Steven Spielberg once said, "I like ideas, especially movie ideas, that you can hold in your hand. If a person can tell me the idea in twenty-five words or less, it's going to make a pretty good movie." Spielberg's comment embodies the essence of the high concept film, which can be condensed into one simple sentence that inspires marketing campaigns, lures audiences, and separates success from failure at the box office. This pioneering study explores the development and dominance of the high concept movie within commercial Hollywood filmmaking since the late 1970s. Justin Wyatt describes how box office success, always important in Hollywood, became paramount in the era in which major film studios passed into the hands of media conglomerates concerned more with the economics of filmmaking than aesthetics. In particular, he shows how high concept films became fully integrated with their marketing, so that a single phrase ("Just when you thought it was safe to go back in the water...") could sell the movie to studio executives and provide copy for massive advertising campaigns; a single image or a theme song could instantly remind potential audience members of the movie, and tie-in merchandise could generate millions of dollars in additional income.

NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARD FINALIST • The Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Looming Tower—and a Texas native—takes us on a journey through the most controversial state in America. • “Beautifully written…. Essential reading [for] anyone who wants to understand how one state changed the trajectory of the country.” —NPR Texas is a red state, but the cities are blue and among the most diverse in the nation. Oil is still king, but Texas now leads California in technology exports. Low taxes and minimal regulation have produced extraordinary growth, but also striking income disparities. Texas looks a lot like the America that Donald Trump wants to create. Bringing together the historical and the contemporary, the political and the personal, Texas native Lawrence Wright gives us a colorful, wide-ranging portrait of a state that not only reflects our country as it is, but as it may become—and shows how the battle for Texas’s soul encompasses us all.

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.

Rooted in tradición mexicana and infused with Texas food culture, tacos are some of Texans’ all-time favorite foods. In The Tacos of Texas, the taco journalists Mando Rayo and Jarod Neece take us on a muy sabroso taco tour around the state as they discover the traditions, recipes, stories, and personalities behind puffy tacos in San Antonio, trompo tacos in Dallas, breakfast tacos in Austin, carnitas tacos in El Paso, fish tacos in Corpus Christi, barbacoa in the Rio Grande Valley, and much more. Starting with the basics—tortillas, fillings, and salsas—and how to make, order, and eat tacos, the authors highlight ten taco cities/regions of Texas. For each place, they describe what makes the tacos distinctive, name their top five places to eat, and listen to the locals tell their taco stories. They hear from restaurant owners, taqueros, abuelitas, chefs, and patrons—both well-known and everyday folks—who talk about their local taco history and culture while sharing authentic recipes and recommendations for the best taco purveyors. Whether you can’t imagine a day without tacos or you’re just learning your way around the trailers, trucks, and taqueros that make tacos happen, The Tacos of Texas is the indispensable guidebook, cookbook, and testimonio.

Illustrations and rhythmic text celebrate edible treats that characterize Louisiana, such as beignets and po boys. Includes facts about the foods mentioned and a recipe for red beans and rice.

Like many Texans, Michael H. Marvins has been making regular pilgrimages to the Hill Country for much of his life. Traveling the back roads of the Texas Hill Country, cameras always poised for action, Marvins has captured the excitement of small-town rodeos, savored the mesquite-smoked atmosphere of local eateries, observed the daily lives of people on the land, and admired the scenic beauty of the landscape and its natural denizens. Most important, he has captured his impressions with the skilled eye of a master photographer. Popular Houston Chronicle columnist Joe Holley opens The Texas Hill Country by highlighting the many qualities that draw Marvins—and so many of the rest of us—to the Hill Country. Next, Roy Flukinger, senior curator of photography at the University of Texas’ Harry Ransom Center, discusses Marvins’s unique photographic vision and the fresh ways in which he helps us see this popular region. But the principal focus in The Texas Hill Country: A Photographic Adventure centers on Marvins’s artful images, inviting readers to share his unique perspectives on this enchanting and popular region. He takes us with him on leisurely backcountry drives and into the laughter and swirl of dance halls. His lens embraces the people, the land, and the culture that keep so many Texans—and would-be Texans—coming back to the Hill Country again and again. The author's proceeds from the sale of this book will benefit the Texas Parks and Wildlife Foundation.

Texas Jack: America’s First Cowboy Star is a biography of John B. “Texas Jack” Omohundro, the first well-known cowboy in America. A Confederate scout and spy from Virginia, Jack left for Texas within weeks of Lee’s surrender at Appomattox. In Texas, he became first a cowboy and then a trail boss, jobs that would inform the rest of his life. Jack lead cattle on the Chisholm and Goodnight-Loving trails to New Mexico, California, Kansas and Nebraska. In 1868 he met James B. “Wild Bill” Hickok in Kansas and then William F. “Buffalo Bill” Cody in Nebraska at the end of the first major cattle drive to North Platte. Texas Jack and Buffalo Bill became friends, and soon the scout and the cowboy became the subjects of a series of dime novels written by Ned Buntline.

The first history of tacos developed in the United States, now revised and expanded, this book is the definitive survey that American taco lovers must have for their own taco explorations. “Everything a food history book should be: illuminating, well-written, crusading, and inspiring a taco run afterwards. You’ll gain five pounds reading it, but don’t worry—most of that will go to your brain.”—Gustavo Arellano, Los Angeles Times “[Ralat] gives an in-depth look at each taco’s history and showcases other aspects of taco culture that has solidified it as a go-to dish on dinner tables throughout the nation.”—Smithsonian Magazine “A fascinating look at America’s many regional tacos. . . . From California’s locavore tacos to Korean ‘K-Mex’ tacos to Jewish ‘deli-Mex’ to Southern-drawl ‘Sur-Mex’ tacos to American-Indian-inspired fry bread tacos to chef-driven ‘moderno’ tacos, Ralat lays out a captivating landscape.”—Houston Chronicle “You’ll learn an enormous and entertaining amount about [tacos] in . . . American Tacos. . . . The book literally covers the map of American tacos, from Texas and the South to New York, Chicago, Kansas City and California.”—Forbes “An impressively reported new book . . . a fast-paced cultural survey and travel guide . . . American Tacos is an exceptional book.”—Taste

Movie trailers—those previews of coming attractions before the start of a feature film—are routinely praised and reviled by moviegoers and film critics alike: "They give away too much of the movie." "They're better than the films." "They only show the spectacular parts." "They lie." "They're the best part of going to the movies." But whether you love them or hate them, trailers always serve their purpose of offering free samples of a film to influence moviegoing decision-making. Indeed, with their inclusion on videotapes, DVDs, and on the Internet, trailers are more widely seen and influential now than at any time in their history. Starting from the premise that movie trailers can be considered a film genre, this pioneering book explores the genre's conventions and offers a primer for reading the rhetoric of movie trailers. Lisa Kernan identifies three principal rhetorical strategies that structure trailers: appeals to audience interest in film genres, stories, and/or stars. She also analyzes the trailers for twenty-seven popular Hollywood films from the classical, transitional, and contemporary eras, exploring what the rhetorical appeals within these trailers reveal about Hollywood's changing conceptions of the moviegoing audience. Kernan argues that movie trailers constitute a long-standing hybrid of advertising and cinema and, as such, are precursors to today's heavily commercialized cultural forms in which art and marketing become increasingly indistinguishable.