Showing results by narrator "Ed Sala" in All Categories

Legendary writer Zane Grey earned legions of devoted fans with his gritty westerns. In To the Last Man, he dramatizes the events of the Pleasant Valley War of Arizona, a bloody feud that nearly wiped two families off the face of the Earth. Jean Isbel has settled in Oregon and is growing comfortable with his new home when an urgent letter arrives from his father. Trouble is brewing in Arizona between the Isbel cattlemen and the Jorth clan of sheepmen. Rushing to his father’s side, Jean arrives just before the first bullets start flying. But matters are complicated when Jean and Ellen Jorth, daughter of the sheepmen’s leader, fall in love.

Ron Hansen has won an Award in Literature from the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters for his rich writing and poetic style. Atticus begins in the vein of a contemporary western. As it unfolds, it includes an intriguing murder mystery and a dramatic parable of the prodigal son. For years, prosperous Colorado rancher Atticus Cody has tried to understand his rootless son, Scott, who is now living a marginal life in Mexico.

Christmas is coming and everyone around 16-year-old Liz Kitchell is busy with preparations. The big houses in her neighborhood are shimmering inside and out with luxurious decorations. And her parents are trying to impress all their friends with extravagant parties and expensive gifts. But Liz feels empty inside. In her English class, her group has to write a composition: How do you get what you want for Christmas?

Mr. Griffin is the least-liked teacher at Del Norte High School. It’s not just because he is the toughest grader in the school, or won’t accept late work for any reason. He even fails seniors and makes them beg to get back in his class … the next year. This time, he’s humiliated the wrong students. When a group of classmates decide to kidnap him, the plan is only to scare their English teacher—to make him grovel and give him a taste of his own medicine. They don’t intend to kill Mr. Griffin.

Before he won stunning acclaim as one of today's most gifted southern writers, Larry Brown was a firefighter with the Oxford, Mississippi, Fire Department. On Fire, his powerful and unflinching account of this experience, catapults listeners into the daily trauma all firefighters face, from the blistering heat of burning homes to the crunch of broken glass at crash scenes.

Acclaimed Southern author Dennis Covington was a National Book Award finalist. Redneck Riviera is the true story of Covington’s bizarre encounters with a lawless band of gun-toting swamp-dwellers in Central Florida who’ve illegally claimed the two-and-a-half acres of land he inherited from his father.

Winners of the Pulitzer Prize for fiction, O. Henry Award and Edgar Awards, the 19 writers in this 2005 edition are not just considered some of the best Southern writers, but among the best American writers period. With works by such writers as Dennis Lehane, Moira Crone, Robert Olen Butler, Cary Holladay, Tom Franklin, and Rebecca Soppe, this collection provides an electrifying current of deep, dark subjects set in the brutal, but charming south.

The Big Wander is a trip 14-year-old Clay Lancaster and his older brother Mike have planned for years. It’s Clay’s dream to find his ex-rodeo-star uncle, who quit the tour and disappeared somewhere in the vast and colorful Monument Valley. But Mike - heartbroken and unfocused after losing his girlfriend - soon heads for home. Clay, however, will not give up. He finds a job in a remote trading post, and follows a lead on his uncle’s whereabouts that takes him deep into Navajo country.

In Stone Work, critically-acclaimed author John Jerome describes the back-breaking but soul-strengthening task of building a stone wall on his New England farm. Equipped only with gloves, elemental tools, and the sense to get out of the way of rolling boulders, Jerome tries to reconstruct a wall in a year. The job begins on a whim - he decides to move a stone wall hidden in the woods on his property for the sheer pleasure of seeing it from his house. Philosophical, yet almost giddy with the excitement of doing something extraordinary, Stone Work is a delight.

When the boys’ parents are called away by a family emergency, Doug and his older brother, Gordon, are left on their own in their Rocky Mountain campsite. The brothers are fighting, though, so it isn’t long before Gordon stomps away from the campsite, leaving Doug completely alone. When neither Gordon nor his parents return after three days, 12-year-old Doug fears the worst. He knows Gordon has gone to a high ridge in the Comanche Peak Wilderness - the Fear Place. Will Doug and a newfound friend - a cougar - find his brother?

Booklist praises this novel from Edgar Award Finalist James Hime, calling it “one of the most impressive mystery debuts in years.” Sissy Fletcher, the preacher’s daughter, disappeared 10 years ago. But now her body has been found by some men drilling for oil. Dewey Sharpe, the sheriff of Washington County, Texas, doesn’t have much time to find her killer and salvage his bid for re-election.

Twenty-six-year-old April Wolff doesn’t fit in with her Pennsylvania neighbors: she would rather teach women and slaves than get married. So when her pacifist father is found murdered in cold blood, and a Confederate general is seen leaving the scene, she vows to find the killer herself. As April’s search leads her through enemy camps, she survives attempts on her own life--and discovers help and love where she least expects them.

In 1916, aging cavalryman Napoleon Childs leads an expedition into Mexico to capture Pancho Villa and bring him to justice. But Childs' troops are wiped out, and he is left to die alone in the Mexican desert.

Someone is killing the unwanted in the small town of Dayton, Tennessee. As Deputy Sheriff Trent Tyson trails the murderer, his town erupts in a storm of publicity as Clarence Darrow changes the face of American education.

In the town of San Pedro in the Dominican Republic, baseball is not just a way of life. It's the way of life. By the year 2008, 79 boys and men from San Pedro had gone on to play in the Major Leagues - that means one in six Dominican Republicans who have played in the Majors have come from one tiny, impoverished region. Manny Alexander, Sammy Sosa, Tony Fernandez, and legions of other San Pedro players who came up in the sugar mill teams flocked to the United States.

Young Slim has always dreamed of being a cowboy. That's why he quivers with excitement on his first day at the WJ Ranch. The sights, sounds, and smells of cowboy life thrill him so that he stays awake that night, writing beautiful poetry.

Young Abe Lincoln is all dressed up in his best suit and on his way to deliver an important speech. As he walks along, he finds a pig stuck in a mudhole. Abe hates to see any animal suffer. If he helps the pig, his clothes will get muddy. What would people think of a mud-covered speaker? Abe doesn’t want to leave the pig stranded, but he has no other nice clothes to wear. So, he continues down the road toward town, feeling guilty. He knows a pig isn’t a person, yet it still seems wrong not to help.

Spur Award-winning author Gary Svee pens Westerns of the highest calibre. Showdown at Buffalo Jump is a rough andtumble thrill ride into the bawdy towns and open plains of the Old West. The word is out. Max Bass wants an able bodied, fullbosomed woman to complete his life. One problem though: when he describes himself, he outright lies about nearly everything, including his lifestyle, his home, and his money. Soon, he finds himself with a sharp-tongued vixen—and big trouble—on his hands.

If you want your business or organization to run well, this leadership book, adapted from the Official Army Leadership Manual, is the book for you. There are three keys to being a leader: be, know, do. Who a leader is (values such as loyalty and integrity), what a leader knows (about the world, about her or himself ), and what a leader does (action) are all vitally important for successful leaders.

Author of the award-winning novel Finn, Jon Clinch has drawn favorable comparisons to William Faulkner. With Kings of the Earth, he takes listeners to an upstate New York farm where the three Procter brothers live in stasis. When one dies in his sleep, the other two are soon suspected of murder.