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Title/Author	Description
Master Butchers Singing Club Louise Erdrich	As good as any book I've read in decades, if not the best book. I can't think of anything this masterfully written novel isn't about. The main storyline follows a World War I German sniper who immigrates to America after marrying the girlfriend of his best friend, fatally wounded in battle. Erdrich creates characters that seem simultaneously exotic and normal and places them in a plot that is easy to follow yet action-packed and filled with surprises. The tale ranges from the tragic massacre of Native Americans at Wounded Knee to Europe in World War I and II to North Dakota, where the story is centered around families and friendships. The writing here is terrific, an absolute joy to read.
All the Pretty Horses Cormac McCarthy	This lyrically written, existential, modern Western -- set in the Southwestern border region shortly after World War II -- follows John Grady Cole, a teen coming of age during a horseback journey with friends to Mexico after his family gives up on the Texas ranch he loves. This was the best book I read during the 1990s. It is haunting and and tragic. It has remained a favorite through several readings and has been praised by the dozen or so people I've given it to as a gift.
The Crossing Cormac McCarthy	The middle of McCarthy's downbeat border trilogy is darker, more violent and may even be better written than the first novel, "All The Pretty Horses". It travels with young, orphaned, Mexican-American Billy Parham as he crosses the border three times -- to free a wolf, recover family treasures and try to save his brother. Each crossing contains a short story about human nature and fate. This is a great book, but very depressing. So it may not be as satisfying as the first book in the trilogy.
Lonesome Dove Larry McMurtry	One of the greatest stories ever told with some of the most memorable characters you'll ever meet, this post Civil War saga follows Texas Rangers Augustus McCrae and Woodrow Call after they've killed, arrested or driven away all the villains who made life interesting for them. So they become the first men to drive cattle from Texas to Montana on an epic journey across the plains as America is rapidly expanding Westward. The TV miniseries -- starring Robert Duval and Tommy Lee Jones -- is a faithful and brilliant retelling of this Pulitizer Prize-winner. McMurtry later wrote two prequels and a sequel. All good, but not of this caliber.
100 Years of Solitude Gabriel Garcia Marquez	This wonderous example of magic realism is one strange tale, hard for some to start and maybe even harder to explain, but I can't remember reading many things that were as much fun or as spectacular. The story -- set in a fictious South American mountain town in an unspecified time -- follows a powerful, wealthy family during a long, convoluted revolution as they and their community fall victim to exploitation, civil war, lust and gypsies. The writing overflows with foreshadowing and stories within stories and revelation after revelation.
Earth Abides George Stewart	I reread this book after 30-plus years and was as stunned now as when I was in college by Stewart's story and writing about life in the Berkeley area after a superflu wipes out 99.9999 percent of humanity. He intersperses natural science about how the demise of man changed the lives of cats, dogs, cattle, sheep, trees, gardens, water, and all the things we take for granted until there are just a handful of people living in a community that formerly held millions. With SARS and Ebola around, the story is still timely today and the idea still intriguing, but it is the characters and their reactions to the Great Disaster and its aftermath that make this tale so powerful. Everyone I knew read this in the late 1960s/early 1970s and should again. It is truly memorable and moving.
The Real Wild West Michael Wallis	This may be the most enjoyable piece of history I've read. Wallis tells a terrific story about the Miller family and 101 ranch in Oklahoma, probably the most famous dude ranch, working ranch and Wild West show in the world at the dawn of the 20th century, a time of "Buffalo Bill" Cody and "Pawnee" Bill Lillie. The story stretches from Kentucky in the 1840s as the family fights for the Confederacy, drives cattle from Texas to Kansas before the railroads arrive, forms the ranch in Oklahoma as the frontier ends and adds the Wild West show, oil boom and and making movies to the Millers' business. Each chapter in the family history is followed by a profile of some person, place or thing that touched their lives, from "Wild Bill" Hickok and Will (Cherokee Kid) Rogers to barbed wire, Coney Island and the 1893 Chicago World's Fair. The book overflows with rich American history, bigger than life characters and a seemingly endless collection of fascinating trivia.
The Age of Gold H. W. Brands	A book that exceeded all the praise it has gathered, this fabulously readable history about the California Gold Rush does a terrific job of placing the epic Western saga amidst American and global events. Brands tells the story by concentrating on individual people, including such figures as Lewis Manly and the Death Valley saga, John Charles Fremont and his amazing wife Jessie Benton Fremont, William Tecumseh Sherman and Leland Stanford. Brands explains California's role in the early evolution of the Republican Party and the resolution of the slavery issue, when the state decided to stay within the Union in exchange for a promise of the transcontinental railroad. This is the best history of the time that I've read. I highly recommend this for anyone interested in the creation of California and or simply seeking a highly enjoyable book.
