Other books that might interest you

• 

  The Slapping Sal

  Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

  • 0
  • 0
  • 0

  Aboard the English gunship Lido in the Caribbean, orders are received from the Admiral of the fleet to intercept a French ship, the Gloire, and also to hunt down a pirateer, a ship which sails under the name of The Slapping Sal, captained by mutineers under the leadership of the notorious villain, Hairy Hudson. It is not many hours before Lido finds herself engaging with both of these ships, in a breathtaking and bloody sea-battle which ends in a most unusual way.

  Show book

• 

  Mr Punch's Pocket Ibsen

  F. Anstey

  • 1
  • 0
  • 0

  These short comic parodies of five well-known tragedies by Henrik Ibsen originally appeared in Punch, the British humor magazine. From the prefatory note: "The author is conscious that his imitation is painfully lacking in the mysterious obscurity of the original, that the vein of allegorical symbolism is thinner throughout than it should be, and that the characters are not nearly so mad as persons invariably are in real life—but these are the faults inevitable to a prentice hand, and he trusts that due allowances may be made for them by the critical." LibriVox has produced full-cast versions of all five plays that F. Anstey parodies in this collection: Rosmersholm, A Doll's House, Hedda Gabler, The Wild Duck, and The Master Builder. - Summary by Elizabeth Klett

  Show book

• 

  Running for My Life - My Journey...

  Warrick Dunn, Don Yaeger

  • 0
  • 0
  • 0

  Warrick Dunn was only eighteen when his mother, a Baton Rouge police officer, was shot and killed. Yet somehow he managed to enroll at Florida State University and help his team to a national championship during  his freshman year—while also caring for his five brothers and sisters. Despite his modest size, Dunn went on to a storied NFL career with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and the Atlanta Falcons, becoming one of only twenty-three running backs in NFL history to exceed the 10,000-yard career rushing mark. Off the field, he created the Warrick Dunn Foundation and its Homes for the Holidays program, helping single parents achieve first-time home ownership. But in his drive to help others, the one person Dunn neglected was himself, as the pain of his mother's loss led to a spiraling depression that went untreated for years.Running for My Life details Dunn's struggle to confront his past and face the grief that consumed him for far too long. Thought-provoking and uplifting, it is the story of an exceptional athlete's secret torment and inspiring courage.

  Show book

• 

  Way Off the Road - Discovering...

  Bill Geist

  • 0
  • 0
  • 0

  Celebrated roving correspondent for CBS News Sunday Morning and bestselling author Bill Geist serves up a rollicking look at some small-town Americans and their offbeat ways of life."In rural Kansas, I asked our motel desk clerk for the name of the best restaurant in the area. After mulling it over, he answered: 'I'd have to say the Texaco, 'cuz the Shell don't have no microwave.'"Throughout his career, Bill Geist's most popular stories have been about slightly odd but loveable individuals. Coming on the heels of his 5,600-mile RV trip across our fair land is Way Off the Road, a hilarious and compelling mix of stories about the folks featured in Geist's segments, along with observations on his twenty years of life on the road. Written in the deadpan style that has endeared him to millions, Geist shares tales of eccentric individuals, such as the ninety-three-year-old pilot-paperboy who delivers to his far-flung subscribers by  plane; the Arizona mailman who delivers mail via horseback down the walls of the Grand Canyon; the Muleshoe, Texas, anchorwoman who delivers the news from her bedroom (occasionally wearing her bathrobe); and the struggling Colorado entrepreneur who finds success employing a sewer vacuum to rid Western ranchers of problematic prairie dogs. Geist also takes us to events such as the Mike the Headless Chicken Festival (celebrating an inspiring bird that survived decapitation, hired an agent, and went on the road for eighteen months) and Sundown Days in Hanlontown, Iowa, where the town marks the one day a year when the sun sets directly between the railroad tracks.Along the wacky and wonderful way, Geist shows us firsthand how life in fly-over America can be odd, strangely fascinating, hysterical, and anything but boring.

  Show book

• 

  High Lonesome

  Barry Hannah

  • 1
  • 0
  • 0

  A darkly comic, fiercely tragic, and strikingly original odyssey into contemporary American life by “the Jimi Hendrix of American short fiction” (Interview).   The thirteen masterful tales in this collection by the award-winning author of Airships and Bats Out of Hell explore lost moments in time with intensity, emotion, and an eye to the past. In “Uncle High Lonesome,” a young man recalls an uncle’s drinking binges and the rage unleashed, hinting at dark waters of distress. Fishing is transformed into a life-altering, almost mystical event in “A Creature in the Bay of St. Louis.” And in “Snerd and Niggero,” a deep friendship between two men is inspired by the loss of a woman they both loved. Viewed through memory and time’s distance, Barry Hannah’s characters are brightly illuminated figures from a lost time, whose occasionally bleak lives are still uncommonly true.   “Barry Hannah’s writing is raw and exhilarating, tortured, radiant, vicious, aggressive, funny, and streaked with rage, pain and bright poetic truth.” —The Philadelphia Inquirer on Airships

  Show book

• 

  Ninety-Day Wonder - How The Navy...

  Stephen Davenport

  • 0
  • 0
  • 0

  "What was I supposed to do with my B.A. in literature: gather the sailors around me just before taps and read Faulkner to them as they fell asleep?" 
  Ensign Stephen Davenport was the most severely under qualified of the Ninety-Day Wonders, the derisive term for commissioned officers in the Naval Reserve with only ninety days of training, all of which were on dry land. For his final navigation exam, he actually plotted a course that landed a fictional destroyer somewhere in the Sierra Mountains. Nevertheless, in in August of 1953, he reported to his first assignment aboard the USS Vermillion. He would be overseeing the First Division for training in amphibious landings. 
  Once on ship, Davenport quickly learned that while he held authority in title, respect was less easily learned. The First Division was manned by deckhands who could do things he had no idea how to do - like maneuvering a winch to drop a truck into a landing craft bobbing in the waves thirty feet below without killing the crew, or getting a landing craft on and off a beach through huge surf in the middle of winter. Davenport just called out orders --- and he didn't always feel confident in that either. He fell for dangerous pranks by the crew, permitted an inebriated sailor in his underwear to ride a horse up the gangway, and almost caused a collision at sea. Though he served for only two years, Davenport's time in the Naval Reserve was bizarre, incredible and absolutely unforgettable. 
  At times hilarious, other times scary, Ninety-Day Wonder is the riveting account of dangers, triumphs and fundamental lessons learned aboard ship by an inexperienced officer among far more experienced sailors.

  Show book