Resultados de "Donald A. Davis" en Todas las categorias

If you have never ridden a mule along a 48-inch wide trail whose ledge drops off, in places, 700 feet to the Colorado River, straight down, you may have difficulty picturing the temporary insanity that leads otherwise responsible adults to sign away the remainder of their natural life expectancy just for the chance to see the Grand Canyon's natural beauty close-up.

Storyteller Donald Davis had a very sensible mother. She had a pretty good idea of what boys would do, so she was always on the lookout. As Davis later learned, always being on the lookout is what mamas do. His vigilant but gentle mother gave her son multiple gifts in life and, as we learn in the end, gifts that do not end with her passing.

In the hills of Appalachia, humor and wisdom are mixed up forever in funny, wise stories that seem to grow more lustrous with each telling. Here are two of the best: "Uncle Frank Invents the Electron Microphone", Appalachian folk wisdom rolled into one of Davis' funniest stories; "Uncle Frank and the Crown Feed Boys", Davis' legendary Uncle Frank teaches a couple of traveling salesmen the lesson of their lives.

We all know someone like them: women whose lives revolve around their cats. Here Donald Davis paints verbal portraits of two very different women in his life who shared a fiercely unshakable sense of priorities. It was simply understood that the cats came first, and once you accepted that, everything else made perfect sense. Employing his trademark Carolina drawl, droll wit, and sharp observations, Davis is in top form here as he pays homage to these two remarkable women and their devotion to their feline families.

The warmth of the Christmas season is condensed into this single collection that will rekindle your Christmas memories. Who doesn't remember Christmas at Grandma's? The living room aglow with family and friends, the kitchen like a factory of sweet aromas, the relatives everywhere! Donald Davis captures the spirit of Christmas as seen through the eyes of a child in these stories: "Christmas in Sulpher Springs", "The Children's Christmas Party", "The Year My Brother Almost Died", and "The Red Scooters."

Joe Davis was in his mid-40s when he became a father, and the experience he was able to apply in raising his sons lent creativity to his parenting. The five stories here recall the wisdom of fathers with humor and rich detail: a visit to the Smithsonian inspires father's memory; father "cures" a boy's impulse to try cigarettes; Santa Claus learns an important lesson; and someone plays a trick on a visiting preacher.

In rural North Carolina, in 1951, despite parental reassurances, a typhoid shot hurt. It hurt even more when the children saw who would be administering the shot: Miss Winnie, a large, dictatorial nurse who had been "especially built by the nursing school so she would never blow away in a hard wind".

Old Man Hawkins was a larger-than-life character among deer hunters, or, more precisely, among tellers and hearers of tall tales. His self-proclaimed method of hunting deer by holding a mirror in one hand and his rifle in the other, pointing backward over a shoulder, was, he said, "to be fair to the deer". It was a story, Davis tells us, that would occupy his father on the drive to Grandma's house.

The best friend of our youth has no replacement, ever. Though we may start out as "two peas in a pod", we often lose touch with one another. In this affecting tale of two adults who reclaim their childhood bond after 30 years apart, the comforts of friendship are affirmed with humor and wit.

Deemed "irreplaceable" by Robert E. Lee, Stonewall Jackson assumed his nickname during the Battle of Bull Run in the Civil War. It is said that the Army of Northern Virginia never fully recovered from the loss of Jackson's leadership when he was accidentally shot by one of his own men and died in 1863.

Perhaps the most compelling murder case of our day, the death of six-year-old JonBenet Ramsey galvanized the nation - and years after it occurred, the mystery still endures. Who killed the young beauty queen and why? Who is covering up for whom, and who is simply lying? In JonBenet, the most authoritative and comprehensive study of the Ramsey murder, a former lead Boulder Police detective, Steve Thomas, explores the case in vivid and fascinating detail.

The Central Intelligence Agency is under attack, and so is its top field operative, Kyle Swanson. The highly decorated former marine corps gunnery sergeant is attending the funeral of a friend when a terrorist blows up the grave. A week later he narrowly survives a grenade attack in Berlin. In Washington, Congress is being told that Swanson has been turned, his private employer is corrupt, and the agency itself cannot be trusted.

A top Russian intelligence agent has defected to the West, and the only man with whom he will speak is Kyle Swanson, who busted him out of the US Marine Corps Scout/Sniper School years ago. The defector proves to be an Edward Snowden-type gold mine of amazing secrets about the when, where and how of President Vladimir Pushkin's next grab for lost Soviet territory. But Swanson, now a special contractor with the CIA, soon begins to believe that it is all fool's gold being sprinkled by Moscow to ignite an open military fight with NATO and the United States.

Top-ranked sniper Kyle Swanson was a promising young marine on a dangerous peacekeeping mission in Mogadishu when he first captured "the Cobra", and a lifelong blood feud began. Twenty years later Kyle works for the CIA while the Cobra emerges from prison to become an efficient killing machine, and he has never slackened his hatred for Swanson. To draw out his ultimate target, the Cobra launches a violent campaign against the United States and attacks the second-largest shopping mall in America.

Kyle is captured and thrown in prison. Lauren is accused of being a double agent. The one person they trust to help is the man who sent them on the black operation - Jim Hall, a legendary CIA agent, Kyle's sniper mentor, and Lauren's boss and former lover. But Hall has gone rogue. He is selling America's innermost secrets to a ruthless Pakistani warlord who wants to mold al-Qaeda into a legitimate political party and secure a nuclear arsenal.

At a 15th Century castle outside Edinburgh, Scotland, Sir Geoffrey Cornwell is brokering an unprecedented agreement. Prince Abdullah of Saudi Arabia and the Israeli Foreign Minister are scheduled to sign an historic peace treaty—that is, until their meeting is violently interrupted by a missile strike that leaves the Foreign Minister of Israel dead and Cornwell and the Prince injured. Gunnery Sergeant Kyle Swanson is running covert missions in the mountains of Pakistan when he's called away from duty.

In this follow-up to the highly successful Kill Zone, former marine sniper Kyle Swanson faces his most deadly enemy yet, a legendary enemy sniper working with a fringe Islamic organization that has created a terrifying new weapon of mass destruction.

An American general is captured by Islamic extremists in the Middle East. They threaten to behead him within days. One strange fact: Moments before he is rendered unconscious during the attack, the general notices that his unseen captors speak American English. What's going on?

In this follow-up to the highly successful Kill Zone, former Marine sniper Kyle Swanson faces his most deadly enemy yet, a legendary enemy sniper working with a fringe Islamic organization that has created a terrifying new weapon of mass destruction In Baghdad's Green Zone, an Iraqi scientist is...

*This program is abridged* An American general is captured in the Middle East. They threaten to behead him within days. But moments before he is rendered unconscious during the attack, the General realizes that his unseen captors are American. Gunnery Sergeant Kyle Swanson, a top level Marine...