Men of note who hail from Texas are featured, with full-body representation and three carefully researched costumes. Figures shown include key political leaders like Sam Houston, Stephen F. Austin, and Comanche leader Quanah Parker, boxer Jack Johnson, aviator Howard Hughes, movie stars Larry Hagman and Audie Murphie, musicians Willie Nelson and George Strait, and military heroes Davy Crockett and Juan Sequin. Paper doll artist Tom Tierney has penned and illustrated hundreds of paper doll books and he takes pride in meticulous research of the costumes. He has recently returned to Texas, where he is opening a Paper Doll store and museum.

Jim Gramon, a native Texas storyteller, introduces you to some of his friends: John Henry Faulk, Cactus Pryor, Allen Damron, Mason Brewer, Mody Boatright, and Ben King Green. And he shares funny Texas stories from all over the state, from the Oil Patch to the Panhandle, from the Big Bend to the Piney Woods; big towns and small (Dallas, Houston, Austin, El Paso, Terlingua, Manchaca, Cumby, Sulfur Springs, Commerce).

Famous Trees of Texas was first published in 1970 by the Texas Forest Service (now Texas A&M Forest Service), an organization created in 1915 and charged with protecting and sustaining the forests, trees, and other related natural resources of Texas. For the 100-year anniversary of TFS, the agency presents a new edition of this classic book, telling the stories of 101 trees throughout the state. Some are old friends, featured in the first edition and still alive (27 of the original 81 trees described in the first edition have died); some are newly designated, discovered as people began to recognize their age and value. All of them remain “living links” to the state’s storied past.

You have a great writing style, very credible, and entertaining. Those were dangerous times. Almost all of the guys are gone. A great book!... Doyle Brunson, Poker Hall of Fame, author. Hes as good a writer as he is a player. When it comes to poker tales...Johnny Hughes is your man.... Anthony Holden, London, President of the International Federation of Poker, author ... a captivating raconteur and avid historian...brings them to life with a unique flair and panache...(He) paints word pictures with witty, lush brush strokes reminiscent of Tom Wolfe... Paul Dr. Pauly McGuire, author ..the William Manchester of poker historians...a Hughes narrative is like lighting a lantern into the darkest recess of pokers subculture...provides the very best portrait of these unique real-life characters of anyone on record... Nolan Dalla, Media Director. World Series of Poker, author. ...the true story...of the beginnings of the phenomenon that poker has become... Crandell Addington, Poker Hall of Fame. Reading...is only paralleled by listening to him tell those stories in real time...like putting yourself in the same room as it all unfolded...when the mob ruled Las Vegas...the real stories... Ryan Sayer, OnTilt Radio, C.O.O.,and Host. www.JohnnyHughes.com

Based on a Navy SEAL's inspiring graduation speech, this #1 New York Times bestseller of powerful life lessons "should be read by every leader in America" (Wall Street Journal). If you want to change the world, start off by making your bed. On May 17, 2014, Admiral William H. McRaven addressed the graduating class of the University of Texas at Austin on their Commencement day. Taking inspiration from the university's slogan, "What starts here changes the world," he shared the ten principles he learned during Navy Seal training that helped him overcome challenges not only in his training and long Naval career, but also throughout his life; and he explained how anyone can use these basic lessons to change themselves-and the world-for the better. Admiral McRaven's original speech went viral with over 10 million views. Building on the core tenets laid out in his speech, McRaven now recounts tales from his own life and from those of people he encountered during his military service who dealt with hardship and made tough decisions with determination, compassion, honor, and courage. Told with great humility and optimism, this timeless book provides simple wisdom, practical advice, and words of encouragement that will inspire readers to achieve more, even in life's darkest moments. "Powerful." --USA Today "Full of captivating personal anecdotes from inside the national security vault." --Washington Post "Superb, smart, and succinct." --Forbes

