This true story of Texas millionaire Tom Slick's quest for the Abominable Snowman and other cryptids--creatures unknown to science--reveals a life made for the movies. Fascinating stories of Slick's early brushes with adventure such as his stepfather's abduction by George "Machine Gun" Kelly in 1933 and his creation of a research facility near Loch Ness are followed by his later expeditions into Nepal and the Pacific Northwest in search of the yeti and its counterpart, the Sasquatch. The story of Slick's amazing, fanatic, and driven search for the stuff of legends takes readers on a whirlwind journey from the dense temperate rainforests of Washington State to the icy peaks of the Himalayas--and shows that sometimes cryptids leave the halls of the imagination and are found and captured, as proved by the giant panda and the Komodo dragon, leaving readers to wonder what more there is to be discovered.

The major guiding principle in the life of Tom Slick was a relentless search for adventure and exploration of the unknown, sparked by his immense curiosity about everything and his willingness to embrace and investigate new ideas. He was a larger-than-life Texas oilman, entrepreneur, and explorer. He climbed mountains in the Himalayas in search of the legendary Yeti. He developed new breeds of cattle. He discovered major oil fields. He founded several research institutes in San Antonio, including the Texas Biomedical Research Institute, Southwest Research Institute, and the Mind Science Foundation. He even wrote and published on the topic of world peace in the 1950s; the Tom Slick World Peace Lectures at the University of Texas’ LBJ Library and the endowed Tom Slick Professorship of World Peace were established after his death in 1962. In this revised and expanded edition of her previously published biography, Catherine Nixon Cooke, niece of Tom Slick, has mined personal letters, family papers, archives of the institutes founded by her uncle, and other resources to expand what we know of this enigmatic, energetic adventurer. In addition to relating his better-known exploits and pursuits, Cooke delves for the first time into Slick’s shadowy connections with the world of international espionage, including clues that Slick may have been involved in certain operations and interests of the OSS and its successor organization, the CIA. Illustrated throughout with rare historic photographs, In Search of Tom Slick: Explorer and Visionary will introduce a new readership to this influential yet little known figure in modern history.

A legend among oilmen, Tom Slick was an independent operator in the truest sense. His office was his buggy during his early days of wildcatting the Mid-Continent oil field around 1910. And even after great success brought him to posher surroundings in an Oklahoma City office suite, his style remained hands-on. His impromptu deals were often brokered on street corners and over the telephone in his typical laconic style. Well into the 1920s he was the last of a breed who had no stock holders or board members to answer to, and instead "worked out of his hip pocket." Slick's extraordinary rise paralleled that of the modern petroleum industry. He began his career in the oil fields of western Pennsylvania, the birthplace of the American oil business. Before 1910, he headed west, traveling with his father and brother to the fields of Kansas to work as contract drillers. Slick met with failure in these early years, as he moved on to Oklahoma in an attempt to locate oil. In 1912 he received the financial backing to drill one more well, which turned out to be the discovery well for the vast Cushing Field. This amazing success was followed by more discoveries of fields - a frenzy of acquiring, drilling, then selling that in 1929 culminated with Slick's sale of his Oklahoma holdings in the Prairie Oil and Gas Company - up until that time, the largest sale of oil properties by an individual. In this first biography of Tom Slick, Ray Miles fleshes out the man who, despite his legendary drive - and the high-profile nature of the oil business - was exceedingly private and withdrawn. Miles relies on newspaper accounts, court and business records, correspondence, and personal interviews with family, friends, and associates to render a portrait of one of the most successful and colorful, yet elusive, businessmen of his day.

For those of us who love The Rocky and Bullwinkle Show, these names conjure up memories of some of the wittiest, most inspired, and relentlessly hilarious half-hours of animation ever produced. There was a kind of gleeful magic to the shows, a cumulative joy that transcended the crude animation and occasionally muddy sound, and it's this quality that was the essence of the legendary Jay Ward and Bill Scott. Jay Ward was the magnificent visionary, the outrageous showman who lobbied Washington for statehood for Moosylvania, and invited the press to a picnic on the floor of the Plaza Hotel's august Grand Ballroom. Bill Scott was the genial, brilliant head writer, coproducer, and all-purpose creative whirlwind, often described as the "soul" of the shows. In fact, Scott even provided the voices for most of the star characters, giving life to Bullwinkle J. Moose, Mr. Peabody, Dudley Do-Right, and George of the Jungle. From their tiny, oddball animation studio, Jay Ward Productions, they created some of the most memorable animation of all time, and gave birth to a family of characters whose undying popularity has cast them forever into the pop culture firmament. With their distinctively unorthodox, artist-friendly philosophy, Ward and Scott attracted some of the most talented writers and voice actors in the industry, and for a time, Jay Ward Productions was a kind of Camelot of cartoons. Now, through exclusive interviews with Bill Scott, Tiffany Ward, June Foray, and dozens of others intimately involved with the Ward epoch, as well as access to original scripts, artwork, story notes, letters, and memos, Keith Scott has created the definitive history of Jay Ward Productions, including episode guides and voice credits for all the Jay Ward cartoons. From the first "Hey Rocky, watch me pull a rabbit out of a hat!" to the last "Watch out for that tree!", The Moose That Roared is not only the record of a legendary chapter in animation history, but also the story of a rare and magical relationship between two artists who were wildly, exuberantly ahead of their time, and the fascinating story of the struggle to bring their vision of bad puns and talking animals to unforgettable life.

