In Texas BBQ, Wyatt McSpadden immortalized the barbecue joints of rural Texas in richly authentic photographs that made the people and places in his images appear as timeless as barbecue itself. The book found a wide, appreciative audience as barbecue surged to national popularity with the success of young urban pitmasters such as Austin’s Aaron Franklin, whose Franklin Barbecue has become the most-talked-about BBQ joint on the planet. Succulent, wood-smoked “old school” barbecue is now as easy to find in Dallas as in DeSoto, in Houston as in Hallettsville. In Texas BBQ, Small Town to Downtown, Wyatt McSpadden pays homage to this new urban barbecue scene, as well as to top-rated country joints, such as Snow’s in Lexington, that were under the radar or off the map when Texas BBQ was published. Texas BBQ, Small Town to Downtown presents crave-inducing images of both the new—and the old—barbecue universe in almost every corner of the state, featuring some two dozen joints not included in the first book. In addition to Franklin and Snow’s, which have both occupied the top spot in Texas Monthly’s barbecue ratings, McSpadden portrays urban joints such as Dallas’s Pecan Lodge and Cattleack Barbecue and small-town favorites such as Whup’s Boomerang Bar-B-Que in Marlin. Accompanying his images are barbecue reflections by James Beard Award–winning pitmaster Aaron Franklin and Texas Monthly’s barbecue editor Daniel Vaughn. Their words and McSpadden’s photographs underscore how much has changed—and how much remains the same—since Texas BBQ revealed just how much good, old-fashioned ’cue there is in Texas.

The Jewett Car Company was born in the heyday of the electric railway boom in the 1890s. The company gained an excellent reputation for its elegant, well-built wooden cars for street railway companies, interurban lines, and rapid transit service. Cities large and small used Jewett cars, including New York, Boston, Chicago, and San Francisco. Many Jewett cars found their way to Indiana and many of the interurban lines employed the graceful, arch-windowed wood interurban that Jewett was famous for.Automobile competition and the problems of competing with much larger car builders, such as J.G. Brill and the St. Louis Car Company, signaled the beginning of the end. The company was offered the opportunity to produce munitions for World War I, but refused. The reason: the major source of finance for Jewett was a German nationalist banker from Wheeling, West Virginia, who refused to have the company do anything to harm Germany. As a direct result of that action, the Jewett Car Company failed.

The author of dozens of acclaimed novels including those in the Scudder and Keller series, Lawrence Block has long been recognized as one of the premier crime writers of our time. Now, the breathtaking skill, power, and versatility of this Grand Master are brilliantly displayed once again in a mesmerizing new thriller set on the streets of the city he knows and loves so well. That was the thing about New York -- if you loved it, if it worked for you, it ruined you for anyplace else in the world. In this dazzlingly constructed novel, Lawrence Block reveals the secret at the heart of the Big Apple. His glorious metropolis is really a small town, filled with men and women from all walks of life whose aspirations, fears, disappointments, and triumphs are interconnected by bonds as unbreakable as they are unseen. Pulsating with the lives of its denizens -- bartenders and hookers, power brokers and politicos, cops and secretaries, editors and dreamers -- the city inspires a passion that is universal yet unique in each of its eight million inhabitants, including: John Blair Creighton, a writer on the verge of a breakthrough; Francis Buckram, a charismatic ex–police commissioner -- and the inside choice for the next mayor -- on the verge of a breakdown; Susan Pomerance, a beautiful, sophisticated folk-art dealer plumbing the depths of her own fierce sexuality; Maury Winters, a defense attorney who prefers murder trials because there's one less witness; Jerry Pankow, an ex-addict who has turned being clean into a living, mopping up after New York's nightlife; And, in the shadows of a city reeling from tragedy, an unlikely killing machine who wages a one-man war against them all. Infused with the raw cadence, stark beauty, and relentless pace of New York City, Small Town is a tour de force Block fans old and new will celebrate.