No Country For Old Men Cormac McCarthy	In another haunting, tragic, grim modern Western, McCarthy focuses this time on fate and random happenstance and how the latter can determine the former. You take a step down the wrong path and down you go. Set in West Texas in the 1980s, the story follows three main characters -- Vietnam veteran Llewelyn Moss whose antelope hunting adventure twists when he stumbles on a drug deal gone sour, psychopathic killer Anton Chigurh on the trail of the cleaning up after the deal went down, and Sheriff Bell, unsuccessfully trying to prevent the descent from continuing as he recalls his past tragedies and approaches retirement. McCarthy again combines lyric writing with human violence and makes bad luck seem so preferable to worse luck that you are not left hoping that someone good triumphs but that at least someone survives.
Truman David McCullough	This is among the best biographies I have ever read. Harry S. Truman, who remains the last president without a college education, was an extremely enjoyable person to read about, a honest and straightforward man who could make tough decisions and charm those he worked with and for. He lived and governed in an incredibly tumultuous time. And David McCullough is a fabulous writer and historian, digging up entertaining and thought-provoking facts and sharing them in such a way that each paragraph held some wonderful nugget and read like a page-turner. Truman's story boils down to how a seemingly ordinary, common man became a politician, senator and president almost by chance as the world was at war, the nuclear age was dawning, McCarthyism was starting, Gen. MacArthur was disobeying orders as the Korean War raged, Berlin was blockaded, and we launched the Truman Doctrine, the Marshall Plan and the United Nations.
Justice for All Jim Newton	This fascinating biography traces the life of Earl Warren, one of the three to five most influential 20th Century Americans, from his humble beginnings in Bakersfield through being the Alameda County District Attorney, California Attorney General, the only man elected California Governor three times, Dewey's 1948 Republican Party Vice Presidential nominee to his tumultuous 1953 to 1969 tenure as Supreme Court Chief Justice, where he lead a civil liberties revolution and chaired the commission that investigated President Kennedy's assassination. Along the way, we see Warren interact with Presidents Truman, Dewey, Eisenhower, Kennedy, Nixon and Ford and many of the most influential judges of the our time. Newton points out Warren's flaws, errors and misjudgments along with his more plentiful triumphs. The writing style is clear. The research thorough. The story is great history. It is a very well told tale of a man who was at the center of or deeply involved in almost every major piece of American history from 1930 to 1970 and who left indelible imprints on our lives today.
Team of Rivals Doris Kearns Goodwin	With great writing and fabulous storytelling, Goodwin takes us deep into the inner workings of President Abraham Lincoln's cabinet during the Civil War and into the minds and lives of the key players. This is not another Lincoln biography or a history about the Civil War battles or generals, although we do meet and get a greater appreciation of the good and bad generals -- Grant and Sherman vs. McClellan -- and focus on Lincoln's leadership skills and style. In some ways, you could say this extremely engaging read is a biography of a particular institution -- Lincoln's cabinet and its members -- at the key moment when America's peculiar institution of slavery is being fought over. However, I am glad that I read Shelby Foote's three-volume narrative history of the Civil War before Goodwin's book so that I had the biggest picture first.
Wolf Willow Wallace Stegner	Stegner blends history, a long short story and a personal memoir to paint an unforgettable picture of the border region between the U.S. and Saskatchewan, where he lived as a young boy early this century. His vivid, powerful writing captures the end of the plains culture, the last home of the buffalo, the final frontier settlers, the Native Americans fleeing white settlers and a place where the landscape was the dominant force and shaped how people thought, lived and remembered. The novella about cowboys and cattle in a terrible winter around 1914 maybe the best short piece I've ever read about the West.
Grant Jean Edward Smith	This may be the best biography I've ever read. I didn't know much about Ulysses Grant other than his Civil War successes before reading this extremely well-written exploration of his full life, particularly how his service in the Mexican War taught him the tactics and leadership style that he deployed at Shiloh, Vicksburg, and in Virginia against the South and how his calm and quiet yet aggressive battlefield temperament reflected his presidential administration and his support for a more humane policy dealing with the Native population in the West and the freed African-Americans. It wasn't until I saw the Civil War focused solely on his battlefield successes that I fully realized how his generalship literally dominated all the major battlefronts.
A Prayer for Owen Meany John Irving	A comic tragedy or a tragic comedy about a very small boy who accidentally kills his best friend's mother by hitting her on the head with a batted baseball. The friends grow up in an East Coast boys school in the years leading up to the Vietnam War, a fit topic for rebelliousness and anti-heroes. The story is typical Irving, filled with orphans, humor, marvelous characters and wild twists and turns. There are passages that made me laugh out loud or go for long walks.