PRE-ORDER THE NEXT THRILLING MURDER MYSTERY FROM TOM HINDLE DEATH IN THE ARCTIC COMING JANUARY 2025 ____________________________________ 'Dazzling' Crime Monthly 'My kind of book!' Belfast Telegraph 'Captivating' My Weekly Magazine 'Ingenious' Crime Time 'Suspenseful' Country Life Magazine _____________________________________ November 1924. The Endeavour sets sail to New York with 2,000 passengers - and a killer - on board . When an elderly gentleman is found dead at the foot of a staircase, ship's officer Timothy Birch is ready to declare it a tragic accident. But James Temple, a strong-minded Scotland Yard inspector, is certain there is more to this misfortune than meets the eye. Birch agrees to investigate, and the trail quickly leads to the theft of a priceless painting. Its very existence is known only to its owner . . . and the now dead man. With just days remaining until they reach New York, and even Temple's purpose on board the Endeavour proving increasingly suspicious, Birch's search for the culprit is fraught with danger. And all the while, the passengers continue to roam the ship with a killer in their midst. ________________________________________________________ 'A very clever plot and a final twist which will delight Agatha Christie fans. You will love it!!!' Ragnar Jónasson 'With twist after gut-punching twist, A Fatal Crossing really is an ingenious thriller. Highly recommend' M. W. Craven 'It twists and turns like the best of Christie' - Peterborough Telegraph 'A tantalizing and captivating plot, filled with detail and texture to enhance the feeling of the halcyon days of the liners and their times' Shots Magazine 'The action unfolds at a rip-roaring pace in this perfectly executed homage to the Golden Age of crime, which features a deviously devised plot boasting a final twist worthy of Christie herself. I absolutely loved it' Anita Frank 'Twists and turns cartwheel to a blindsiding finish' Woman's Weekly 'My favourite westward Atlantic crossing detective novel is Peter Lovesey's The Fake Inspector Dew (1981), but A Fatal Crossing by Tom Hindle is a first-rate addition to the corpus [...] A very good debut novel' The Critic Murder on Lake Garda by Tom Hindle was a no.8 Sunday Times bestseller 04/02/24

Texas Hill Country is a rugged and hilly area of central Texas known for its food, architecture and unique melting pot of Spanish and European settlers. The area's rich history is filled with quirky and fascinating tales about this landscape and the animals and people who have called it home. Clay Coppedge has been gathering Texas stories for over thirty years. This collection of his favorite columns includes his best Texas-sized stories on Hill Country history. From the legend of Llano's Enchanted Rock and the true story of Jim Bowie's famous knife to one rancher's attempt at bringing reindeer to the hottest area of the country and an oilman's search for Bigfoot, Hill Country Chronicles has them all and more.

The maestro storyteller and reporter provocatively argues that what we think we know about speech and human evolution is wrong. Tom Wolfe, whose legend began in journalism, takes us on an eye-opening journey that is sure to arouse widespread debate. The Kingdom of Speech is a captivating, paradigm-shifting argument that speech -- not evolution -- is responsible for humanity's complex societies and achievements. From Alfred Russel Wallace, the Englishman who beat Darwin to the theory of natural selection but later renounced it, and through the controversial work of modern-day anthropologist Daniel Everett, who defies the current wisdom that language is hard-wired in humans, Wolfe examines the solemn, long-faced, laugh-out-loud zig-zags of Darwinism, old and Neo, and finds it irrelevant here in the Kingdom of Speech.

Analyzes Depression-era bank robbery and its most notorious figures, discussing the factors that influenced the period's crime rates, the formation and early work of the FBI, and the contributions of J. Edgar Hoover.

Atlanta magazine’s editorial mission is to engage our community through provocative writing, authoritative reporting, and superlative design that illuminate the people, the issues, the trends, and the events that define our city. The magazine informs, challenges, and entertains our readers each month while helping them make intelligent choices, not only about what they do and where they go, but what they think about matters of importance to the community and the region. Atlanta magazine’s editorial mission is to engage our community through provocative writing, authoritative reporting, and superlative design that illuminate the people, the issues, the trends, and the events that define our city. The magazine informs, challenges, and entertains our readers each month while helping them make intelligent choices, not only about what they do and where they go, but what they think about matters of importance to the community and the region.