Showing results by narrator "Norman Dietz" in All Categories

Soon after its debut at the time of the Civil War, the Gatling gun changed the nature of warfare and the course of world history. Discharging 200 shots per minute with alarming accuracy, the world's first machine gun became vitally important to protecting and expanding America's overseas interests.

Our most revered president gets a unique and uniquely engaging biography fashioned from the answers to the most frequent, and most unusual and surprising, questions asked about Abraham Lincoln that Gerald J. Prokopowicz was asked during the nine years he served as scholar-in-residence at the Lincoln Museum in Fort Wayne, Indiana. Prokopowicz's authoritative, often surprising responses illuminate facets of Abraham Lincoln's life, work, and legacy about which people remain endlessly curious.

At 78, Winnie Easton has finally found love again with Jerry Trevis, a wealthy Chicago businessman who has moved to the small, upstate town of Hartfield, New York, to begin his life anew. But their decision to buy one of the town's biggest houses ignites anger and skepticism - as children and grandchildren take drastic actions to secure their own futures and endangered inheritances. With so much riding on Jerry's wealth, a decline in his physical health forces hard decisions on the family, renewing old loyalties while creating surprising alliances.

“Bluefish,” writes the author, are “animated chopping machines. They will eat anything alive. They have stripped the toes from surfers in Florida. They can’t not eat.” Hersey weaves fact and legend around his subject, engaging the reader with juicy details of ocean life, philosophy, natural history, and the crises into which man has let his environment slide.

The Fourth Horseman tells the startling story of that mission, led by a brilliant but conflicted surgeon who became one of Germany's most daring spies and saboteurs during World War I - and who not only pioneered bio-warfare in his native land but also lead a last-ditch German effort to goad Mexico into invading the United States. It is a story of mysterious missions, divided loyalties, and a new and terrible kind of warfare.

How often can you peek behind the curtains of one of the most secretive governments in the world? Prisoner of the State is the first book to give listeners a front row seat to the secret inner workings of China's government. It is the story of Premier Zhao Ziyang, the man who brought liberal change to that nation and who, at the height of the Tiananmen Square protests in 1989, tried to stop the massacre and was dethroned for his efforts.

Chip Chippendale met Ransom Barnes after the War Between the States, when the two cowboys drove a herd up from Texas together. But when Chip first laid eyes on Wyoming, he knew he was home, and the two friends split off on different trails. Each man went on to own his own ranch, but when Ransom's home is attacked and burned by a marauding band of Cheyenne warriors, he is faced with ruin - and makes matters worse by gunning down the Cheyenne leader's son.

Lampassas gave up cowpunching to be a husband and shopkeeper. But when his wife dies of influenza, the aging cowboy puts on his spurs again. With his 17-year-old son at his side, Lampassas sets off on his own cattle drive. His adventures and misadventures are the stuff classic Westerns are made of, yet the unforgettable characters and gentle wisdom set this novel far apart from the herd.

In Summerlin, North Carolina, it is - quite literally - a race to the finish. Glenn and Laura Bales lie dying in the same house, and although Laura is more interested in her Whitman’s Sampler chocolates, and Glenn in whatever happened to his first wife, Evelyn, their children have their eyes unswervingly fixed on the inheritance. Who will get the money, and what it will mean for this unusual little Southern community is a richly comic novel about endings.

This is the story of an Abraham Lincoln many Americans aren't at all familiar with: Lincoln as a reluctant husband in an abusive relationship; Lincoln who came within moments of fighting a duel with a political adversary; the first and only president to patent an invention; and the first future president to argue before the Supreme Court.

These treasured stories from the most influential authors of the 19th and early 20th centuries are selected for their literary importance as well as their dramatic, oral qualities. Listen to these 10 unabridged classics by Nathaniel Hawthorne, Herman Melville, O. Henry, and Willa Cather.

Of all the sports played across the globe, none has more curses, superstitions, or supernatural events like baseball, America's national pastime. While some of these can easily be explained, there are just as many that cannot. Field of Fantasies delves right into that superstition with short stories written by several key authors about baseball and the supernatural.

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 the quiet town but threaten to destroy both him and the woman.

A fragmented story comprised of anecdotal episodes from the early days of Hollywood.

In Sawgamet, a north woods boomtown gone bust, the cold of winter breaks the glass of the schoolhouse thermometer, and the dangers of working in the cuts are overshadowed by the mysteries and magic lurking in the woods. Stephen, a pastor, is at home on the eve of his mother's funeral, 30 years after the mythic summer his grandfather returned to the town in search of his beloved but long-dead wife. And like his grandfather, Stephen is forced to confront the losses of his past.

Spur Award-winner Gary Svee is praised by western fans for his fascinating novels of the 19th-century American frontier. In Spirit Wolf, a mysterious wolf-like animal has been destroying cattle in Montana. In the dead of winter, Nashua Brue ventures into the wilderness to track and kill this vicious beast. Soon he discovers the real killer walks on two legs, not four.

Probably no one uses baseball as metaphor better than Kinsella. The stories in this collection range in tone from zaniness to pathos. It's hard to choose a favorite story: maybe the bizarre "Reports Concerning the Death of the Seattle Albatross Are Somewhat Exaggerated", about a mascot from outer space who really looks like a bird. Or the title story, about childhood innocence violated. Or the touching "Valley of the Schmoon", told by a man who has lost everything without having the faintest idea why.

How do TV shows, vending machines, Chinese taxi companies, and a former UK prime minister point to a gold bubble that is about to burst? Many investors consider gold a "safe haven" that will shelter them from recessions, falling markets, and the depreciating value of currency. Many fail to realize, however, that investing in gold at these levels is extremely risky.

Author Robert Flynn has won numerous accolades for his writing, including a Spur Award, a Western Heritage Award and a Distinguished Achievement Award from the Texas Institute of Letters. In the House of the Lord follows one day in the life of a Protestant minister as he balances faith with self doubt while answering the demands of his church.

Books of Poetry and Wisdom, Part 1 is Volume 11 from the "Books of Poetry and Wisdom" in the Old Testament, from the Unabridged Contemporary English Version Translation of the Holy Bible. Part 1 consists of the Book of Job.