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The Dallas Morning News Points Summer Book Club

The third annual Dallas Morning News Points Summer Book Club has chosen Bryan Burrough's latest book, "The Big Rich: The Rise and Fall of the Greatest Texas Oil Fortunes."

By Nicole Stockdale

It's hard to imagine a Texas without oil; the vast reserves under our soil are as much a part of the state today as ranches and cowboy boots. That's one reason why The Dallas Morning News Points Summer Book Club chose Bryan Burrough's "The Big Rich: The Rise and Fall of the greatest Texas Oil Fortunes" for its third annual event.

Burrough, who will be speaking at the 2010 Mayborn conference, is a special correspondent at Vanity Fair and the author of five novels. ("Barbarians at the Gate" made it to the top of the New York Times Bestseller list, and "Public Enemies," the story of John Dillinger and the birth of the FBI, was just made into a movie starring Johnny Depp.) He started his reporting career at The Wall Street Journal, working for George Getschow, the Mayborn Conference Writer in Residence. Getschow will be leading the on-line discussion of Burrough's book.

"The Big Rich" is a finely crafted tale about the hard-scrabble rise of  Texas' Big Four oil barons, Dallas' H.L. Hunt and Clint Murchison, Fort Worth's Sid Richardson and Houston's Roy Cullen. Through hard work, ingenious schemes and a good bit of luck, these larger-than-life personalities created larger-than-life fortunes, and how they spent their money is even more interesting than how they made it.

The book club discussion begins July 26 at dallasnews.com/bookclub, with Burrough serving as a key blogger throughout the week. And on Aug. 1, the event will wrap up with a Q&A session with Burrough in Dallas. Details on RSVP'ing will be available on the book club blog.

Continue reading at: http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/news/localnews/stories/DN-mong_letter_12ent.ART.State.Edition2.4bee6a4.html