Somewhere deep in East Texas, the hunt is on, fueled by self-hate, cough syrup, white whales, massive zits, freakshows, madness, dead pets, lost children, killer coffee, rats, Satan, good times, bad people, vomit, dementia, diarrhea, sex, and clowns. Your favorite brand of disease is back in stock. Welcome to Heck, Texas.

Everyone knows that President George W. Bush is from Texas. But few of us know the role his home state plays in his presidency, and in our country. In this dual biography of man and state, Michael Lind confronts the chief crises of Bush's presidency--the economy, the Middle East, and religious fundamentalism--and traces their roots back to Texas, a state, Lind argues, that yields salient clues to the future course of our country.Widely praised as an iconoclastic and brilliant political observer, Lind, a fifth generation Texan, chronicles the ethnic clash that produced modern Texas, the well-known plundering of the state's natural resources at the hands of its elites, and finally the deep strain of "Old Testament religiosity" which, having originated in Texas, now reaches all over the globe in the form of Bush's foreign policy.In the tradition of Gary Wills's Reagan's America, Made in Texas provides a wholly original cultural history that should change the way we understand not just our president, but our country.

Thanks to the classic Dolly Parton film The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas and ZZ Top's ode "La Grange," many people think they know the story of the infamous Chicken Ranch. The reality is more complex, lying somewhere between heartbreaking and absurd. For more than a century, dirt farmers and big-cigar politicians alike rubbed shoulders at the Chicken Ranch, operated openly under the sheriff's watchful eye. Madam Edna Milton and her girls ran a tight, discreet ship that the God-fearing people of La Grange tolerated if not outright embraced. That is, until a secret conspiracy enlisted an opportunistic reporter to bring it all crashing down on primetime television. Drawn from exclusive interviews and expanded with newly uncovered information, Jayme Lynn Blaschke's revelatory exposition of the Ranch illuminates the truth and lies surrounding this iconic brothel.

All hell breaks loose when two unforgettable people discover love, laughter, passion — and a match that can only be made in Heaven. Come heck or high water, Gracie Snow is determined to drag the legendary ex-jock Bobby Tom Denton back home to Heaven, Texas, to begin shooting his first motion picture. Despite his dazzling good looks and killer charm, Bobby Tom has reservations about being a movie star — and no plans to cooperate with a prim and bossy Ohio wallflower whom he can’t get off his mind or out of his life. Instead, the hell-raising playboy decides to make her over from plain Jane to Texas wildcat. But nothing’s more dangerous than a wildcat with an angel’s heart in a town too small for a bad boy to hide.

This text explores the natural history of Texas and more than 2900 springs in 183 Texas counties. It also includes an in-depth discussion of the general characteristics of springs - their physical and prehistoric settings, their historical significance, and their associated flora and fauna.

A screenplay that predicts the future. A terrorist cult destined to destroy something they can't remember. A projectionist trying to find her way through a story she's suddenly aware she's living. A loser who always seems to be in the wrong place at the right time. And the disparate particles and people populating a slowly-collapsing, not-so-far-from-now world where movie theaters no longer exist, one percent of the population is dead, and everything we do is surveilled and advertised. This is Sunflower -- the final film by Simeon Wolpe. Readers of Sunflower, Tex Gresham's brilliant new novel, will probably find themselves thinking of Gravity's Rainbow, House of Leaves, and Infinite Jest. But in truth, Sunflower is something else, a beast with its own distinct brand of madness. Bluntly satirical of Trump-era politics, Sunflower takes you on an acid trip disguised as a conspiracy theory, working with equal skill in realist, absurdist, and metafictional modes to make sure you're lost in a funhouse you won't want to leave. In Gresham's fictional universe, the world might end while you're watching a movie about the end of the world, and maybe you wrote the script or maybe your double wrote the script, and even if the theater is filled with people who won't hesitate to blow your brains out if you laugh at all the wrong moments, it won't make any difference, since the book is filled with all the right moments. --Stephen-Paul Martin, author of The Ace of Lightning If a bodybuilder were to astral project herself into both Werner Herzog's cameraman/cinematography and Middlemarch, it would produce a morbidly rakish sunflower of the same heliotropic anti- equivalent as Tex Gresham's Sunflower. And, if an intern were to work in Gresham's library of chapters and deleted scenes, it would confuse The Library of Congress for Netflix. -Vi Khi Nao, author of Fish In Exile and The Vegas Dilemma Tex Gresham has blurred the line between satirical deconstruction of postmodern novels and sentimental love letters to cinema. Simultaneously hilarious and heartbreaking, Sunflower is an intricate mystery that will leave readers seeking to mend their broken relationships and their humanity through a shared fondness for the silver screen. Sunflower is this summer's biggest literary blockbuster hit! You'll laugh. You'll cry. You'll dissolve. --Dan Eastman, author of Watertown Sunflower is virtuosic, gargantuan, totally unafraid. Experimental and wild, beautiful and heartbreaking, serious and hilarious--I think Tex is here to stay. --Lindsay Lerman, author of I'm From Nowhere and What Are You If Paul Thomas Anderson wrote a novel based on a film by David Foster Wallace with a screenplay by Thomas Pynchon about dark Hollywood, mind-bending conspiracy, the slapstick horror of America and sheer insanity of existence, these would be some in a long line of flavors the sum total of which might come partway to encapsulating Sunflower. Hilarious, repulsive, enthralling, shocking, breathtaking, masterful-Tex Gresham's magnum opus is a novel you will use all your adjectives attempting to describe; a dense, multi-character tale in which each place and person, every moment and word, are connected through myriad layers across space and time. The effect is staggering. This book will swallow you whole then spit you back out, dazed, bewildered, transformed-hungering for more. --Philip Elliot, author of Nobody Move and Porno Valley I've tried to make Sunflower into a feature--not a Netflix series--and people called me a moron. So the least I can do is say, "Read this book and imagine it as a really good movie that I would make." Because it's so good that I wanted to make it into a movie--not a Netflix series. --Alan Smithee, legendary Hollywood direct