Showing results by narrator "James Jenner" in All Categories

Acclaimed essayist Mark Edmundson reflects on his own rite of passage as a high school football player to get to larger truths about the ways America's Game shapes its men. Football teaches young men self-discipline and teamwork. But football celebrates violence. Football is a showcase for athletic beauty and physical excellence. But football damages young bodies and minds, sometimes permanently. Football inspires confidence and direction. But football instills cockiness, a false sense of superiority.

An elderly inventor, burning with manic creativity, tries to reconcile with his estranged gay son. A bereaved boy draws a thuggish classmate into a relationship of escalating guilt and violence. A genteel middle-aged woman, a longtime resident of a psychiatric hospital, becomes the confidante of a lovelorn teenaged volunteer. Told with Chekhovian restraint and compassion, and conveying both the sorrow of life and the courage with which people rise to meet it, You Are Not a Stranger Here is a triumph of storytelling.

Richard Wheeler has amassed a considerable fan base for his popular Barnaby Skye novels. An English exile, mountain man Skye agrees to lead a wagon train of consumptives to a desert locale - and faces all manner of danger along the way.

After his young daughter dies, heart surgeon Samuel Truelove leaves his successful medical practice and moves to a small town, where he opens a clinic. Although he can still heal the sick, Truelove now doubts God's power to heal his wounded soul.

The Western tradition of Ralph Cotton lives on in Fast Guns Out of Texas. After Cray Dawson sets out to stake his claim in Black’s Cut, Montana, he learns his old friend Fast Larry Shaw faked his death to escape his notoriety as a gunfighter. But as Dawson soon discovers, his own prowess with a six-shooter could come back to haunt him as well.

Sheriff Cray Dawson's quick-draw reputation keeps most criminals away from his Texas town of Somos Santos. But it doesn't keep the motley Walker Gang away for long. Although they temporarily divert their bankrobbing plans to a neighboring town, they soon stumble upon a way to weaken him. But will a strategic kidnapping and an unexpected ally undermine Dawson's resolve to do what he must?

One of America's most acclaimed sportswriters, Dan Jenkins has won countless fans with his bawdy sense of humor. Bubba Talks is a series of reflections from the quintessential American redneck - a lover of hot ladies, football, cheeseburgers, and Firebirds.

Blowing into Kindred, New Mexico, like a sandstorm, mercenary Sherman ''The Teacher'' Dahl quickly locates his prey and guns them down in a blazing firefight. But Dahl's troubles are only just beginning. The town's power-hungry marshal doesn't take kindly to Dahl's brand of justice and he's determined to end the hired killer's career once and for all.

New York Times best-selling author Mary Jo Putney weaves a romantic tale into a courtroom thriller, prompting Booklist to hail, “Move over John Grisham.” High-powered corporate attorney Val Covington knows she should avoid mysterious guys like Rob Smith. But when Rob helps her in a frantic race against the clock to save a man wrongfully sent to death row, Val unearths long-buried secrets - and discovers an unexpected passion.

Lawrence "Fast Larry" Shaw was the quickest gun alive until his beloved Rosa died. Turning to the bottle for solace, he takes a job helping a widow tend her ranch. But when the Barrows Brothers Gang tears a bloody trail across his path, it's time for Fast Larry to find his steady hand and blast his way to justice.

Still disoriented from a recent gunshot wound, Fast Larry Shaw happens across the Dexter Lowe Boys on their way to steal some weapons. Knowing he can’t take these guys on alone in his condition, Shaw contacts U.S. Marshal Crayton Dawson and Deputy Jedson Caldwell for backup.

Norton Juster - the acclaimed author of such children’s classics as The Phantom Toll Booth and The Hello, Goodbye Window - tells the story of a really rotten ogre. Huge and ugly, the angry ogre is always hungry - and utterly merciless. As he greedily gobbles up the people in his path, he seems unstoppable. And then one day, the ogre takes a wrong turn and encounters a kind and friendly young lady who does her best to help him.

The legacy of legendary Western author Ralph Compton can be heard in the explosive tales penned by Joseph A. West. A ruthless murderer known as the Fat Man is terrorizing Green Meadow, Oklahoma, which sits over a massive store of black gold. The Fat Man will kill anyone who stands in his way. But gambler Chauncey Drake and Pinkerton agent Reuben Withers aren’t the kind to back down easy, and the stars are aligning for a showdown of epic proportions.

In this thrilling tale, former hired gun Larry Shaw tries to help a prostitute determine the father of her unborn child. Of the three candidates, one stands out - the notorious William H. Bonney. And as a cattle war brews, Bonney has a proposal for Shaw: lend your iron to our side and help us blast our way to victory.

With the exception of sleep, humans spend more of their lifetimes on work than any other activity. It is central to our economy, our society, and the family. It underpins our finances and our sense of meaning in life. Given the overriding importance of work, we need to recognize a profound transformation in the nature of work that is significantly altering lives: the incoming tidal wave of shadow work. Shadow work includes all the unpaid tasks we do on behalf of businesses and organizations.

Ralph Cotton casts a long shadow as one of the finest practitioners of Western fiction to ever set pen to paper. Burnished with the unmistakable character of the Old West, Escape from Fire River showcases Cotton at the height of his form. There’s not a man alive who can outdraw Lawrence Shaw, but that doesn’t mean he’s invulnerable. Garris “The Cat” Cantro and his band of miscreants are hellbent on securing a fortune in gold.

In Crossing Fire River, Cotton introduces Lawrence “Fast Larry” Shaw, a quick-drawing gunslinger tormented by his past. Reeling from the death of his wife Rosa, Fast Larry turns to whiskey to drown his sorrows. But even with a drink in one hand, he’s still the fastest shot around. So when he becomes a target for a Mexican bounty hunter after killing two banditos, Fast Larry will have to protect himself the only way he knows how.

Frequently honored by the ALA and recipient of a Newbery Honor distinction, Janet Taylor Lisle's work offers thrills and adventure for all young listeners. Into a colony of feral cats a trio of kittens comes to stay. Living in a small patch of woods near a mall, the colony is frightened by continued human incursion. But can these strange kittens be the key to saving their home?

The only folk left behind in Apache Creek are ghosts, including Marshall Sam Pace. Three years of solitude have turned Sam into a phantom, but when a woman on the run stumbles into town, the former lawman must protect her and make use of gunslinger skills long out of practice...

Fast Larry Shaw incurs a huge debt when a Mexican girl shouts a life-saving warning during a firefight. Outlaws have put the girl through hell, and now Larry is her only hope. But after offering his services, Larry gets caught in the crossfire between federales and banditos—and even his well-practiced gunhand might not offer enough protection to ensure survival.