"A young, sheltered son of a preacher finds his idylic life cast into turmoil as he struggles to survive the atrocities imposed upon him by three Civil War deserters who kidnap him, tether him about the neck with a rawhide lace, and then use him as a hostage to futher their unclear, but dark mission. Matthew embraces the violence he despises in his captors and begins the downward spiral that he believes has cost him his soul. His salvation comes down to an old Indian horse trainer and a small band of unbroke horses."--Amazon.com.
Winner of a 2020 Border Regional Library Association Southwest Book Award “Truly transcendent.” —Jessica Lustig, New York Times Book Review This riveting memoir follows professional horse trainer Ginger Gaffney’s year-long odyssey to train a herd of neglected horses at an alternative prison ranch in New Mexico. Working with her is a small team of ranch “residents,” men and women who are each uniquely broken by addiction and incarceration. Gaffney forms a bond with them as profound as the kinship and trust the residents discover among the troubled horses. Through these unforgettable characters—both animal and human—Half Broke tells a new kind of recovery story and speaks to the life-affirming joy of finding a sense of belonging.
From the author of the #1 bestseller The Man Who Listens to Horses, a book for all of us seeking to strengthen our human relationships "Monty Roberts will make you marvel."—The New York Times Book Review In The Man Who Listens to Horses, Monty Roberts revealed the depth of communication possible between human and horse. Touching the hearts of more than four million readers worldwide, that memoir—which spent more than a year at the top of The New York Times bestseller list—described his discovery of the "language" of horses and the dramatic effectiveness of removing violence from their training. Now, the world's most famous horse gentler demonstrates how his revolutionary Join-Up technique can be used not just for horses, but as a model for how to strengthen human relationships. With vivid, often deeply moving anecdotes, Roberts shows how the lessons learned from the thousands of horses he has known can provide effective guidelines for improving the quality of our communication with one another—from learning to "read" each other effectively, to creative fear-free environments, and, most importantly, teaching belief in the power of gentleness and trust.
Two motherless sisters--Bean and Liz--are shuttled to Virginia, where their Uncle Tinsley lives in the decaying mansion that's been in their family for generations. When school starts in the fall, Bean easily adjusts and makes friends, and Liz becomes increasingly withdrawn. Then something happens to Liz and Bean is left to challenge the injustice of the adult world.
Will James' cowboy autobiography Lone Cowboy tells how a little boy, hardly more than a baby, becomes an orphan in the West; how an old French trapper, whom the boy calls Bopy, adopts him and takes him on his long, long hunts; how when he is hardly more than a little boy Bopy is lost in an icy river and the child, heartbroken, rides down into the prairie region alone-on his own. James gives a complete and varied idea of how a cowboy lives. This first appeared in 1930 as James' life story, following the author's evolution from boy to cowboy to artist and writer. This will offer new audiences a spirited blend of fiction and autobiography as James traces the early influences which marked his life... --Midwest Book Review
From the same corral that produced the widely loved Horse Tradin’, Ben “Doc” Green has rounded up fifteen new yarns filled with the ornery yet irresistible “con” that has branded Doc’s books as classics of Western Americana. Some More Horse Tradin’ recounts the go-arounds of Doc and a whole slew of craggy old-timers and rangy characters, including a watermelon hauler “who has a bit of snuff that seeps out a little on his whiskers,” Professor Know-It-All, the “charitable” Mr. Undertaker, and the well-known public cowboy Will Rogers. See all of them matching their wiles and hear a lot of palaver, dealin’ and tradin’ for well-bred usin’-type mares, snorty-like range horses, and even used-to-be bad horses from the tumbleweeded plains of Texas to the mountain meadows of Yankee Vermont. Watch the Doc stretch a city ordinance with a frustrated lawman in “The Last Trail Drive Through Downtown Dallas” and admire the old-time knavery, skill, and salesmanship in such tales as “Gittin’ Even,” “Brethren Horse Traders,” “Mule Schoolin’,” and “Water Treatment and the Sore-Tailed Bronc.” So here you go—with Doc Green and his horse-tradin’ West in finest fettle. As he puts it himself, “These apples come from the same barrel as Horse Tradin’ but they ain’t none of them spotty.”
