Showing results by narrator "Tom Stechschulte" in All Categories

A nominee for the National Book Award, Ivan Doig's brilliant memoir shares the experiences and culture that shaped his early years and made him fall in love with the West. From his childhood in a family of homesteaders through the death of his mother and his move to Montana to herd sheep, Doig shows his intimate connection with the American West.

National Book Award finalist Ivan Doig had only a vague memory of his mother until he discovered a cache of her letters. They revealed a passionate, can-do woman who loved the lilting rhythm of words. A moving prequel to his acclaimed memoir This House of Sky, Doig’s Heart Earth highlights his childhood before his mother’s death and eloquently captures the texture of the American West, the fortunes of a family, and one woman’s indomitable spirit.

With his signature insight and gift for storytelling, Jon Katz here shares 16 stories about one of life’s most unique relationships. In the title story, a housekeeper loses her job, but discovers her four-legged “children” have some toe-tapping talents that just may get the whole family back on its feet.

Jon Moore wanted only to relax on the pristine planet of Macken - but Macken was the secret battleground of two megacorporations, both determined to control the local jump gate and the riches of an undeveloped world. Moore was too valuable a tool not to be used, whether or not he was willing. What the corporations didn't realize was that Moore had a mind of his own and a conscience that wouldn't let him quit until he'd righted their wrong. And Moore had Lobo - or just possibly, Lobo had Jon Moore, because this Assault Vehicle had a mind of its own,

In Beyond the Shadows, Hatcher writes about the serious issue of alcoholism. After her husband dies, Deborah Haskin thinks she will never love again. But then Gideon Clermont enters her life. She does begin to love him very much, but how will she be able to come to terms with his addiction?

Acclaimed for his beloved Montana trilogy, National Book Award finalist Ivan Doig crafts masterful portraits of life in rural Big Sky Country. Set in the 1930s, Bucking the Sun follows the Duff clan during the construction of the Fort Peck Dam. Hugh Duff is angry that the dam will flood his farm, yet his sons hasten to get jobs working on the project.

National icon Willie Nelson has evolved over the years from country music outlaw swimming against a whiskey river to a Zen-like figure of wisdom and contentment. In this autobiographical collection of life advice, The Tao of Willie, one of America's truest hearts reveals the spiritual and practical lessons learned from decades of hard knocks and good bounces.

With its endearing blend of humor, wisdom, and insight, Soul of a Dog, by New York Times best-selling author Jon Katz, illuminates the interaction between humans and animals.

Although he features his ever-faithful border collie, Rose, Katz also includes revealing observations about Mother the murderous barn cat, Elvis the doughnut-loving steer, and his other dogs - Izzy, Lenore, and Pearl.

Set in Memphis, Tennessee, and northern Mississippi, The Rabbit Factory presents a wildly diverse cast of characters who are looking for love, but not necessarily in all the right places. Helen is a sex-starved alcoholic who combs the local bars looking for the one thing her sugar daddy can't give her. Arthur, Helen's aging sugar daddy, is very wealthy, but suffers from severe self-confidence issues. Believing himself unloved, Eric is a runaway who oddly becomes Arthur's adopted son.

Texas attorney and former Texas Ranger Billy Bob Holland has many secrets. Among them is Vernon Smother's son, Lucas, a now-teenaged boy about whom few know the truth - Lucas is really Billy Bob's illegitimate son. When Lucas is arrested for murder, Billy Bob must confront the past and serve as the boy's criminal attorney. Billy Bob knows the propensity of the town, Deaf Smith, Texas, to make scapegoats out of the innocent and to exploit and sexually use the powerless.

In this award-winning portrait of two families caught up in the blind hatred of a small Southern town, prejudice takes many forms - some subtle, some ruthless. Mudbound is the saga of the McAllan family, which struggles to survive on a remote, ramshackle farm, and the Jacksons, their Black sharecroppers.

The Donnybrook is a three-day bare-knuckle tournament held on a thousand-acre plot out in the sticks of southern Indiana. Twenty fighters. One wire-fence ring. Fight until only one man is left standing while a rowdy festival of onlookers - drunk and high on whatever’s on offer - bet on the fighters. Jarhead is a desperate man who’d do just about anything to feed his children. He’s also the toughest fighter in southeastern Kentucky, and he’s convinced that his ticket to a better life is one last fight with a cash prize so big it’ll solve all his problems.

Accordion Crimes opens in 1890 in Sicily as an accordion maker completes his finest instrument and dreams of owning a music store in America. He and his 11-year-old son, carrying little more than the accordion, voyage to the teeming, violent port of New Orleans. Within a year, the accordion maker is murdered by an anti-Italian lynching mob, but his instrument carries Proulx's story as it falls into the hands of various immigrants who carry it from Iowa to Texas, from Maine to Louisiana, looking for a decent life.

In Roll Me Up and Smoke Me When I Die, Willie Nelson muses about his greatest influences and the things that are most important to him, and celebrates the family, friends, and colleagues who have blessed his remarkable journey. Willie riffs on everything, from music to poker, Texas to Nashville, and more. He shares the outlaw wisdom he has acquired over the course of eight decades, along with favorite jokes and insights from family, bandmates, and close friends.

In In the Moon of Red Ponies, Billy Bob Holland discovers that jail cells have revolving doors and the bad guys are back and aching for revenge.

Best-selling author Susan Rogers Cooper is renowned for creating wildly entertaining characters and perfectly orchestrated mysteries. In this lively - and side-splitting - entry in her Milt Kovak series, all manner of crazy happenings go down in and around Prophesy County, Oklahoma. Deputy Dalton Pettigrew travels to meet the woman making his heart go pitter-patter - but she turns out to be a man! And then a murder really shakes things up.

Two young friend, Max Glickman and Manny Washinski, get together in an abandoned air-raid shelter and create a comic-book history of Jewish suffering. Years later, Manny is in jail for a horrible crime and Max is a comic book artist. After Manny's release from prison decades later, the two meet again when Max is hired by a production company to write a film treatment based on Manny's life.

Sharyn McCrumb is the New York Times best-selling author of the Ballad novels, which celebrate the rich history of Appalachia. An elegant saga set against the American Revolution, King' s Mountain features John Sevier and his legendary Carolina Overmountain Men, who find themselves defending their families and farms against the troops of a haughty British major.

Harold and Lucille Hargrave's lives have been both joyful and sorrowful in the decades since their only son, Jacob, died tragically at his eighth birthday party in 1966. In their old age they've settled comfortably into life without him, their wounds healed through the grace of time.... Until one day Jacob mysteriously appears on their doorstep - flesh and blood, their sweet, precocious child, still eight years old. All over the world people's loved ones are returning from beyond.

Miranda Lovelady, Dr. Bill Brockton's protégé, is spending the summer helping excavate a newly discovered chamber beneath the spectacular Palace of the Popes in Avignon, France. There she discovers a stone chest inscribed with a stunning claim: Inside lie the bones of none other than Jesus of Nazareth. Faced with a case of unimaginable proportions, Miranda summons Brockton for help proving or refuting the claim. Both scientists are skeptical but evidence for authenticity soon grows stronger.