade jewelry vendors. But once a year it means it's Texas Book Festival time. As literary events go in this town, it is the big one. For two days......

Highlights for this week: The Royal Family bids adieu to the east side with a giant Halloween bash, featuring DJ sets by Stay Gold, a costume contest, and a whopping 75% off the entire store inventory The Blanton Museum of Art opens up afterhours on Friday for its monthly B scene, with art from the American West and music by the Unfortunate Heads and DJ Spooky Texas Fun Fun Fun Fest takes over Waterloo Park......

Trustees at the Westbank Community Library recently announced that their new branch, scheduled for opening sometime next year, will be named in honor of first lady Laura Bush. A former school teacher, Mrs. Bush earned a reputation for being a strong proponent of public literacy projects while her husband was the governor of Texas. In 1995, she established the Texas Book Festival. The year after that, she helped create the Family Literacy Initiative for Texas,......

Looking for some extracurricular, non-Barack Obama-related Texas Book Festival fun? The Gallery at the Continental Club will be hosting The Lolita Update: The Romantic Devastations of Youth in Fiction on Saturday night at 8:00pm. Mark Binelli, Rolling Stone contributing editor and author of Sacco and Vanzetti Must Die!, will be opening with a vaudevillian skit involving anarchists and knives. The evening’s centerpiece is a panel discussion concerning young love, adolescence, and fiery loins. The panel......

As festivals go, the Texas Book Festival is probably one of the most consistent we have in Austin. For the past couple of years, Clay Smith–the festival’s literary director–has sought out and scored some of the most notable figures on the nation’s book scene. This year is no exception as the festival is sporting some very prominent names. The festival “kicks-off” on Thursday night (7pm) at the Harry Ransom Center where Alan Furst will be......

What a possible travesty! Might the Texas Commission on the Arts -- provider of grants, information, and technical assistance to artists and arts organizations in visual arts, theatre, dance, music, media and literature -- be destroyed? The organization, which has been the primary source of governmental funding of the arts in Texas for over forty years, was under the Sunset review this year, a process all state agencies undergo every 12 years to determine whether......