Download or read book God Save Texas written by Lawrence Wright and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2019-03-05 with total page 370 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.

Download or read book God Blessed Texas Me Too written by Brady Seals and published by . This book was released on 2020-11-09 with total page 274 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The dramatic story of '90s country music star Brady Seals, from the heights of fame with Little Texas to personal lows with anxiety, depression and divorce. Brady was the keyboardist/ singer of multi-platinum country group Little Texas and is the cousin of Dan Seals (England Dan & John Ford Coley) and Jim Seals (Seals & Crofts). Brady co-wrote the iconic radio smash "God Blessed Texas" and in this book he reveals how God not only blessed Texas, but how He blessed and guided Brady through the triumphs and tribulations that fame and fortune bring. The memoir starts at the peak of Little Texas' chart storming career and takes the reader through him leaving the band, working in the recording studio with the legendary Rodney Crowell, fronting another critically acclaimed group called Hot Apple Pie and shares some unbelievably hilarious road stories along the way. Brady writes honestly about his walk with God and talks openly about his struggles with temptation and grief. Each chapter is filled with biblical inspiration and how God's awesome power, mercy and grace was instrumental in making him the father and man he is today.

Download or read book Bob Bullock written by Dave McNeely and published by University of Texas Press. This book was released on 2012-09-21 with total page 329 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Renowned for his fierce devotion to the people of Texas—as well as his equally fierce rages and unpredictable temper—Bob Bullock was the most powerful political figure in Texas at the end of the twentieth century. First elected to the Texas House of Representatives in 1956, Bullock held several key statewide posts before capturing the lieutenant governor's office in 1990. Though nominally the state's number two official, Bullock in fact became Texas's top power broker, wielding tremendous influence over the legislative agenda and state budget through the 1990s while also mentoring and supporting a future president—George W. Bush. In this lively, yet thoroughly researched biography, award-winning journalists Dave McNeely and Jim Henderson craft a well-rounded portrait of Bob Bullock, underscoring both his political adroitness and his personal demons. They trace Bullock's rise through state government as Assistant Attorney General, Secretary of State, State Comptroller, and Lieutenant Governor, showing how he increased the power of every office he held. The authors spotlight Bullock's substantial achievements, which included hiring an unprecedented number of women and minorities, instituting a performance review to increase the efficiency of state agencies, restructuring the public school funding system, and creating the state's first water conservation and management plan.

Download or read book God Bless Florida written by Zondervan, and published by Zonderkidz. This book was released on 2016-06-07 with total page 18 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Take a tour of the most amazing landmarks and cities in Florida! God Bless Florida will show readers how special their state is and how God made such a wonderful place for us to live.

Download or read book God Bless Texas written by Zondervan, and published by Zonderkidz. This book was released on 2016-06-07 with total page 18 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Take a tour of the most amazing landmarks and cities in Texas! God Bless Texas will show readers how special their state is and how God made such a wonderful place for us to live.

Download or read book God Bless America written by Adah Nuchi and published by Little, Brown Books for Young Readers. This book was released on 2018-06-04 with total page 40 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An inspiring portrait of an immigrant and the gift he gave his new home. Persecuted as Jews, Izzy Baline and his family emigrated from Russia to New York, where he fell in love with his new country. He heard music everywhere and was full to bursting with his own. Izzy's thump-two-three, ting-a-ling, whee tunes soon brought him acclaim as the sought-after songwriter Irving Berlin. He ignited the imaginations of fellow countrymen and women with his Broadway and Hollywood numbers, crafting tunes that have become classics we still sing today. But when darker times came and the nation went to war, it was time for Irving to compose a new kind of song: A boom-rah-rah song. A big brass belter. A loud heart-melter. A song for America. And so "God Bless America" was born, the heart swelling standard that Americans have returned to again and again after its 1918 composition. This is the tale of how a former refugee gave America one of its most celebrated patriotic songs. With stirring, rhythmic text by Adah Nuchi and delightful, energetic art by Rob Polivka, readers will be ready to hum along to this exuberant picturebook.

