Norman Dietz
2) The rifle
Author
Description
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. This tough, thought-provoking novel for young adults takes deadly aim at the oft-quoted notion: "Guns don't kill people, people kill people." With subtle mastery and precision, Paulsen's novel challenges the idea that firearms don't become instruments of destruction and murder until they are...
Author
Series
Description
Sam Gardner never dreamed he would be thanking God for Harmony's self-appointed general of the religious Right, Dale Hinshaw. God does indeed work in mysterious ways.
Amanda Hodge, who has been living with her Uncle Ellis and Aunt Miriam since her parents abandoned her years ago, now faces their return and their desire to be a part of her life again. Dale Hinshaw hovers on the brink of death, in dire need of a heart transplant The whole town
...Author
Description
In an eventful year spanning two Easters in a small Midwestern town, witness Sam Gardner suffering a crisis of faith; follow the marital woes of Wayne Fleming; learn of a secret illness and a surprise lottery recipient; and laugh at the marvel of Dale Hinshaw's ill-hatched Scripture-Eggs ministry.
Author
Description
In 1948, a mysterious and charismatic man arrives in a small Virginia town carrying two suitcases; one contains his worldly possessions, the other is full of money. He soon inserts himself into the town's daily life, taking a job in the local butcher shop and befriending the owner and his wife and their son. But the passion that develops between the man and the wife of the town's wealthiest citizen sets in motion a series of events that not only upset...
Author
Description
Squarely in the crosshairs of the Church's heresy hunters, can Pastor Sam survive?
It's a madcap year in Harmony, Indiana, as Sam Gardner struggles through his fourth year as pastor of the Harmony Friends Meeting. Join the thousands of readers who have fallen in love with the charming small town that hosts what BookPage calls "the biggest collection of crusty, lovable characters since James Herriot settled in Yorkshire."
Author
Series
Harmony volume 7th year
Description
It's summer in Harmony, but not everything is as sunny as the weather. The good citizens of Harmony are back and stirring up trouble as usual, sometimes with disastrous results. Pastor Sam Gardner must take a leave of absence from his post at Harmony Friends Meeting to take care of his ailing father. But when spunky pastor Krista Riley comes to fill his position, the quirky Quakers seem to fall in love with her, and it begins to look like Sam's sabbatical...
Author
Description
Loewen (emeritus, sociology, U. of Vermont) exposes the history and persistence of "sundown towns," so-named for the signs often found at their corporate limits warning African Americans and other minorities not to be found in the town after dusk. He historically situates the rise of the sundown town movement in the years following the Civil War; describes the mechanisms of violence, threats, law, and policy that were used to force minorities out...
Author
Description
In a collection of brief autobiographical essays, the renowned novelist offers his views on art, politics, and everyday life in America. A Man Without a Country is Kurt Vonnegut's hilariously funny and razor-sharp look at life "If I die-God forbid-I would like to go to heaven to ask somebody in charge up there, Hey, what was the good news and what was the bad news?"), art ("To practice any art, no matter how well or badly, is a way to make your soul...
13) Old Yeller
Author
Series
Description
When a novel like Huckleberry Finn, or The Yearling, comes along it defies customary adjectives because of the intensity of the respouse it evokes in the reader. Such a book, we submit, is Old Yeller; to read this eloquently simple story of a boy and his dog in the Texas hill country is an unforgettable and deeply moving experience. Set in the rough wilderness of early frontier Texas, "Old Yeller" is a timeless coming-of-age tale. Travis is left to...
Author
Description
At nearly 95, Studs Terkel has written about everyone's life, it seems, but his own. Here he offers a memoir which--embodying the spirit of the man himself--is youthful and vivacious. Terkel begins by taking us back to his childhood, describing the hectic life of a family trying to earn a living in Chicago. He then goes on to his experiences--as a poll watcher charged with stealing votes for the Democratic machine, as a young theatergoer, and eventually...
Author
Description
In Founders' Son, celebrated historian Richard Brookhiser presents a compelling new biography of Abraham Lincoln that highlights his lifelong struggle to carry on the work of the Founding Fathers. Following Lincoln from his humble origins in Kentucky to his assassination in Washington, D.C., Brookhiser shows us every side of the man: laborer, lawyer, congressman, president; storyteller, wit, lover of ribald jokes; depressive, poet, friend, visionary....
Author
Description
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.
Author
Description
In this collection of essays, McManus ponders the strange allure of the RV, a thirtieth-century hunting trip, the art of wrestling toads, the existential implications of being lost, the baffling tendency of animals to outsmart those who wish to hunt them, the singular pleasure of doubling the size of every fish one doesn't catch, and what happens when a bear named Pooky decides to hibernate in the attic.
Author
Series
Description
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...
Author
Description
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.