In Sutherland Springs, Texas, Richard B. McCaslin explores the rise and fall of this rural community near San Antonio primarily through the lens of its aspirations to become a resort spa town, because of its mineral water springs, around the turn of the twentieth century. Texas real estate developers, initially more interested in oil, brought Sutherland Springs to its peak as a resort in the early twentieth century, but failed to transform the farming settlement into a resort town. The decline in water tables during the late twentieth century reduced the mineral water flows, and the town faded. Sutherland Springs’s history thus provides great insights into the importance of water in shaping settlement. Beyond the story of resort spa aspirations lies a history of the community and its people itself. McCaslin provides a complete history of Sutherland Springs from early settlement through Civil War and into the twentieth century, its agricultural and oil-drilling exploits alongside its mineral water appeal, as well as a complete community history of the various settlers and owners of the springs/hotel.

A NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK OF 2019 * BARNES & NOBLE DISCOVER GREAT NEW WRITERS PICK * OPRAH MAGAZINE SUMMER 2019 READING LIST SELECTION * NEW YORK TIMES EDITOR'S CHOICE “A soul-shaking chronicle of the 2015 Charleston massacre and its aftermath... [Hawes is] a writer with the exceedingly rare ability to observe sympathetically both particular events and the horizon against which they take place without sentimentalizing her subjects. Hawes is so admirably steadfast in her commitment to bearing witness that one is compelled to consider the story she tells from every possible angle.” —The New York Times Book Review A deeply moving work of narrative nonfiction on the tragic shootings at the Mother Emanuel AME church in Charleston, South Carolina from Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Jennifer Berry Hawes. On June 17, 2015, twelve members of the historically black Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, South Carolina welcomed a young white man to their evening Bible study. He arrived with a pistol, 88 bullets, and hopes of starting a race war. Dylann Roof’s massacre of nine innocents during their closing prayer horrified the nation. Two days later, some relatives of the dead stood at Roof’s hearing and said, “I forgive you.” That grace offered the country a hopeful ending to an awful story. But for the survivors and victims’ families, the journey had just begun. In Grace Will Lead Us Home, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Jennifer Berry Hawes provides a definitive account of the tragedy’s aftermath. With unprecedented access to the grieving families and other key figures, Hawes offers a nuanced and moving portrait of the events and emotions that emerged in the massacre’s wake. The two adult survivors of the shooting begin to make sense of their lives again. Rifts form between some of the victims’ families and the church. A group of relatives fights to end gun violence, capturing the attention of President Obama. And a city in the Deep South must confront its racist past. This is the story of how, beyond the headlines, a community of people begins to heal. An unforgettable and deeply human portrait of grief, faith, and forgiveness, Grace Will Lead Us Home is destined to be a classic in the finest tradition of journalism.

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.

Brown and Holley are interested in place and what makes people who they are. With particular interest in how people take the hand they’ve been dealt—fate, family, circumstance, luck—and craft a life for themselves, the authors celebrate the grit and gumption of these Texas originals. Introducing quirky characters and tenacious spirits, Holley’s stories seek out the personality of the small town while Brown’s photographs capture the essence of a changing landscape. Hometown Texas aims not to be nostalgic or sentimental but rather to show readers an unknown Texas—one that, while not vanishing, is certainly on the wane. Organized into five topographical, geographic, and cultural sections—East, West, North, South, and Central—three dozen stories and more than eighty complementary images work to create a parallel narrative to reveal what Brown has described as the “collective, various, remarkably complex soul that makes Texas unique.” Hometown Texas is an exploration across miles and cultures, of well-traveled roads and forgotten byways, deep into the heart of Texas.

A powerful call to end American gun violence from celebrated poets and those most impacted Focused intensively on the crisis of gun violence in America, this volume brings together poems by dozens of our best-known poets, including Billy Collins, Patricia Smith, Natalie Diaz, Ocean Vuong, Danez Smith, Brenda Hillman, Natasha Threthewey, Robert Hass, Naomi Shihab Nye, Juan Felipe Herrera, Mark Doty, Rita Dove, and Yusef Komunyakaa. Each poem is followed by a response from a gun violence prevention activist, political figure, survivor, or concerned individual, including Nobel Peace Prize laureate Jody Williams; Senator Christopher Murphy; Moms Demand Action founder Shannon Watts; survivors of the Columbine, Sandy Hook, Charleston Emmanuel AME, and Virginia Tech shootings; and Samaria Rice, mother of Tamir, and Lucy McBath, mother of Jordan Davis. The result is a stunning collection of poems and prose that speaks directly to the heart and a persuasive and moving testament to the urgent need for gun control.

