Showing results by narrator "Traber Burns" in All Categories

Free passes to the circus seemed pretty exiting to Djuna and his friend, Tommy Williams, and things promised to be even more exiting when they met their old friends, Socker and Cannonball, at the entrance gate, but they were only the start of a hair-raising experience. The boys soon learned that the newspaper reporter and the state trooper were trying to uncover a pack of tricksters who were cheating the circus audiences.

In July 1883, just a few days after the 20th anniversary of the Battle of Gettysburg, a group of editors at the Century magazine engaged in a lively argument: Which Civil War battle was the bloodiest battle of them all? One claimed it was Chickamauga, another Cold Harbor. The argument inspired a brainstorm: Why not let the magazine’s 125,000 readers in on the conversation by offering “a series of papers on some of the great battles of the war, to be written by officers in command on both sides.”

Robert Egan could have been a roofing contractor, like his father. Instead, he opened a barbecue restaurant. His interest in the search for Vietnam-era POWs led to an introduction to North Korean officials desperate to improve relations with the United States. So Egan turned his restaurant into Camp David, with pork ribs.

In 1964, when Ned Parker, farmer and part-time constable, is summoned to a cornfield one hot morning to examine the remains of a tortured bird dog, he discovers that there is a dark presence in their quiet community of Center Springs, Texas. Ned is usually confident handling moonshiners, drunks, and instances of domestic dispute. But when it comes to animal atrocities—which then turn to murder—the investigation spins beyond his abilities.

Is the lovely young heiress hiding somewhere among the shiny steel towers of Manhattan? Or is she the horribly mutilated corpse hauled up from the sewers of the city? Captain Timothy Corrigan, the cool cop with the eye patch, sets out to solve the puzzle and finds himself playing a fantastic game of hide-and-seek in a glittering world where everything is make-believe - except sudden, shocking death.

With Bliss, Remembered, the celebrated Frank Deford has produced a work of literature that ranks with the best of his many novels, including Everybody’s All American, which Sports Illustrated ranked as one of the 25 best sports books of all time. In Bliss, Remembered, Deford explores new territory as he tells two love stories from the perspective of a beautiful should-have-been Olympic champion named Sydney Stringfellow.

Everything you thought you knew was wrong! Long before Snopes.com and Wikipedia, The Book of Common Fallacies set out to debunk popular beliefs and set the record straight. By tracking down the facts and citing experts in a multitude of fields, Philip Ward points out the senseless ideas that we have come to accept as fact. Newly updated with today’s common misconceptions, The Book of Common Fallacies exposes the truth behind hundreds of commonly held false beliefs.

Djuna and Ben weren't sure they believed in ghosts. The little girl who opened the door of the haunted house didn't look like a ghost, yet she vanished into thin air. They had to find out what happened to her. And they had to rescue Waterbury, the time-telling turtle who walked into the deserted house - and didn't walk out. Djuna found clues, and he added them all up to solve a case the secret service couldn't crack!

Fourteen years ago, Mike Milligan learned he would become a grandfather for the first time. He was surprised to find that there was little or no information available on what it means to be a grandfather, how to make the most of the experience, and how to be the best grandfather possible. Sure, there were shelves of books dedicated to grandmothers - all with cuddly covers depicting spring bouquets or gentle little lambs. But there was not a single book that spoke to him, a 64-year-old grandfather-to-be. It struck him that there were countless other grandfathers out there experiencing this same feeling of neglect.

A masterful collection of horror fiction by widely acclaimed authors whose contributions to the genre have been lost in the shadow of Poe. Edgar Allan Poe did not invent the tale of terror. There were American, English, and continental writers who preceded Poe and influenced his work. Similarly, there were many who were in turn influenced by Poe's genius and produced their own popular tales of supernatural literature.