Download or read book God Bless John Wayne written by Kinky Friedman and published by . This book was released on 2005-07-01 with total page 168 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Once again ensconced in his quaintly appointed Lower Manhattan loft, Kinky Friedman - Ace Private Eye - takes on the deceptively tame assignment of helping his pal Ratso find his true birth mother. But a job that begins with some ungenteel poking around in a dusty New York warehouse quickly leads to even untidier mayhem involving a couple of stiffs and an apparent plot to kill Ratso before he can uncover his ancestry (and possible inheritance). The trail shifts to Miami Beach, then back to Manhattan, and finally ends in the posh New York suburb of Chappaqua, where wrongs get righted, rights get read and readers get the full benefit of Kinky's irreverent wit and hilarious wisdom. It is the Kinkster at his considerable best.

Download or read book Let It Go written by T.D. Jakes and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2013-01-29 with total page 263 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Shares uplifting advice about the virtues of forgiveness, offering strategic and biblically based advice on how to achieve peace and personal fulfillment by letting go of past wrongs.

Download or read book God Bless This Mess written by Hannah Brown and published by HarperCollins. This book was released on 2021-11-23 with total page 337 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A New York Times bestseller. “My life was a complete mess, and God bless all of it. Because it’s in the messes where we learn the most—as long as we slow down enough to realize what God is trying to show us.” Suddenly in the spotlight, twenty-four-year-old Hannah Brown realized that she wasn’t sure what she wanted. After years of competing in beauty pageants, and then starring on The Bachelorette and Dancing with the Stars, she had become incredibly visible. There she was, in her early twenties, with millions around the world examining and weighing in on her every decision. She found herself wondering what it would mean to live on her terms. What it would mean to stop seeking approval from others and decide—for the first time—what it was she wanted from her own life. An honest and earnest examination of her own mid-twenties, God Bless This Mess is a memoir that doesn’t claim to have all the answers. Hannah knows she doesn’t have all the answers. What she does have is the insight of someone who has spent critical years of her youth under public scrutiny. Thus what emerges is a quarter-life memoir that speaks to the set of difficulties young women face, and how to move through them with grace. By pushing against her engrained need to seek approval, and learning how to think critically about her own goals and desires, Hannah inspires others to do the same—and to embrace the messiness that comes hand-in-hand with self-discovery (even if that sometimes means falling flat on your face). Using her time on The Bachelorette as a launching pad, Hannah doesn’t shy away from the most painful experiences of her life: moments when her faith was tested, when she feared it was lost, and the moments when she reclaimed it on national television. “And Jesus still loves me.” Fans will be inspired by the never-before-told stories: the ones about facing depression and anxiety during her pageant years, the ways in which therapy and journaling have proven to be a saving grace, and the previously private moments—both at home and on television—that have shaped the star’s outlook. Honest and emotionally urgent, God Bless This Mess is a reminder that true growth doesn’t come without strife—and it’s through those dark, messy moments that self-acceptance and love can bloom.

Download or read book The True American Murder and Mercy in Texas written by Anand Giridharadas and published by W. W. Norton & Company. This book was released on 2014-05-05 with total page 336 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Describes how a Bangladeshi immigrant, shot in the Dallas mini mart where he worked in the days after September 11 in a revenge crime, forgave his assailant and petitioned the state of Texas to spare his attacker the death penalty.

Download or read book God Bless America written by Steve Almond and published by Lookout Books. This book was released on 2011 with total page 211 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Steve Almond is one of our finest literary provocateurs. His stories are without equal in their beautiful terrible honesty. Stylish and finely wrought, these are tales with the force of life itself.

Download or read book God Bless America written by Karen Stollznow and published by Pitchstone Publishing (US&CA). This book was released on 2014-07-01 with total page 189 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: God Bless America lifts the veil on strange and unusual religious beliefs and practices in the modern-day United States. Do Satanists really sacrifice babies? Do exorcisms involve swearing and spinning heads? Are the Amish allowed to drive cars and use computers? Taking a close look at snake handling, new age spirituality, Santeria spells, and satanic rituals, this book offers more than mere armchair research, taking you to an exorcism and a polygamist compound—and allowing you to sit among the beards and bonnets in a Mennonite church and to hear L. Ron Hubbard's stories told as sermons during a Scientology service. From the Amish to Voodoo, the beliefs and practices explored in this book may be unorthodox—and often dangerous—but they are always fascinating. While some of them are dying out, and others are gaining popularity with a modern audience, all offer insight into the future of religion in the United States—and remind that fact is often stranger than fiction.