Technology and economics are transforming business in a completely unexpected way: suddenly, even the largest companies must compete as if they were small, local businesses. Suddenly, your customers can talk to everyone else across the nation, and people listen to them, not your carefully crafted advertising or branding. It's just like doing business in a small town, where "reputation is forever." Suddenly, communities and personal connections are critical to your success - just as they've always been in small towns. The best small-town and rural entrepreneurs have been successfully overcoming these challenges for centuries. Their lessons and techniques are suddenly intensely valuable to even the largest companies, most dominant brands, and most cosmopolitan businesses. Small Town Rules adapts these lessons and techniques for today's new "global small town": one knitted together through the Web, Facebook, and Twitter. Two pioneering entrepreneurs and social media experts show how to: * Survive seasonal cycles and year-to-year fluctuations the way rural farmers and businesses do * Use "small town entrepreneur secrets" for coping with limited access to people and capital * Reduce risk by "piecing together" multiple income sources * Start using customer-driven communication to your advantage * Interact with customers on a more human scale, no matter how big you are * Rediscover your company's local roots, and more

We tend to associate small town economic development with the decline of the rural United States--empty houses, shuttered shops and rusting factories. A common diagnosis of sluggish small town recovery is their lack of lifestyle amenities that attract new residents and businesses. Yet many small towns have shown progress and potential in recent years. This collection of recent articles by experts presents stories of small-town America's struggle and describes innovations and practices behind successful revivals.

Pastor Susie M. Elliott is the senior pastor of Mt. Paran Baptist Church in Brooklyn, New York. Through her leadership, Mt. Paran has established innovative programs that minister to the spiritual and social needs of our parishioners and members of the surrounding community. She is guided by Philippians 4:13, “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me” (KJV). Pastor Susie holds a B.S. from Shaw University in Home Economics and Science and a Master’s degree in Guidance and Counseling from Brooklyn College. Pastor Susie has also studied at the New York Theological Seminary. She has certification from the state of New York in Guidance and Counseling. She is a retired Counselor after having spent more than 25 years in the New York public school system. As a Counselor, she dared to make a difference in the lives of the students with whom she came in contact. She was “guilty” of having gone the extra mile for her students. Pastor Susie has given workshops on topics such as: “Managing Stress Before It Manages You,” “Spiritual Maturity,” “Self Esteem and Personal Growth,” and “Effective Communication For Couples.” She is the president of the Brooklyn Council of Churches, the Founder of the Mother/Daughters of Zion and the Founding Mother of Refreshing Springs Ministries International. Pastor Susie was married to the late Bishop John B. Elliott for 51 years. She is the mother of five children, the grandmother of eight grandchildren, and great grandmother of 10 great grandchildren.

HOW DO WE CONFRONT OUR LOVE-HATE AFFAIR WITH CITIES? A professor of urban studies retires and moves from Los Angeles to San Luis Obispo, a university town on the central coast of California. New friends get him embroiled in local issues of city growth and development, and he becomes a contributor to a "Greenview" column in the main city/county newspaper. What began as a lark turns into a fourteen year broadside against rampant growth and environmental degradation, often serious, but sometimes bordering on the hilarious and the heretical. Winn's views and arguments favor sustainability, slower and more balanced growth, protection of the downtown, a greener view of life and planning and sensible paths to redevelopment -- that are not much appreciated by the powers that be. But even his critics have to admit that his arguments for more far-reaching thinking and truly innovative education of the public are usually intriguing and practical. WHY DO WE LOVE THE CITY, BUT DO SO MANY THINGS TO BREAK ITS HEART? SMALL TOWN/BIG TOWN: Growing Pains on California's Central Coast aims at challenging your perspectives on a wide range of urban issues and environmental, political and educational topics, while needling the reader's interests and sense of humor and outrage. FROM JIM PATTERSON, SUPERVISOR, SAN LUIS OBISPO COUNTY BOARD OF SUPERVISORS: "Ira Winn speaks authoritatively to the challenges and complexities of building livable communities. In SMALL TOWN / BIG TOWN, he exposes the falsehoods of big-box development being the panacea for revenue shortfalls plaguing cities and counties throughout the nation. Environmental degradation, loss of farmland, lack of affordable housing, urban sprawl and declining services are all symptoms of the business-as-usual growth model. Ira not only tells us why we must change this pattern, but offers insights on how to do it.