Böcker av Patrick Shannon

"Viva Laughter" is a potpourri of humor presented in a variety of lengths and styles. The author suggests treating it like your favorite snacks and tasting it a little at a time. Patrick Shannon, whose favorite genre is humor, has had a field day with this one.

The Price of Glory is the story of a noble mission, conceived by the man who vowed to see it through to completion. His name was Robert La Salle.His goal was to establish a French colony at the mouth of the Mississippi river and then claim the entire river valley and all its tributaries for his king, Louis XIV. While it was La Salle who conceived the brilliant idea, it was he who was responsible for its failure. That and the primitive state of navigation in the 17th century.Taming a wilderness populated only by its original inhabitants was a grim task. The Price of Glory, based rigorously on historical facts but written as a novel, will place you at the center of all the action, terror, cruelty, betrayal and bravery induced by the attempt to tame that land which would become part of America. It will also reveal the volatile and unstable personality of Robert La Salle which insured its failure.In the end, the hundreds of lost lives under his care proved to be too high a price for his glory.

In the year 1700, a young French Army Captain sets foot on the Gulf Coast of our continent, trudges off into the wilderness and becomes one of this country's overlooked Founding Fathers. Warrior, explorer, intimate friend of the Indian nations, imprisoned twice for smuggling, Louis Juchereau de St. Denis was the driving force in the settlement of French Louisiana and Spanish Texas. In the Novel, "Tame the Wild Land", the drama of his remarkable life is portrayed. After enduring extreme hardships and risking his life for the King of France, he becomes disillusioned and dedicates the rest of his life to his two remaining loves: Louisiana and the beautiful Manuela. But the impetus that repeatedly places him in harm's way is the dilemma his colony faces: to keep Louisiana French, he must insure that Texas remains in the hands of his Spanish adversaries. The book is a fictional treatment of a period in our history that is somewhat neglected: the roles played by France and Spain in the taming of wild America.

Nearly true tales of a really cool parrot"Viva Cisco" is a trilogy of funny stories for kids at the Age 10-13 reading level. All three tales unfold in a land called Topopootl, which lies in a hidden valley deep in the heart of Mexico. Because of its seclusion, the inhabitants have created a society without the benefit of human contact, and they don't seem to have missed out on anything important in the absence of that dubious blessing. In fact, they probably have more pure merriment and boisterous excitement than any human community could ever conceive. Much of the credit for that, though, must be laid at the feet of Topopootl's most..uh.. stimulating citizen, one Cisco las Verde Arara del Gucigalpa. Aka, Cisco the Parrot. His is an ego burning brightly, and his quest is for nothing less than becoming the most notable dude in all Topopootl. In "Am I Famous Yet?", he wends his fractured way from being the Answer Man in Topopootl's public library, through a very public failure in "Show Biz", a humiliating defeat in Anything Goes Wrestling (at the hands of two little cockroaches), a "Mayday"; attempt at a high-altitude record for Parrots and, finally, to opening a very weird business; The Word Man-whose motto is, "Learn a big word and impress your friends.- The reader is sure to be spellbound as Cisco makes the sale of one of his Deluxe models: the word, "extracurricular" - a big impresser. In "Cisco-PI", he combines the skills of Inspector Clouseau and Barney Fife in tackling Topopootl's first and only crime wave, a rash of burglaries. In a dazzling display of illogical thinking, he manages to accuse some innocent youngsters of being members of a crime family, and he fingers none other than Topopootl's President as their Godfather. Even by Cisco standards, it is a stunning blunder. But he musters his will, applies his nimble brain to some very mysterious clues, and actually solves the case. The burglaries, it turns out, were all the work of Harry the Pack Rat, who traveled down from North America to put together a "Mexican Collection." That, in fact, is his plea as he is brought before the citizens of Topopootl "It wasn't stealing. It was collecting." In this, the second book of the trilogy, Cisco is redeemed and achieves his coveted recognition, which serves to make him a worthy leader in the daring adventure that follows."Cisco and the Secret Room", Book Three, has Cisco leading four of his pals on a very dangerous mission to retrieve ancient evidence of Topopootl's origins. In a secret room in the heart of a mysterious pyramid, they discover the story of how Topopootl came into existence and who saved it from extinction. As they read the inscriptions on the walls of the remarkable chamber, a tale unfolds of the Aztecs and Spaniards making the land unlivable for its non-human inhabitants; of a desperate expedition to find a place of refuge and peace; of the founding of Topopootl; of the threat of its extinction by a human invasion; finally, of the remarkable army of little skunks who save the day-and Topopootl-only by employing their secret weapon: El Gordo.

Letters From Wheatfield - Second Edition. All the original stories plus twenty new zany reports on life in Wheatfield, Montana. What do you do for fun if you live in a small town, dauntingly far from the nearest city's amusements? Upon what resources do you draw to spice up your existence? "Letters From Wheatfield" provides the answer-and it isn't always pretty. In this new edition, cousin Amelia's book on Wheatfield has been published under the title, "Little Nut House on the Prairie," and the folks love it. They can't wait for it to be made into a movie, and ranger Ned wants Brad Pitt to play him. But the fame does not go to their heads. They keep right on being as colorful as ever, and providing plenty of new material for Amelia's sequel. Now you can enjoy the entire "Letters From Wheatfield" collection of stories in one volume.

The book has more fire--more `call to arms' gusto--than anything I've read on reading education.