Showing results by narrator "Tom Stechschulte" in All Categories

Before his untimely death in 2004, Larry Brown was hailed as one of the world's greatest living writers. With A Miracle of Catfish, the unfinished but largely complete novel Brown left behind, listeners can once again savor his eloquent and unique style. This tale of fatherhood, alienation, and loneliness introduces readers to another set of Brown's irresistibly flawed characters.

No child should ever be a soldier. Jon Moore knew that better than most, having learned to fight to survive before he’d hit puberty. So when a former comrade, Alissa Lim, asks for his help in rescuing a group of children pressed into service by rebels on a planet no one cares to save, he agrees. Only later does he realize he’s signed up to do far more than he’d ever imagined.

With fighting erupting around his Kansas farm, 16-year-old Jefferson Davis Bussey can hardly wait to join the Union forces. He wants to defend his family from the dreaded Colonel Watie and his Cherokee Indian rebels. After enlisting, Jeff discovers the life of a soldier brings little glory and honor. During battle, his friends die around him. And when he infiltrates Watie’s camp as a spy, he discovers the enemy is much like himself—only fighting for a different cause.

Son Holland arrived in the Louisiana penal camp determined not to spend the rest of his days suffering in a chain gang - but he didn't imagine for one minute that in order to escape he would need to kill a man. Terrified for his life, he flees the state across the river to Texas, taking with him a beautiful Indian squaw and a fellow prisoner. And as they make their way towards General Houston's infamous Texas Rangers they find themselves in the midst of the final tragic battle for the Alamo.

Edward Bloom, an aging salesman, is dying. As his grown son, William, cares for him, the young man tries to focus on what he knows about his father’s life. Story after story surfaces in William’s memory, and he shares mythic visions of a fantastic father who was loved by all - a man who was the best runner, fisherman, businessman, and adventurer in the world. Big Fish tells these tall tales of Edward Bloom’s life. Punctuated with his vast repertory of jokes, they set the stage for Edward’s final, wonderful transformation.

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.

Even if you thought you knew everything about basketball legend Larry Bird, this audiobook is full of surprises. Bird speaks with amazing candor, offering a personal and honest look at his career with the Celtics, his experience with the ’92 Olympics Dream Team, and his transition from superstar player to respected coach. Bird offers striking revelations about his health problems and how they shaped the man and his game. He shows how the things he learned as a player formed his thinking as a coach.

Southern Illinois is a place of mixed emotions as the American Civil War erupts. For the Creightons, the war lures two sons to the Union army and one to the Confederacy, leaving 10-year-old Jethro to care for the family farm. As the war rages, Jethro does whatever he can to learn about the fates of his brothers, while the Creighton family faces its own danger. Some townspeople can’t forgive the Creightons for having a rebel son-and they’re willing to use violence to make their feelings known. In a state torn by conflicting loyalties, Jethro is forced to grow up quickly to preserve his family and their home.

Wyatt Dixon, rodeo cowboy and 'the most dangerous, depraved, twisted and unpredictable human I ever knew' is certainly not one of Billy Bob Holland's favourite people. Sentenced to 60 years in jail for murder, Dixon is out after only a year, due to the DA's failure to disclose a piece of information. He swears he's a changed man and needs Billy Bob's help, but how can Billy Bob believe the man who tortured his wife? And then there's Johnny American Horse, who has been caught carrying a gun. He says he needs it for protection; in a dream he saw two men coming for him.

When Blinking Jack Stokes met Ruby Pitt Woodrow, she was 20 and he was 40. She was the carefully raised daughter of Carolina gentry and he was a skinny tenant farmer who had never owned anything in his life. She was newly widowed after a disastrous marriage to a brutal drifter. He had never asked a woman to do more than help him hitch a mule. They didn't fall in love so much as they simply found each other and held on for dear life.

When Jon Katz got a call from an animal control officer about Simon, a neglected donkey who had been found on a failing farm in upstate New York, he wasn't expecting to add another animal to his already full life. But when he made the trek out to meet him, he couldn't help falling in love with the skinny, mangy donkey who had already suffered so much, and he ended up taking him into his home. It was Simon who listened in the fields as Jon read to him and discussed philosophy.

Born in small-town Texas during the Great Depression, Willie Nelson was raised to believe in helping his neighbors and living without pretense. After many hardscrabble years as a poorly paid songwriter (often watching his work become a gold mine for other performers), Willie finally found his...

Author William Gay is the winner of the 1999 William Peden Award and the 1999 James A. Michener Memorial Prize. In his debut collection, Gay brings to life 13 stories about a diverse group of colorful characters living in the fertile Tennessee country land.

Award-winning author Helen Frost takes us into the breathtaking Alaskan winter landscape in this thrilling adventure with a touch of fantasy. Twelve-year-old Willow-whose heritage is both Athabascan Indian and European-wants nothing more than to mush the sled dogs to her grandparents' home...

Images of U.S. Marines assaulting Pacific beaches in World War II have stereotyped the service's roles and personnel for more than 50 years. This frank firsthand account of Marines sweeping over sands of a different sort in fast armored vehicles retires that popular legend and recasts the Corps as the modern, professional fighting force it was in Desert Storm. Battling a savage environment; an unknown enemy brandishing threats of nuclear, gas, and biological attacks; and a host of technological and tactical snafus, Alpha Company of the 1st Light Armored Infantry Battalion pushed forward at the "tip of the spear".

By the celebrated author of Canada Reads Finalist Indian Horse, a stunning new novel that has all the timeless qualities of a classic, as it tells the universal story of a father/son struggle in a fresh, utterly memorable way, set in dramatic landscape of the BC Interior. For male and female readers equally, for readers of Joseph Boyden, Cormac McCarthy, Thomas King, Russell Banks, and general literary.

In this New York Times bestseller, twenty-six renowned authors team up to create a first-rate serial thriller—a collaboration that combines the skills of today's greatest storytellers to produce one gripping murder mystery. “The lineup of writers who have contributed to this mystery is akin...

The Mississippi countryside is Joe Ransom's world. There, whiskey, fast trucks, and a hard right fist are the badges of manhood. But middle age is approaching, and Joe tries to not think too much about the future. At 15, Gary Jones' life is painful and unpredictable. His days are spent avoiding his brutish father and caring for a damaged mother an sister. When Joe's and Gary's paths cross, the resulting friendship is a bizarre rite of passage for both of them.

In this self-portrait by an American genius, Kurt Vonnegut writes with beguiling wit and poignant wisdom about his favorite comedians, country music, a dead friend, a dead marriage, and various cockamamie aspects of his all-too-human journey through life. This is a work that resonates with Vonnegut's singular voice: the magic sound of a born storyteller mesmerizing us with truth.

Young Thomas Corn Eyes sees into the otherworld, but all he wants to do is get off the rez. Steve Cole escaped from his rock star life to disappear into the desert and mountains. Fifteen-year-old barrio kid Sadie Higgins has been discarded once too often. Blogger Leah Hardin needs to leave Newford, come to terms with the loss of her best friend, and actually engage with her life. When these lives collide in the Hierro Maderas Mountains, they must struggle to escape their messy pasts and find a way to carve a future for themselves.