In My Beautiful City Austin David Heymann crafts seven masterful tales of a young architect who fails again and again to dissuade his clients from their bad decisions. So the houses he designs aid and abet the ongoing erasure of Austin's ambrosial charm. Each of these sharp and humorous stories centers around the design of a house, and in each the narrator struggles to understand why his clients want what they want -- a retiring couple needing an immense home in the middle of nature, a young family wanting a castle, a lawyer seeking to piss off his ex-wife -- and why they might want those things here. Collectively the stories serve as a portrait of a beloved place gone strangely wrong. Fueled by the dubious intentions of its inhabitants, Austin is a town growing madly while ignoring the pain of a thousand small cuts. But the book is equally about a young person trying to take fraught first steps into a career, and a place in the world. Architects aren't inherently powerful. They can only affect the world because they work at the center of a web of others whose value decisions -- strange and yet real -- actually drive change.Because the humor in the stories arises from the narrator's inability to alter absurd circumstances, the stories are immediately accessible to a broad readership, including adults of all ages, readers interested in Austin (a source of fascination as one of the most desirable cities in America), those interested in Texas and Texas literature, and readers interested in architecture and design.

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Koko's Guide To Austin is a pocket-sized travel guidebook to eating and drinking your way through Austin, TX with Austin's top food blogger, A Taste of Koko. In Koko's Guide To Austin, you will find: - Insider's guide to Austin, Texas by a local Austin blogger - 330+ local restaurants and businesses - 190+ beautiful, full-color photographs - 3 hand-drawn illustrated maps of Austin - In-depth restaurant guide that breaks down the best spots for breakfast, lunch, dinner, brunch, date night, tacos, margaritas, Tex-Mex, and more - Neighborhood guides featuring the popular neighborhoods of Austin with the best spots for coffee, breakfast, lunch, dinner, shops and more - Calendar listing of iconic events like Austin City Limits (ACL), South by Southwest (SXSW) - Weekend getaways from Austin - Austin bucket list that you can check off! This is the ultimate guide to Austin, Texas for both locals and visitors.

In this carefully researched and hauntingly written memoir, Lisa Gruenberg not only records her own life, but also that of relatives long lost to darkness, terror, and murder. In dreamlike sequences she weaves known facts of the lives of those lost into tableaus of imagined family dinners, conversations and leisure activities set in the Vienna landscape. She especially brings back to life some of the girls and women whose fates remain largely unknown. Indeed, she embodies her aunt Mia as she walks in her shoes, sees with her eyes, and speaks with her voice. These flights into the past are presented within the framework of Gruenberg's own family, her husband and daughters, and her father. He escaped from Vienna in 1939 and shared few of his memories with her, and that only late in life when disease had beaten down his defenses against remembering. The trauma and feeling of guilt often described in Holocaust survivors is reflected in this memoir, also the burden shared by so many of their children and grandchildren. At the same time, this tale is one of lightness and finding balance in all these difficulties and trials. There is an endless network of cousins and friends of cousins, one more colorful than the next. They are spread all over the world and Gruenberg seeks many of them out in her search for the past. At the center stands author's ability to look at the truth unflinchingly, including truths apparent in herself. She shares her insights in all their nakedness, starkness and, yes, hilarity. This, together with the author's luminous prose, make My City of Dreams an important landmark in 21st century testimony of the Holocaust.

We live in angry times. No matter where we go, what we watch, or how we communicate, our culture is rife with division and polarization. Unfortunately, Christians appear to be caught up in the same animosity as the culture at large. While our faith calls us to Christian unity, the hard fact remains: our churches are tragically divided across class, ethnic, gender, and political lines. As these social chasms grow--both inside and outside the church--the role of the preacher becomes paramount. This book issues a prophetic call to pastors to use the influence of their pulpits to promote reconciliation and unity in their churches and communities. Two scholar-practitioners who are experts in homiletics and reconciliation present a practical, 7-step model that empowers faithful leaders to bring healing and peace to their fractured churches and world. The book includes questions for reflection, salient illustrations, and an accountability covenant. It also includes useful appendixes on preaching themes, preaching texts, and sample sermons from three leading preachers: Ralph Douglas West, Rich Villodas, and Sandra Maria Van Opstal.

Historic Photos of Austin captures the remarkable journey of this city and her people, in still photography from the finest archives of city, state, and private collections. From the Civil War period, to the rise of industry, two World Wars and into the modern era, Austin has remained a city of change and innovation. With about two hundred archival photographs reproduced in stunning black and white on heavy art paper, this book is the perfect addition to any historian's collection.

Red Wassenich's, who coined of the phrase Keep Austin Weird, entertaining text and over 180 color photos show the colorful places, people, and doings in Austin, Texas' capital city. Tour the Cathedral of Junk built with over 700 bicycles. Meet Leslie, the cross-dressing perennial mayoral candidate. Party at the Spamarama, Austin's premier weird cook-off. Keep your eyes peeled for the cruising art cars. For the adventurous, there is no better guide to Austin!