Norman Dietz
1) The rifle
Author
Summary
A priceless, handcrafted rifle, fired throughout the American Revolution, is passed down through the years until it fires on a fateful Christmas Eve of 1994.
Author
Series
Summary
Roxana, a light-skinned slave nurse on a large Southern plantation, is desperate to give her son a better chance at life than she had ever enjoyed, and so she switches him with the master's son. Years later, when Roxana's real son has turned to gambling, murder, and theft, it is the country lawyer, Pudd'nhead Wilson, who unmasks the true identity of the two. Considered Twain's most courageous work, this short novel is one of the most sensitive treatments...
Author
Series
Summary
Patrick F. McManus, the "funniest guy in the Outdoor Life and Field & Stream gang…offers another bag of whimsy in the Great Outdoors"* with The Grasshopper Trap.
In this collection of thirty zany stories, spoofing camping, fishing, and other outdoor recreational activities, McManus shares his hilarious wilderness misadventures. From facing an angry bear with an unloaded gun and the folly of running a boat while it's still on the trailer to not...
4) Old Yeller
Author
Summary
A timeless American classic and one of the most beloved children?s books ever written, Old Yeller is a Newbery Honor Book that explores the poignant and unforgettable bond between a boy and the stray dog who becomes his loyal friend.
Author
Series
Summary
America's "most gifted outdoor humorist" (Detroit Free Press) regales readers with this collection of gut-busting, man vs. nature tales originally published in such magazines as Field & Stream and Outdoor Living.
Patrick F. McManus's hilarious and comic stories of camping and other nature-oriented activities reach ridiculous proportions in The Night the Bear Ate Goombaw. From teaching his stepfather the methods of madness behind farm work through...
Author
Formats
Summary
The beloved humorist and bestselling author returns with his most riotous collection of essays to date.
Overflowing with his trademark outdoorsman's wit, Patrick F. McManus's newest collection ponders the strange allure of the RV, the existential implications of being lost, the baffling tendency of animals to outsmart those who wish to hunt them, and the singular pleasure of doubling the size of every fish one doesn't actually catch.
Combining the...
7) Roughing it
Author
Series
Summary
Originally published over one hundred years ago, "Roughing It" tells the (almost) true story of Mark Twain's rollicking adventures across the United States. A hilarious account of how the author tried finding wealth in the rocks of Nevada, it was published before his most famous works and shows why he would grow to become one of the most beloved American writers of all time. The story follows many of Twain's early adventures, including a visit to...
Author
Summary
Bestsellers by America's favorite humorist:
A Fine And Pleasant Misery
They Shoot Canoes, Don't They?
Never Sniff A Gift Fish
The Grasshopper Trap
Rubber Legs And White Tail-hairs
The Night The Bear Ate Goombaw
Whatchagot Stew (with Patricia "The Troll" McManus Gass)
Real Ponies Don't Go Oink!
The Good Samaritan Strikes Again
How I Got This Way
These titles are available from Henry Holt and Company.
Author
Summary
Patrick McManus, the bestselling author of such hilarious books as A Fine and Pleasant Misery and Never Sniff a Gift Fish, now offers readers solid thoughts on the qualities that define leadership, beginning with the need to be tall, and much more, in this outrageous collection of short pieces that reveals his tortuous trip along the writer's path.
Author
Summary
Let the world's funniest sportsman tickle your funny bone with quirky homespun stories and whimsical perspectives on life. Patrick F. McManus gently pokes fun at the oddities of sacred institutions like friendship, marriage, and even hunting and fishing. Soon his crazy theories start making sense, and you know you've crossed the border into McManus country, where life is a little lighter-and much more amusing. McManus initiates you into his world...
12) Lincoln
Author
Series
Summary
In the best-selling tradition of Truman, two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning biographer David Herbert Donald offers a new classic in American history and biography - a masterly account of how one man's extraordinary political acumen steered the Union to victory in the Civil War, and of how his soaring rhetoric gave meaning to that agonizing struggle for nationhood and equality. Donald spent 50 years studying Lincoln, tracing his rise from humble origins...
Author
Series
Summary
"The book relates the tale of Hank Morgan, an engineer from 19th century Hartford Connecticut, who is inexplicably transported to the early medieval England of King Arthur. While there he uses his knowledge of modern technology to appear as though he is a magician. Despite his best intentions, Hank?s attempts to modernize the past bring about a tragic end. A bittersweet depiction of the Arthurian legend through the eyes of a 19th century American..."...
Author
Formats
Summary
To live in a pristine land unchanged by man; to roam the wilderness through which few other humans have passed; to choose an idyllic site, cut trees, and build a log cabin; to be a self-sufficient craftsman, making what is needed from materials available; to be not at odds with the world, but content with one's own thoughts and company: thousands have had such dreams, but Richard Proenneke lived them. This book is a simple account of the day-by-day...
16) Murphy's ambush
Author
Series
Summary
Gary Paulsen, a Golden Spur award-winning author, collaborates with Brian Burks for this western-mystery tale of unlikely heroes and villains that is refreshingly free of gratuitous violence and sex. Life in Turrett, New Mexico was quiet until Travis Price rode into town bleeding and gravely wounded by an arrow. Paulsen and Burks serve up a vast and heroic vision of the Old West in this crisp, action-packed and suspenseful novel.
17) The idiot
Author
Series
Summary
"Just two years after completing Crime and Punishment, Dostoevsky produced a second novel with a very different man at its center. In The Idiot, the saintly Prince Myshkin returns to Russia from a Swiss sanatorium and finds himself a stranger in a society obsessed with wealth, power, and sexual conquest. He soon becomes entangled in a love triangle with a notorious kept woman, Nastasya, and a beautiful young girl, Aglaya. Extortion and scandal escalate...
Author
Summary
The driving of the golden spike at Promontory Summit, which marked the completion of the country's first transcontinental railroad, was only the beginning of the race for railroad dominance. In the aftermath of this building feat, dozens of railroads, each with aggressive empire builders at their helms, raced one another for the ultimate prize of a southern transcontinental route that was generally free of snow, shorter in distance, and gentler in...
Author
Summary
In a landmark work of deep scholarship and insight, Foner gives us a life of Lincoln as it intertwined with slavery, the defining issue of the time and the tragic hallmark of American history. The author demonstrates how Lincoln navigated a dynamic political landscape deftly, moving in measured steps, often on a path forged by abolitionists and radicals in his party, and that Lincoln's greatness lay in his capacity for moral and political growth.