The culture of drink endures because it offers so many rewards: confidence for the shy, clarity for the uncertain, solace to the wounded and lonely, and above all, the elusive promises of friendship and love.

My ambition was to embrace those general qualities that Ernest Hemingway, a former newspaperman, once said should be present in all good books: 'the good and the bad, the ecstasy, the remorse and sorrow, the people and the places and how the weather was.'

There is a growing feeling that perhaps Texas is really another country, a place where the skies, the disasters, the diamonds, the politicians, the women, the fortunes, the football players and the murders are all bigger than anywhere else.

For those without money, the road to the treasure house of the imagination begins at the public library.

This is truly marvelous work full of mystery, nostalgia, joy, The Color of Whimsy.

Frank Sinatra was the voice of the 20th-century American city.

More than anything, it's a game of innocence. Politicians may come and go, but they always get booed at the ballpark.