Porchlight’s Best Leadership & Strategy Book of The Year An inspiring memoir from the CEO of DICK’s Sporting Goods that is “not only entertaining but will be of great value to any entrepreneur” (Phil Knight, New York Times bestselling author of Shoe Dog), this book shows how a trailblazing business was created by giving back to the community and by taking principled, and sometimes controversial, stands—including against the type of weapons that are too often used in mass shootings and other tragedies. It’s How We Play the Game tells the story of a complicated founder and an ambitious son—one who transformed a business by making it about more than business, conceiving it as a force for good in the communities it serves. In 1948, Ed Stack’s father started Dick’s Bait and Tackle in Binghamton, New York. Ed Stack bought the business from his father in 1984, and grew it into the largest sporting goods retailer in the country, with 800 locations and close to $9 billion in sales. The transformation Ed wrought wasn’t easy: economic headwinds nearly toppled the chain twice. But DICK’s support for embattled youth sports programs earned the stores surprising loyalty, and the company won even more attention when, in the wake of yet another school shooting—at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida—it chose to become the first major retailer to pull all semi-automatic weapons from its shelves, raise the age of gun purchase to twenty-one, and, most strikingly, destroy the assault-style-type rifles then in its inventory. With vital lessons for anyone running a business and eye-opening reflections about what a company owes the people it serves, It’s How We Play the Game is “a compelling narrative…In a genre that can frequently be staid, Mr. Stack’s corporate biography is deeply personal…[Features] surprising openness [and] interesting and humorous anecdotes” (Pittsburgh Post-Gazette).

Is it My Fault? proclaims the gospel of healing and hope to victims who know too well the depths of destruction and the overwhelming reality of domestic violence. At least one in every three women have been beaten, coerced into sex, or abused in their lifetime. The effects of domestic violence are physical, social, emotional, psychological, and spiritual, and can have long-lasting distressing consequences. It is common for victims of domestic violence to suffer from ongoing depression and recurring nightmares, self-harm, such as cutting, panic attacks, substance abuse, and more. This book exists to address the abysmal issues of domestic violence using the powerful and transforming biblical message of grace and redemption. Is It My Fault? convincingly shows that the Lord is the only one who can heal the despairing victim. It deals with this devastating problem and sin honestly and directly without hiding its prevalence today.

Americans have an ambivalent relationship to guns. The debate over the role of guns and gun regulations in American society tends to be acrimonious and misinformed. DeGrazia and Hunt bring the advantages of philosophical analysis to this highly-charged issue in the service of illuminating the strongest possible cases for and against (relatively extensive) gun regulations.

This book provides readers and researchers with a critical examination of mass shootings as told by the media, offering research-based, factual answers to oft-asked questions and investigating common myths about these tragic events. When a mass shooting happens, the news media is flooded with headlines and breaking information about the shooters, victims, and acts themselves. What is notably absent in the news reporting are any concrete details that serve to inform news consumers how prevalent these mass shootings really are (or are not, when considering crime statistics as a whole), what legitimate causes for concern are, and how likely an individual is to be involved in such an incident. Instead, these events often are used as catalysts for conversations about larger issues such as gun control and mental health care reform. What critical points are we missing when the media focuses on only what "people want to hear"? This book explores the media attention to mass shootings and helps readers understand the problem of mass shootings and public gun violence from its inception to its existence in contemporary society. It discusses how the issue is defined, its history, and its prevalence in both the United States and other countries, and provides an exploration of the responses to these events and strategies for the prevention of future violence. The book focuses on the myths purported about these unfortunate events, their victims, and their perpetrators through typical U.S. media coverage as well as evidence-based facts to contradict such narratives. The book's authors pay primary attention to contemporary shootings in the United States but also discuss early events dating back to the 1700s and those occurring internationally. The accessible writing enables readers of varying grade levels, including laypersons, to gain a more in-depth—and accurate—understanding of the context of mass shootings in the United States. As a result, readers will be better able to contribute to meaningful discussions related to mass shooting events and the resulting responses and policies.