With this rollicking novel hailed equally for its satiric bite, its lightly borne scientific savvy, and its tender compassion for foible-prone humanity, one of America's preeminent storytellers returns to fiction. Guy Carpenter is a regular guy, a family man, an obscure NASA scientist, when he is jolted out of his quiet life and summoned to the corridors of power in Washington, D.C. Through a turn of events as unlikely as it is inevitable, Guy finds himself compromised by scandal and romance, hounded by Hollywood, and agonizingly alone at the white-hot center of a firestorm ignited as three potent forces of American culture -- politics, big science, and the media -- spectacularly collide.

Nothing beats a natural swimming hole for cooling off on a scorching summer day in Texas. Cold, clear spring water, big old shade trees, and a quiet stretch of beach or lawn offer the perfect excuse to pack a cooler and head out with family and friends to the nearest natural oasis. Whether you’re looking for a quick getaway or an unforgettable summer vacation, let The Swimming Holes of Texas be your guide. Julie Wernersbach and Carolyn Tracy highlight one hundred natural swimming spots across the entire state. The book is organized by geographic regions, so you can quickly find local places to swim—or plan a trip to a more distant spot you’d like to explore. Each swimming hole is illustrated with an inviting color photo and a description of what it’s like to swim there, as well as the site’s history, ecology, and conservation. The authors include all the pertinent info about admission fees and hours, parking, and on-site amenities such as showers and restrooms. They also offer tips for planning your trips and lists of the swimming holes that are most welcoming to families and pets. So when the temperature tops 100 and there’s nothing but traffic in sight, take a detour down the backroads and swim, sunbathe, revel, and relax in the swimming holes of Texas.

This groundbreaking classic is now available in a special anniversary edition with bonus content. Winner of the Newbery Medal as well as the National Book Award, HOLES is a New York Times bestseller and one of the strongest-selling middle-grade books to ever hit shelves! Stanley Yelnats is under a curse. A curse that began with his no-good-dirty-rotten-pig-stealing-great-great-grandfather and has since followed generations of Yelnatses. Now Stanley has been unjustly sent to a boys' detention center, Camp Green Lake, where the boys build character by spending all day, every day digging holes exactly five feet wide and five feet deep. There is no lake at Camp Green Lake. But there are an awful lot of holes. It doesn't take long for Stanley to realize there's more than character improvement going on at Camp Green Lake. The boys are digging holes because the warden is looking for something. But what could be buried under a dried-up lake? Stanley tries to dig up the truth in this inventive and darkly humorous tale of crime and punishment —and redemption. Special anniversary edition bonus content includes: A New Note From the Author!; "Ten Things You May Not Know About HOLES" by Louis Sachar; and more!

The dramatic story of the oil boom that transformed the history of a state, drawn from archives and first-person accounts. As the twentieth century began, oil in Texas was easy to find, but the quantities were too small to attract industrial capital and production. Then, on January 10, 1901, the Spindletop gusher blew in. Over the next fifty years, oil transformed Texas, creating a booming economy that built cities, attracted out-of-state workers and companies, funded schools and universities, and generated wealth that raised the overall standard of living, even for blue-collar workers. No other twentieth-century development had a more profound effect upon the state. This book chronicles the explosive growth of the Texas oil industry from the first commercial production at Corsicana in the 1890s through the vital role of Texas oil in World War II. Using both archival records and oral histories, they follow the wildcatters and the gushers as the oil industry spread into almost every region of the state. The authors trace the development of many branches of the petroleum industry: pipelines, refining, petrochemicals, and natural gas. They also explore how overproduction and volatile prices led to increasing regulation and gave broad regulatory powers to the Texas Railroad Commission.

From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of the Percy Jackson and the Olympians series Multiple-award-winning author Rick Riordan brings back smart-mouthed Texas P.I. Tres Navarre for his most dangerous case yet. If you think the academic world is deadly dull, you're half right.... When a controversial English professor is found shot to death, Tres Navarre — P.I. and Ph.D. — is the only local academic crazy enough to accept the emergency opening at the University of Texas at San Antonio. Police assure him they already have a suspect, so while they wrap up the open-and-shut case, all Tres has to do is teach three classes, grade on a curve ... and walk in a dead man's shoes. It should be an easy assignment — but one thing Tres doesn't do is easy. When the evidence in the case starts looking a little too perfect, when the killing doesn't stop, Tres takes on some extracurricular research into the heart of an assassin — and lands in a high-stakes game of gangster honor on the darkest streets of San Antonio's West Side.... Don’t miss any of these hotter-than-Texas-chili Tres Navarre novels: BIG RED TEQUILA • THE WIDOWER’S TWO-STEP • THE LAST KING OF TEXAS • THE DEVIL WENT DOWN TO AUSTIN • SOUTHTOWN • MISSION ROAD • REBEL ISLAND

A new thriller from the internationally bestselling author of Black-Eyed Susans.

Escalante Canyon is a red-walled hole in a geologic uplift (the Uncompahgre Plateau) in western Colorado. Pioneers surging west fell into this canyon hole the way gold nuggets get caught in the potholes of a stream. Like nuggets eddying against stone, they were shaped by the Canyon--rounded off, shattered, or tossed away, according to how they conformed or resisted. Indeed, treasure richer than gold settled into that hole in time; in the onrushing current of history the lifestyle--the Old West--settled and still survives there--in fact, in artifact, and in living memories.