Looking for a good read? Here is a recommendation. I have an unusual approach to reviewing books. I review books I feel merit a review. Each review is an opportunity to recommend a book. If I do not think a book is worth reading, I find another book to review. You do not have to agree with everything every author has written (I do not), but the fiction I review is entertaining (and often thought-provoking) and the non-fiction contain ideas worth reading.
Book Review
Miles and Miles of Texas
Reviewed by Mark Lardas
July 6, 2025
“The Fifty-Year Texas Road Trip: On Assignment from Earth to Uncertain,” by Randy Mallory, University of North Texas Press, June 2025, 224 pages, $45.00 (Hardcover), $36.00 (E-book)
In 1972 Randy Mallory graduated from the University of Austin’s School of Journalism. After graduating he got a job as a “field editor” for Texas Co-Op Power magazine. He went around Texas writing articles about and taking photographs of things of interest to Texans. Later, he photographed for Texas Highways, Texas Journey, the Dallas Morning News, the Texas Historical Commission, and commercial clients, with an emphasis on all things Texas.
“The Fifty-Year Texas Road Trip: On Assignment from Earth to Uncertain,” by Randy Mallory, captures the Texas scene and his career as a photographer of Texas. It distills a six-decade career as a travel writer into a single colorful volume.
He provides four essays about his career. They explain how he got into it, his view of the people of Texas, the process he uses in his photography, and an examination of Texas, its diversity and landscape.
Each essay is fascinating. He explains how he slipping into a career he wore as a skin, and the fascination photography holds for him. He explores his connection with Texas, as a fourth-generation Texas and through interactions with the people in it during his travels. He reveals the life of a photographic freelancer over forty-five years of a fifty-year career. He discusses the different landforms and landscapes of Texas, from Galveston in the southeast coast to the Big Bend and Panhandle Plains in Texas’s west and north.
The essays are launching pads for the real meat of this book: 228 color and 6 black and white photographs. These span the length of Mallory’s career and the breadth of Texas. The photography is gorgeous.
Most capture everyday Texas. Some are humble, a broom by a rooftop swimming pool cabana, or a collection of East Texas yams. Many capture people in various occupations and pastimes. These include about any activity in which Texans participate. There are dominos players, people fishing, and people at work.
He also captures Texas’s vast and varied landscapes. Its mountain, East Texas Piney Woods, coastal plains and numerous other locations are captured. So too are iconic Texas places ranging from the McDonald Observatory to historic missions and downtowns.
Some images are whimsical, such as a Volkswagen Beatle hanging from a tree limb or a junkyard giant in Tyler. Others are meditative capturing Texas’s culture. “The Fifty-Year Texas Road Trip” is a visual delight, depicting Texas’s spirit in a colorful single volume.
Mark Lardas, an engineer, freelance writer, historian, and model-maker, lives in League City. His website is marklardas.com.