The Divine Mandate by Randy Clark

The Divine Mandate by Randy Clark

Thomas Becker's delivery suggests the wry humor one imagines the author himself would use in reading them. --Booklist

This recording's success is a result of Becker's dramatic reading ability, which is nicely understated yet totally effective and appropriate. --School Library Journal

Seventeen of Twain's best-loved and funniest shorter works, including The Jumping Frog of Calavarous County, The Story of Old Ram, Buck Fanshaw's Funeral, Fenimore Cooper's Literary Offenses, Tom Quartz, and The Facts Concerning the Recent Carnival of Crime in Connecticut.

Mark Twain was born Samuel Langhorne Clemens November 30, 1835 in Florida, Missouri. He grew up in the Mississippi River town of Hannibal. Sam was to be a printer, a river boat pilot, an officer in the Confederacy, a silver prospector and a journalist. In 1865 his fame as an American humorist was launched with The Notorious Jumping Frog of Calaveras County. He once wrote, To simply amuse would have satisfied my dearest ambition.

Narrator Thomas Becker has taught English, directed plays and performed Shakespeare. His experiences growing up in the Midwest may have given him his feel for Twain.

Michael White (1948-2008), a co-director of the Dulwich Centre, an institute for narrative practice and community work in Adelaide, Australia, and one of the creators of narrative therapy, made significant contributions to psychotherapy and family therapy. He is the co-author of Narrative Ways to Therapeutic Ends and the author of Maps of Narrative Practice.