In 1970 a scraggly, antiheroic young man from North Carolina by way of Massachusetts began presenting a comforting new sound, a kind never heard before. Within a year, when young ears sought a new sound, there was "Fire and Rain" and "You've Got a Friend," and a new Southern California-fed branch of pop music. Taylor was its reluctant leader. Remarkably, Taylor has survived: his 2015 release, Before This World, edged out Taylor Swift and went to #1 on the charts. Today he is in better physical and probably mental condition than during the whirlwind when he influenced music so heavily, the decade when magazines and newspapers printed feverish stories about his gawky hunkiness, his love affair with Joni Mitchell, his glittery marriage to Carly Simon, his endlessly carried-out heroin habit, and sometimes even his music. Despite it all, Taylor has become the nearest thing to rock royalty in America. Based on fresh interviews with musicians, producers, record company people, and music journalists, as well as previously published interviews, reviews, and profiles, Sweet Dreams and Flying Machines is the definitive biography of an elusive superstar.

A boy visualizes all the incredible things his flying machine will be able to do when he finishes building it in the barn.

Fred Bruner likes to say that he's "the luckiest man alive" but perhaps he's proof that, with a positive attitude, you can make your own luck. The son of a strict Baptist minister, Bruner ran away in his teens in the midst of the Great Depression. He lived on the streets and "rode the rails" cross country, hopping rides on freight trains with "hobos" and other folks hit hard by the economic times. Bruner eventually came home and reluctantly went to Oklahoma Military Academy. He went on to graduate from Baylor University and then SMU Law School. Although he was blind in one eye from a childhood accident, Bruner enlisted in the Signal Corps, and served his country during World War II. After the war, Fred met the love of his life, Joy Jean Groves. Together they created a wonderful life consisting of a huge family and a wide array of friends. Fred, and his brilliant legal career, has always been at the center of it all. Bruner's life is full of wonderful stories, epic characters, and frequent brushes with American history. As one of the top criminal defense lawyers in Dallas, Fred Bruner's clients ranged from reckless drivers all the way to high profile murderers, including the infamous Jack Ruby. To Fred Bruner work was never just work - there were always new people to meet and new people who needed help. Fred still lives in his Highland Park home where, despite diminishing health, he wakes up each morning armed with the two things that have served him best in his life a sunny disposition and his preacher's son's ability to tell a great story.

For the first time in more than a year, Abby Weaver's family is together when her husband, Major Danny Weaver returns home safely from Iraq. But, only a few months later, a twist of fate puts him in the cockpit of a Harrier spinning out of control during the Cherry Point Air Show. Abby and her six-year-old son, Chris, watch in horror as their lives explode in a fiery crash on the tarmac in front of them.Was it an accident or murder? Determined to find out what happened, Abby is drawn into the same sordid squadron secrets that Danny had stumbled onto before his death, secrets someone may have wanted concealed badly enough to kill for. As she hunts the person she believes murdered her husband, Abby becomes the hunted in this heart-pounding page-turner.