The story of Texas is the story of struggle and triumph in a land of extremes. It is a story of drought and flood, invasion and war, boom and bust, and of the myriad peoples who, over centuries of conflict, gave rise to a place that has helped shape the identity of the United States and the destiny of the world. “I couldn’t believe Texas was real,” the painter Georgia O’Keeffe remembered of her first encounter with the Lone Star State. It was, for her, “the same big wonderful thing that oceans and the highest mountains are.” Big Wonderful Thing invites us to walk in the footsteps of ancient as well as modern people along the path of Texas’s evolution. Blending action and atmosphere with impeccable research, New York Times best-selling author Stephen Harrigan brings to life with novelistic immediacy the generations of driven men and women who shaped Texas, including Spanish explorers, American filibusters, Comanche warriors, wildcatters, Tejano activists, and spellbinding artists—all of them taking their part in the creation of a place that became not just a nation, not just a state, but an indelible idea. Written in fast-paced prose, rich with personal observation and a passionate sense of place, Big Wonderful Thing calls to mind the literary spirit of Robert Hughes writing about Australia or Shelby Foote about the Civil War. Like those volumes it is a big book about a big subject, a book that dares to tell the whole glorious, gruesome, epically sprawling story of Texas.

A collection of Courtney's columns from the Texas Monthly, curing the curious, exorcizing bedevilment, and orienting the disoriented, advising "on such things as: Is it wrong to wear your football team's jersey to church? When out at a dancehall, do you need to stick with the one that brung ya? Is it real Tex-Mex if it's served with a side of black beans? Can one have too many Texas-themed tattoos?"--Amazon.com.

“Swanson has done a crucial public service by exposing the barbarous side of the Rangers.” —The New York Times Book Review A twenty-first century reckoning with the legendary Texas Rangers that does justice to their heroic moments while also documenting atrocities, brutality, oppression, and corruption The Texas Rangers came to life in 1823, when Texas was still part of Mexico. Nearly 200 years later, the Rangers are still going--one of the most famous of all law enforcement agencies. In Cult of Glory, Doug J. Swanson has written a sweeping account of the Rangers that chronicles their epic, daring escapades while showing how the white and propertied power structures of Texas used them as enforcers, protectors and officially sanctioned killers. Cult of Glory begins with the Rangers' emergence as conquerors of the wild and violent Texas frontier. They fought the fierce Comanches, chased outlaws, and served in the U.S. Army during the Mexican War. As Texas developed, the Rangers were called upon to catch rustlers, tame oil boomtowns, and patrol the perilous Texas-Mexico border. In the 1930s they began their transformation into a professionally trained police force. Countless movies, television shows, and pulp novels have celebrated the Rangers as Wild West supermen. In many cases, they deserve their plaudits. But often the truth has been obliterated. Swanson demonstrates how the Rangers and their supporters have operated a propaganda machine that turned agency disasters and misdeeds into fables of triumph, transformed murderous rampages--including the killing of scores of Mexican civilians--into valorous feats, and elevated scoundrels to sainthood. Cult of Glory sets the record straight. Beginning with the Texas Indian wars, Cult of Glory embraces the great, majestic arc of Lone Star history. It tells of border battles, range disputes, gunslingers, massacres, slavery, political intrigue, race riots, labor strife, and the dangerous lure of celebrity. And it reveals how legends of the American West--the real and the false--are truly made.

“Full of schadenfreude and speculation—and solid, timely history too.” —Kirkus Reviews “This is a portrait of capitalism as white-knuckle risk taking, yielding fruitful discoveries for the fathers, but only sterile speculation for the sons—a story that resonates with today's economic upheaval.” —Publishers Weekly “What's not to enjoy about a book full of monstrous egos, unimaginable sums of money, and the punishment of greed and shortsightedness?” —The Economist Phenomenal reviews and sales greeted the hardcover publication of The Big Rich, New York Times bestselling author Bryan Burrough's spellbinding chronicle of Texas oil. Weaving together the multigenerational sagas of the industry's four wealthiest families, Burrough brings to life the men known in their day as the Big Four: Roy Cullen, H. L. Hunt, Clint Murchison, and Sid Richardson, all swaggering Texas oil tycoons who owned sprawling ranches and mingled with presidents and Hollywood stars. Seamlessly charting their collective rise and fall, The Big Rich is a hugely entertaining account that only a writer with Burrough's abilities-and Texas upbringing-could have written.