Showing results by narrator "Richard Henzel" in All Categories

Mark Twain, incensed by increasing religious and political imperialism around the globe, characterizes a large nation's invasion and occupation of a smaller country as the "strange and over-showy onslaught of an elephant upon a nest of field mice, on the pretext that the mice had squeaked an insolence at him conduct which 'no self-respecting government could allow to pass unavenged' as Mr. Chamberlain said. Was that a good pretext in a small case when it had not been a good pretext in a large one?- for only recently Russia had affronted the elephant three times and survived...."

Thirteen-year-old Huck runs away from his alcoholic and abusive father in a stolen canoe. Hiding on a wooded island, he comes upon a slave named Jim, who is also fleeing--from slavery. The two set off down the Mississippi on a piece of a raft, each in search of his own kind of freedom.

When ex-sheriff Bud Shumway and his wife, Wilma Jean, decide to vacation in a scenic Colorado town near Aspen, they never guess they’ll soon be immersed in solving the murder of a famous country-western singer. And even though Bud’s bumbling replacement, Sheriff Howie, is far away in the small town of Green River, Utah, he still manages to play havoc with everyone’s peace of mind when his sheriff’s vehicle is stolen and he finds out he’s on the wanted list of Utah’s FBI.

It's a rich and rewarding world, one with never a dull moment, and Sunny uses lots of examples to show you how to successfully take your own pets along for the ride, whether you're on a short journey or a long one, and whether you're camping in a tent or living in a luxurious motor home.

Well known as a "children's book," The Adventures of Tom Sawyer is rich in eloquent and sophisticated language, and filled with realistic characters who become locked in life and death struggles.There is a murder, stolen treasure, and death by starvation. Add to that a love story, a buddy story, and a family drama.

With the coming of the railroads, the American cowboy's job changed drastically, as the great trail herds became a thing of the past. Many cowboys faded into history, but there was a place in northwest Colorado and northeast Utah that still prized their skills. Val FitzPatrick's family homesteaded in this region, and Val became a rider for the Two-Bar at the age of 14. In later years, Val wrote many accounts of his life, and The Arbuckle Cafe is a collection of the best of his stories, all classic and authentic insights of what life on the range was really like.

Young Lord Berkeley has discovered that his family's title and wealth was fraudulently obtained by previous generations, and announces to his his father, Lord Rossmore, that he intends to travel to America, there to return the Earldom of Rossmore to the rightful heir, along with all of its wealth, titles, and privilege, and to begin his life over again—"begin it right—begin it on the level of mere manhood, unassisted by factitious aids, and succeed or fail by pure merit or the want of it."

The self-centered director of a small Shakespearean troupe has been killed on the flanks of a remote Utah bluff, and ex-sheriff Bud Shumway knows it has something to do with someone in the Witness Protection Program, even though his bumbling replacement, Sheriff Howie, suspects a mysterious prospector who has just arrived from the Superstition Mountains.

When ex-sheriff and watermelon farmer Bud Shumway agrees to help out his friend, Sheriff Hum Stocks, as a deputy for the winter, he never guesses he’ll soon be deep in the rugged and wild Dolores Triangle, trying to solve not only the mystery of a skeleton wearing knee boots, but also the murder of rattlesnake-hunter and wannabe rodeo clown, Chicken Bottoms.

Have you been bit by the RV bug? Do you spend hours reading blogs on living the RV life, blogs that go on and on about a life of freedom and travel? Do you go to RV shows and wander through the huge homes on wheels, dreaming that you're steering one of the huge beasts to wherever your heart desires? Sunny has been RVing since she was a kid, and she'll show you how to assess if the nomadic lifestyle is for you in an unbiased and educated manner, balancing the pros and the cons. She does this by walking you through the most common steps in the RV life.

Is it impossible to be lonely, or is loneliness an impossibly difficult thing? In the first part of this book, Chinle Miller wanders the desert and mountains with her dogs, exploring nature and an inner life of solitude, until an event happens that shakes her life to its core - her best friend and cousin Janie is killed by a grizzly in Alaska.

A man of many firsts, Mark Twain was the first author to use the typewriter and the first person to have a telephone in his home (which no doubt made him the first person to swear at tech support!). He patented the accordion file, the fountain pen, and adjustable suspenders. And when he published "deleted scenes" from Pudd'nhead Wilson as Those Extraordinary Twins, he became the first publisher to include "bonus tracks" as well as the finished work.

In this unabridged recording of one of Mark Twain's lesser-known short stories, the "campaign of crime" referred to was a rash of robberies, arson, racketeering, and murders in Connecticut, where the author was living at that time. Alternatively funny, disturbing, and self-revelatory, an abridged performance of this piece has been part of Richard Henzel's Jefferson Award nominated stage show Mark Twain In Person since 1979.

An old hermit has been killed in Utah’s wildlands, and Sheriff Bud Shumway knows it’s murder, even though some say it was a cougar kill. Others think it was done by a Bigfoot who has roamed the area for years, killing cattle and leaving people so traumatized that they never want to go into the wilderness again. But Sheriff Shumway can’t afford to believe in Bigfoot, given the huge area he’s responsible for, most of it wildlands. Set at the Ghost Rock Cafe, high on the wild and mysterious San Rafael Swell, this mystery will have you wondering if Bigfoot might really exist.

A wild story of dread and horror in the remotest part of Colorado, Stalked! is full of adventure and tension. Brad Morris relates this terrifying tale of an encounter with a Bigfoot at 14,000 feet in the Colorado Rockies, where he finds something that will change his life forever. But this discovery also results in something strange stalking him, and Brad soon finds himself not only fighting his fears and an early high-altitude snowstorm, but also a strange creature whose intentions are unknown.

When Sheriff Bud Shumway’s Aunt Ginger asks him to deliver a stove to her new cafe in Sunnyside, Utah, Bud has no idea that he'll soon be in the middle of trying to solve how his Uncle Hank's friend, Jimmy Johnson, was killed, even though the giant three-toed track left in the middle of Jimmy's back points to the suspect as being some form of dinosaur. Soon Bud is dealing with all kinds of mayhem, from the robbery of the Sunnyside Mining Museum to missing rafts and a mysterious box found floating on the river. There's never a dull moment in the high Utah desert.

For the first time in recorded history, the complete short stories of the infamous Chinle Miller have been compiled in a book that the publisher hopes won't get anyone arrested (especially the publisher). Come sit around the campfire with an archaeologist after he unwittingly brings a unique curse upon himself; watch Ernie, the county road supervisor, accidentally bomb his own highway shed; discover a cryptic form of rock art just in time for it to save your life.

Bob Davidson's father, Joe "Pops" Davidson, has died. After selling the estate, Bob goes on the road, but he has a passenger along - Joe's ashes, sitting in an urn in Bob's camper, riding in the bed of his old Chevy pickup. Joe's last wishes were for Bob to spread his ashes on top of the Grand Teton in Wyoming - a request Bob's not sure he can accomplish.

Following on the success of his first published novel, The Innocents Abroad, Mark Twain (Samuel L. Clemens) published two short stories. With his farcical "burlesque autobiography", he describes a series of disreputable characters all of whom he claims were his ancestors. The second story, A Medieval First Romance, satirizes romance novels with a yarn about the cross-dressing daughter of a duke who thanks to her disguise is in line to inherit male privilege.

Mark Twain expected to create a new form of autobiography in which "I shall talk about the matter which for the moment interests me, and cast it aside and talk about something else the moment its interest for me is exhausted." These transcriptions of his off-the-cuff telling of his own history allow one to feel as if he is listening to the great storyteller one-on-one.