Showing results by narrator "Ed Sala" in All Categories

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.

We all know about the famous generals and the major battles of the Civil War. But for the soldiers who actually fought, the war was all too real. It was especially traumatic for the thousands of soldiers who ranged in age from 10 to 15. Some young soldiers joined the fray to escape the boredom of farm work or to "set the South straight". Many of them kept diaries and wrote letters home. Through their eyes, we see what life was like on the edge of chaos.

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.

At the age of 17, Thea Auben was raped, beaten, and left for dead. Fourteen years later, she lives under an assumed name in a carefully constructed online world. Her only real relationship is with her son David. She has done everything in her power to protect David from the truth about his conception, but he is no longer satisfied by her vague answers about his father.

Newbery Medalist Nancy Willard is the author of many award-winning children’s books. In this lyrical story, a man falls in love with a broom and they dance through the sky together—until one night the broom is stolen from its home. Someone else wants the powers of the broom for himself. Will the man be able to find his beloved broom and dance once again?

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.

Lassiter and his partner Borling are sentenced to 25 years in prison after being convicted of a killing they had no part in committing. But with some daring ingenuity they manage to escape from behind bars: only to see their efforts thwarted by treachery.

Pages magazine says this collection represents “the absolute best in short literary fiction.” This installment exhibits a fresh batch of immensely talented writers, all of whom exemplify the level of accomplishment that has kept this acclaimed series running strong since 1985. Comprising 20 stories, this rich and varied collection features everything from a fresh take on the classic Southern gothic to a velvet-smooth work of erotic suspense.

Edgar Award nominee James Hime’s first venture into Texas crime writing was praised as “one of the most impressive debuts in years” by Booklist. His second mystery novel set in Texas, Scared Money brings back Jeremiah Spur, an ex-Ranger who’s just been recruited to work with the CIA on a special case. Meanwhile, Spur’s friend, Deputy Sheriff Clyde Thomas, investigates a drug-related murder in a usually quiet small town.

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.

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.

Winner of the Pacific Northwest Book Association Number One Fiction Book Award for 1995, The Sky Fisherman is the poignant story of a young man coming of age in a small Oregon town. Laced with love of the great outdoors and infused with colorful local characters, this audiobook is a rich glimpse at life in the Pacific Northwest. The lives of young Culver, his twice-married mother, and his charismatic Uncle Jake are shadowed by the death of Culver’s father in a fishing accident.

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.

"America's best novelist" ( The Denver Post), two-time Edgar Award winner James Lee Burke is renowned for his lush, suspense-charged portrayals of the Deep South – the people, the crime, the hope and despair infused in the bayou landscape. This stunning anthology takes us back to where Burke's heart and soul beat -- the steamy, seamy Gulf Coast -- in complex and fascinating tales that crackle with violence and menace, meshing his flair for gripping storytelling with his urbane writing style.

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.

The Convict and Other Stories is a superb collection of stories set in and around the American Deep South and its charismatic people.

The Lone Star state has been a subject of pride and admiration for generations of writers. Forever Texas features the works of some of the most memorable men and women who ever lived in Texas. With essays by President George W. Bush, H. Ross Perot, Sam Houston, David Crockett, Stephen F. Austin, Lyndon Baines Johnson and many more.

Today is Grandma's birthday and Grandpa is going to make her a cake - a big one! But no stove is going to accommodate his grand vision. So using his pick-up truck and generous helpings of all the ingredients, he sets out to make a birthday cake like no one's ever seen before. Grandma didn't want him to make a fuss, but Grandpa just couldn't resist.

Cowboy Ned's birthday is tomorrow, and he's sad because nobody is around to celebrate. To cheer him up, his good friend Andy the horse journeys into the desert to find some birthday cake. But when Andy finds a banjo-playing cowboy who is as old as the hills, he learns something very important about birthdays.

Thirteen-year-old Josh McGuire knows an orphaned bear cub he's found will be given to researchers if the game warden tracks it to his dog house. Instead, he runs away with the cub to the mountains, vowing to protect it until hunting laws are changed. But the Montana wilderness is a dangerous place, and saving the cub's life may cost Josh his own.