Books with author Tom Stechschulte

The Things They Carried is a masterful novel of the Vietnam War that has been called the greatest war novel ever written. The soldiers carried malaria tablets, love letters, 28-pound mine detectors, dope, illustrated Bibles, each other. And, if they made it home alive, they carried unrelenting images of a nightmarish war that history is only beginning to absorb, since its publication, The Things They Carried has become an unparalleled Vietnam testament, a classic work of american literature, and a profound study of men at war that illuminates the capacity, and the limits, of the human heart and soul.

"With Plainsong, [Kent Haruf] has conjured up an entire community, and ineluctably immersed the reader in its dramas. He has written a compelling and compassionate novel." - Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times"Haruf's unforgettable tale is both emotionally complex and elemental, following, as it so gracefully does, the cycle of life, death, and rebirth." -BooklistNominated for the National Book Award, Kent Haruf's Plainsong, Unabridged on audioA heartstrong story of family and romance, tribulation and tenacity, set on the High Plains east of Denver. In the small town of Holt, Colorado, a high school teacher is confronted with raising his two boys alone after their mother retreats first to the bedroom, then altogether. A teenage girl - her father long since disappeared, her mother unwilling to have her in the house - is pregnant with nowhere to go. And out in the country, two brothers, elderly bachelors, work the family homestead, the only world they've ever known.From these unsettled lives emerges a vision of life, and of the town and landscape that bind them together - their fates somehow overcoming the powerful circumstances of place and station, their confusion, curiosity, dignity and humor intact and resonant.Utterly true to the rhythms and patterns of life, Plainsong is a story to care about, believe in and learn from."Plainsong is nothing short of a revelation." - Richard Russo

Driven by the memory of a fallen teammate, TSU's 1941 starting lineup made Montana football history, charging through the season undefeated. Two years later, the "Supreme Team" is caught up in World War II. Ten of them are scattered around the globe in the war's various lonely and dangerous theaters. The eleventh man, Ben Reinking, has been plucked from pilot training by a military propaganda machine hungry for heroes. Man by man, he is to chronicle the adventures of his teammates for small-town newspapers across the country, like the one his father edits. Ready for action, he chafes at the assignment, little dreaming that it will bring him love from an unexpected quarter and put to the test the law of averages, which holds that all but one of his teammates should come through the conflict unscathed. A deeply American story, The Eleventh Man is Ivan Doig's most powerful novel to date.

9 cassettes. With fighting erupting around his Kansas farm, 16-year-old Jefferson Davis Bussey can hardly wait to join the Union forces. He wants to defend his family from the dreaded Colonel Watie and his Cherokee Indian rebels. After enlisting, Jeff discovers the life of a soldier brings little glory and honor. During battle, his friends die around him. And when he infiltrates Watie’s camp as a spy, he discovers the enemy is much like himself—only fighting for a different cause. As Jeff collects information, he wonders if he will be able to betray his new rebel companions when the time comes for him to return to the Union forces. Historian and author Harold Keith packs this well-researched novel with fascinating details and breath-taking action. Rifles for Watie was named an ALA Notable Children’s Book and won the Lewis Carroll Shelf Award. Believable characters and vivid battle scenes burst from the pages of history with narrator Tom Stechschulte’s dramatic performance.