DescriptionBetty Zane is the story of the first settlers in the Ohio Valley, and their fight for survival during the Revolutionary war. The British have organized and incited the various eastern tribes to attack American 'Rebels' in this lesser known theater of the war. Betty is a fiery beauty, who's quest for romance with Alfred Clarke is interrupted time and again by Indian raids and battles. In an unexpected twist, it is Betty, who turns the tide at the final battle of Fort Henry. Inspired by the life and adventures of his own great-great grandmother, Betty Zane was Zane Grey's first novel. This and the other two books in the "Ohio River Trilogy" his are considered some of Grey's best work.
DescriptionLew Wallace gained world-wide fame as the author of the best-selling novel, Ben Hur . But did you know that as a boy, he played hooky from school? Governor, foreign minister, Civil War general, inventor, artist, and author, Lew Wallace spent his boyhood in the fields and rivers of his native Midwest. Join Lew as he rescues his baby brother from beneath the wheels of a carriage and entertains friends with portraits from his "magic pencil". Lew Wallace: Boy Writer features the story of the childhood of the young author from the age of five until the age of 19, and ends with a brief summary of his adult achievements.
DescriptionA Son of the Middle Border is an epic story of the quest for new frontiers during the last half of the nineteenth century, and of the gradual, heartbreaking failure of America's pioneer ideal. Drawing on the history of his own family, Pulitzer Prize-winner Hamlin Garland chronicles the experiences of a generation. A Son of the Middle Border, Garland's bittersweet narrative of growing up on Wisconsin, Iowa, and South Dakota farms, captures in vivid, moving detail the stories of the thousands of courageous and optimistic Americans who sought new and prosperous lives on the mid-western frontier and discovered not only the grandeur of the plains but the immense toll nature demands from those who try to tame the land.
DescriptionIn Bradbury's unforgettable modern Gothic masterpiece, Something Wicked This Way Comes, something evil arrives in a small Midwestern town on the crest of the wind one autumn night. A "dark carnival" with frightening attractions and supernatural characters sets up stakes. It is up to two 13-year-old boys, James Nightshade and William Holloway, to figure out a way to save the souls of the town. In A Sound of Thunder, a safari company promises to transport adventurers back in time, to hunt any animal that ever existed. The animals are selected according to their natural time of death: nothing else may be altered, because it might change the course of the future. When one foolish hunter comes face to face with a Tyrannosaurus Rex, the carefully constructed safari goes awry, and the future is up for grabs.
DescriptionDorothy Martin and her husband, Alan Nesbitt, recently retired from Scotland Yard, get word that she has received a small inheritance. But she must travel from her home in England to her native Indiana to claim it. The deceased has also left a letter suggesting that he's been murdered. At first, that seems absurd. He was 96-years-old and died of pneumonia. Upon further investigation, however, the two sleuths find several suspects with the means, motives, and opportunities to abet Mother Nature. There's the crazy next-door neighbor, the preacher whose finances have risen while those of his parishioners have fallen, and the impoverished niece who expected to be named in the will and wasn't. Finding suspects is easy. Finding the murderer isn't.
DescriptionIn the spring of 1926, the Soderbjerg brothers, Ray and Roy, plunge into radio by founding Station WLT (With Lettuce and Tomato) in order to rescue their failing restaurant and become the Sandwich Kings of South Minneapolis. For the next 25 years, the "Friendly Neighbor" station produces a dazzling array of shows and stars: Dad Benson, Wingo Beals, Slim Graves and his Blue Movers, chain-smoking child star Little Becky, and household-tips maven Lucille Larson (who repeatedly broadcasts in her underwear). Brilliantly weaving together the real lives and radio lives of his characters, Garrison Keillor has given us a comic, poignant, and slightly steamy novel, full of romance, intrigue, tough business, and loose living.
