Showing results by author "Donald Davis" in All Categories

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".

If you've ever been in the car while a loved one was learning to drive, then think of this as cheap therapy! Learning to drive has occasioned emotions ranging from reasonable caution to unbridled terror. Learning under the watchful eye of one's spouse is an added challenge. Undertaking the task with anxious children in the backseat can only heighten the sensory richness of the moment.

In Too Much Hair!, Donald Davis focuses on the trouble with little brothers, especially his own. In the title story, he gives his little brother the haircut he badly needs. The next story explains how he came to be permanently fired as his brother's babysitter. The third tale recounts one of the many science projects for which his brother served as Davis's personal chemistry set. These stories will call forth memories from anyone who has had to live with siblings.

The Real Jerry Lewis Story, penned by Rick Saphire, who notably served as Jerry Lewis’s personal manager, offers an intimate and detailed portrait of the legendary comedian. Saphire’s unique vantage point provides listeners with exclusive behind-the-scenes insights that only someone closely associated with Lewis could offer. The book navigates through various stages of Lewis’s illustrious career, shedding light on his comedic genius, professional triumphs, and personal challenges.

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?

Broken Bones is a double set of double stories. The first set is made up of a story Davis's grandmother told about the time his mother broke her arm - twice! The second story in the first set is about how his little brother's collarbone was broken - twice! The second set of stories concerns Davis' neighbors, the Leatherwoods, and explains what happens when two big brothers team up against two little brothers. It also tells us that fathers are always smarter than their sons!

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.

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.

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.

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."

Now Coughlin has written a highly personal story about his deadly craft, taking readers deep inside an invisible society that is off-limits to outsiders. This is not a heroic battlefield memoir but the careful study of an exceptional man who must keep his sanity while carrying forward one of the deadliest legacies in the U.S. military today.

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.

Donald Davis was born into a southern Appalachian mountain world rich in stories. He grew up listening to his father and his Uncle Frank tell stories of their boyhood, all the while taking in the details of his own childhood experience.

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.

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.

An eccentric schoolteacher and a widow-lady babysitter are the heroines in these new digital studio recordings of Donald Davis' two all-time most-requested stories. "It was the 42nd year she had taught fourth grade", yet there was nothing routine about Miss Daisy or her methods. Rather than settle for textbook work (Miss Daisy left textbooks in the big closet) she took her class on a year-long imaginary world tour.

"Years later," Donald Davis remember of his childhood," I came to realize that when you come from a long-dammed-up Scots-Irish gene pool it is an okay thing to wish for something, but it is not an OK thing to get it."

Before 1910 the American chestnut was one of the most common trees in the eastern United States. An important natural resource, chestnut wood was preferred for woodworking, fencing, and building construction, as it was rot resistant and straight grained. The hearty and delicious nuts also fed wildlife, people, and livestock.

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.

Life Is Short - Art Is Shorter is not just the first anthology gathering both mini-essays and short-short stories. Listeners, writers, and teachers will get an anthology; a course’s worth of writing exercises; a rally for compression, concision, and velocity in an increasingly digital post-religious age; and a meditation on the brevity of human existence.