In The Last of All Possible Worlds, royalty, bankers, lovers, and wives intertwine to create a vivid portrait of Europe in the early 1900s. We meet wise and worldly Prince Sobieski, Vienna's ambassador in London, his enchanting wife, her English lover, and her enigmatic lifelong companion, Josefa. When Sobieski's illegitimate daughter makes a demand of her influential father, the unspoken rules of the family are challenged.

Parenting can be hard work, and our lives continue to get busier and busier. Is it possible to lighten the load but still raise great kids? From his experiences as a dad and interacting with countless other parents, Jay Payleitner has gathered scores of secrets worth passing along - simple things moms and dads have learned over the years. Some of the ideas are old-school secrets passed from one generation to the next; others deal with issues that would have never crossed Grandma and Grandpa's minds.

Mysteries have a way of finding Djuna, and this time a missing page from an old ship's log and the dead captain's haunted house start the ball rolling. Djuna has learned that Captain Beekman brought a treasure from his whaling trips. Who can have an interest in letting the boy get lost? Was Djuna close to the answer of the mystery?

When 25-year-old Harry Walker was killed by a bear in Yellowstone Park in 1972, the civil trial prompted by his death became a proxy for bigger questions about American wilderness management that had been boiling for a century. At immediate issue was whether the Park Service should have done more to keep bears away from humans, but what was revealed as the trial unfolded was just how fruitless our efforts to regulate nature in the parks had always been.

This is the wonderful adventure story of Djuna, a young boy who uses his eyes, his head, and his little Scottie dog, Champ, who uses his nose to sniff out clues. There is also Mr. Scissors, the traveling knife grinder, who is driving though the country in a wonderful caravan with his young granddaughter, Joan. There are also two wicked men who are cruel to Mr. Scissors; a reporter named Socker Furlong; and Miss Annie Ellery, who plays a surprising part at the end.

Nothing seemed to stop the little monsters. I shot a second time, wounding or killing another, and then dropped the gun to the ground. I pulled a slender blade from under my belt, and whipped it at the little men. Another couple of strikes against my legs brought me level with the filthy floor of the alley, my fine clothes being soiled by the trash of the Big City-and although I sliced and diced deeply into the bodies of several of my attackers, I knew that I was doomed to lose this particular battle in the end. There were just too many of them: they would either kill or severely injure me.

Steve Farris is an unexceptional middle-aged architect with an extraordinary past: When he was 9, his father came home one evening and coolly murdered his mother, brother, and sister before vanishing off the face of the earth. Steve has coped mainly by blotting out the terrible memories, but when writer Rebecca Soltero arrives to interview him about his father, he is forced to reawaken the horrors of his childhood.

Onboard the heavy cruiser USS Salt Lake City, Lieutenant Commander Justin Collier was 230 miles west of Pearl Harbor accompanying the USS Enterprise on a secret mission when Japan attacked the United States. Upon his return to Honolulu, the gravity of the war begins to change him, as does every subsequent mission, including a rare beach landing with an Army infantry division. He fears his wounds of war, both physical and mental, will be incurable.

In 1860, at the age of twenty-four, Winslow Homer (1836-1910) sold Harper’s two dozen wood engravings, carved into boxwood and transferred to metal plates to stamp on paper. One was a scene that Homer saw in his hometown of Boston, showing Frederick Douglass speaking about freedom and a crowd of abolitionists being thrown from a church; at their front is Frederick Douglass, declaring “the freedom of all mankind.” He is at the heart of the image, face turned skyward and right arm reaching out like a Roman orator.

They say the road to Hell is paved with good intentions. But it’s hard to know what’s going on inside the twisted mind of Magnus Lamb, the charismatic leader of an isolated logging town known for its healing hot springs. Some might say he’s created a peaceful utopia here on Gunmetal Mountain. But for Cleveland Trewe and his lovely traveling companion Berry, this little piece of heaven is more like hell on Earth. Cleve and Berry first discover the town after an encounter with a dangerous band of Indians. Cleve vows to find “the Coyote,” a young brave last seen headed for Lambsville.