BOOKS THREAD

I love Wild West history and try to read any book on the subject when I come across one.

I just finished a recent one, "Summer of 1876" by podcaster Chris Wimmer.

Entertaining read that encompasses Bat Masterson, Custer, James-Younger Gang and Wild Bill Hickok. Too much focus on. Custer whose story has little in common with the others.

 

"Project Hail Mary", by Andy Weir, the author of "The Martian", is on sale for $1.99 as an Amazon e-book today. It's a good read, and hard to beat for two bucks.

 

I got this for Father's Day, and finished it last night. Really enjoyed it, and I'm sure that's at least partially because The Blues Brothers is one of my all-time favorite movies.

More than half of the book is dedicated to the backgrounds of John Belushi and Dan Aykroyd before they even met and long before they created the Blues Brothers as an act for SNL. Some of this stuff I knew from a couple of other books on Belushi that I read, but most of it was new and interesting. And the stuff about the making of the movie itself was great. It talks about how some of the stunts were pulled off - the dropping of the orange Pinto, the reverse upside-down flip of the Bluesmobile. Just good stuff.

Joe Bob says definitely check out this one.

 

Flip caught the Katy and left me a book to read

 

"Charlie Hustle" by Keith O'Brien. Solid bio, never read any of his work before and I wish it had been longer, especially considering how many years Rose played in the majors.

Odd reading a bio of someone I met once (March 1993 at his restaurant in Boca).

 

I am the great grandson of settlers on the Wyoming-Montana border. My grandparents well taught me a love of Western History.

If you have not read it I recommend a book Casey Tefertiller wrote about Wyatt Earp: The Life Behind the Legend. It is an attempt to figure out the truth about Earp's life. Much that was written about him previously was fiction. What is true is that Earp was the Forest Gump of the 19th century west. Just go read his Wikipedia page. It is incredible. Earp was also a guy who no one could figure out. Which side of the law was he on? Who was he sleeping with? The book can bog down a bit because the author is trying to plow through his research but Earp has such a astounding life that it keeps your interest. .

When I looked this book up to get the author's name I was a blurb about the book from Evan Connell who wrote Son of Morning Star about the Battle of Little Big Horn. It is a great book. And finally I recommend another book set in Montana; Young Men and Fire by Norman McLean. I know it is about a fire that occurred in 1949. But one expands their parameters for a writer as good as McLean.

 

In my personal Wild West library, I only have one Wyatt Earp book and it is solely about O. K. Corral. It is by Jeff Guinn and it is excellent. I also have books about Billy the Kid, the Pony Express, and Butch Cassidy.

 

What does Guinn believe the Clanton=Earp feud was actually about? Just a Clanton being jailed on a gun control charge? Or something else?

I also find it interesting that the Earps made visitors to Tombstone check their guns at the city limits without apparent political objection.

 

Everything that I’ve read by Guinn has been great.

 

I've only read three of his: O.K. Corral book, Bonnie and Clyde and the Pancho Villa/Pershing one.

 

I am not sure what he believed.

 

Kai Bird's Jimmy Carter bio, "The Outlier." He's such a great writer and historian and the book is worth a look. Odd though that he didn't include the Chrysler bailout or the first evet papal visit to the White House, but does include an entire chapter on Jim Fallows.