Download or read book Lawn Boy written by Jonathan Evison and published by Algonquin Books. This book was released on 2019-03-19 with total page 337 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Winner of the Alex Award “Mike Muñoz Is a Holden Caulfield for a New Millennium--a '10th-generation peasant with a Mexican last name, raised by a single mom on an Indian reservation' . . . Evison, as in his previous four novels, has a light touch and humorously guides the reader, this time through the minefield that is working-class America.” --The New York Times Book Review For Mike Muñoz, life has been a whole lot of waiting for something to happen. Not too many years out of high school and still doing menial work--and just fired from his latest gig as a lawn boy on a landscaping crew--he’s smart enough to know that he’s got to be the one to shake things up if he’s ever going to change his life. But how? He’s not qualified for much of anything. He has no particular talents, although he is stellar at handling a lawn mower and wielding clipping shears. But now that career seems to be behind him. So what’s next for Mike Muñoz? In this funny, biting, touching, and ultimately inspiring novel, bestselling author Jonathan Evison takes the reader into the heart and mind of a young man determined to achieve the American dream of happiness and prosperity--who just so happens to find himself along the way.

Download or read book God Bless America written by Sheryl Kaskowitz and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2013-07-10 with total page 224 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "God Bless America" is a song most Americans know well. It is taught in American schools and regularly performed at sporting events. After the attacks on September 11th, it was sung on the steps of the Capitol, at spontaneous memorial sites, and during the seventh inning stretch at baseball games, becoming even more deeply embedded in America's collective consciousness. In God Bless America, Sheryl Kaskowitz tells the fascinating story behind America's other national anthem. It begins with the song's composition by Irving Berlin in 1918 and first performance by Kate Smith in 1938, revealing an early struggle for control between composer and performer as well as the hidden economics behind the song's royalties. Kaskowitz shows how the early popularity of "God Bless America" reflected the anxiety of the pre-war period and sparked a surprising anti-Semitic and xenophobic backlash. She follows the song's rightward ideological trajectory from early associations with religious and ethnic tolerance to increasing uses as an anthem for the Christian Right, and considers the song's popularity directly after the September 11th attacks. The book concludes with a portrait of the song's post-9/11 function within professional baseball, illuminating the power of the song - and of communal singing itself - as a vehicle for both commemoration and coercion. A companion website offers streaming audio of recordings referenced in the book, links to videos of relevant performances, appendices of information, and an opportunity for readers to participate in the author's survey. Based on extensive archival research and fieldwork, God Bless America sheds new light on cultural tensions within the U.S., past and present, and offers a historical chronicle that is full of surprises and that will both edify and delight readers from all walks of life.

Download or read book God Bless America written by Piers Morgan and published by Ebury Press. This book was released on 2009 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Piers Morgan never really got on with America. And America had never really got on with him. But flitting between British shores and the Land of the Free, he discovers his burgeoning celebrity as the 'nasty Brit' on a top-rated US TV series gives him unprecedented access to people, places and parties on both side of the pond.

Download or read book Texas a Modern History written by David G. McComb and published by University of Texas Press. This book was released on 1989 with total page 212 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Traces the full panorama of Texas history, from its earliest Indian inhabitants to the present day, emphasizing the twentieth-century evolution from a rural to an urban society

Download or read book God Bless You Dr Kevorkian written by Kurt Vonnegut and published by Seven Stories Press. This book was released on 2011-01-04 with total page 46 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From Slapstick's "Turkey Farm" to Slaughterhouse-Five's eternity in a Tralfamadorean zoo cage with Montana Wildhack, the question of the afterlife never left Kurt Vonnegut's mind. In God Bless You, Dr. Kevorkian, Vonnegut skips back and forth between life and the Afterlife as if the difference between them were rather slight. In thirty odd "interviews," Vonnegut trips down "the blue tunnel to the pearly gates" in the guise of a roving reporter for public radio, conducting interviews: with Salvatore Biagini, a retired construction worker who died of a heart attack while rescuing his schnauzer from a pit bull, with John Brown, still smoldering 140 years after his death by hanging, with William Shakespeare, who rubs Vonnegut the wrong way, and with socialist and labor leader Eugene Victor Debs, one of Vonnegut's personal heroes. What began as a series of ninety-second radio interludes for WNYC, New York City's public radio station, evolved into this provocative collection of musings about who and what we live for, and how much it all matters in the end. From the original portrait by his friend Jules Feiffer that graces the cover, to a final entry from Kilgore Trout, God Bless You, Dr. Kevorkian remains a joy.