This House of Sky Ivan Doig	Ivan Doig's deeply personal memoir about growing up mid-20th century in rural Montana is a terrific companion piece to Stegner's "Wolf Willow," above. Doig's recollections range from adventures with his father on cattle ranches, herding sheep and living on the modern frontier to the women in his life -- the mother who died when Ivan was 6, his father's second wife, wives in families he boarded with and the grandmother who eventually joined the family. Powerful, moving and memorable, this is one of those books that came highly rated and exceeded my expectations. It was deservedly the fourth ranked book on the S.F. Chronicle's 100 greatest pieces of nonfiction written about the West.
Ordeal by Hunger George Stewart	This is one of the great true stories about the West and among the best non-fiction sagas about men and women who braved incredible hardships. Stewart recreates the horror, tragedy and phenomenal human will of the Donner Party disaster of 1846, a wagon train essentially doomed long before it was trapped by a ferocious winter in the Sierras. I couldn't put down this tale of bravery, greed, cannabilism, stupidity and the will to survive.
A Walk in the Woods Bill Bryson	In this uproariously funny and equally informative narrative about a couple of aging guys hiking the Appalachian Trail, Bryson piles up the facts surrounded by keen powers of observation and wickedly funny observations about contemporary American culture and characters. The first half of the story is the funnier section, but the entire hike will carry you along and make you recall Mark Twain at his best.
Savage Peace: Hope and Fear in America, 1919 Ann Hagedorn	Much like Bernard Devoto's exceptionally enjoyable "Year of Decision: 1846," Hagedorn's examination of 1919 was a relevation. Her history reads like a novel with heroes and villains contending over global peace in a single year, centered around the over-rated presidency of Woodrow Wilson. He was all for making the world "safe for democracy," if you were a white male and you were either ignored, lied to, or abused you if you were black, female or had different political perspective. In the wake of World War I, America in 1919 was turbulent -- racism, Bolshevism, labor unrest, lynching, domestic spying, terrorism at home, government attacks on civil liberties, the Black Sox scandal, women's suffrage, the Spanish flu pandemic, and debilitating political partisanship. All of that swirls around a fascinating cast of characters besides the despicable Wilson, including: Helen Keller, Carl Sandbury, W.B. DuBois, William Munroe Trotter, Albert Einstein, Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr., A. Mitchell Palmer, Eugene Debs, J. Edgar Hoover, Teddy Roosevelt, and William Jennings Bryan. This is one of those stories that define who we are as Americans and who we should have been.
The Tenderness of Wolves Stef Penney	An engrossing, atmospheric, dark and cold border story, murder mystery and journey tale that reads so visually that it was obviously written by a screen writer. Stef Penney weaves in numerous subplots surrounding life in Canada's Northern Territory below Hudson Bay near the U.S. border in 1867. There is a mosaic quality to the twisting, turning, story-telling as the multiple narrators and subplots unfold and the reader must put the pieces together among the Native population, settlers, and fur company agents who have battled over forest and tundra for decades.
A Line in the Sand Randy Roberts and James Olson	This is a biography of a fascinating place, The Alamo, explaining its birth and short life and the role its death has played in American history. The first third of the book sets the stage by tracing the routes the key players and armies followed to reach the historic San Antonio mission. The next third analyzes the battle, the key historic controversies, and which stories are myths and which tales remain lost in the fog of conflicting versions. The last section explores how film, books, TV, politics and the public have treated the sacred battle site in the nearly 175 years since Mexico and Texas fought for the land and all it meant to both and to the individuals involved. A truly exciting and enjoyable piece of American history.
Indian Givers Jack Weatherford	Anthropologist Jack Weatherford traces an informative and entertaining case for his main thesis - that the contributions of the Native American population to the Old World have not been truly or fully appreciated more than 500 years after Columbus landed. Written in a highly readable style, he describes how the New World revolutionized the Old World while the latter gobbled up the former. It is a fascinating story -- rich veins of gold and silver create a monetary economy that resulted in the rise of Europe's middle and merchant classes, the companies that formed to mine and provide miners and new settlers with goods and services lead to corporate power, and a rich variety of foods the natives raised in the Americas were shipped around the globe by those corporations and adopted into national diets so thoroughly that we now think of zucchini, tomatoes, and green beans as Italian food instead of imports. Weatherford also weaves in explanations of how mineral riches in the Americas ended mining on Africa's Gold Coast and indirectly led to slavery, how the Iroquois Confederacy contributed to the federal government system the United States adopted, and how science could have benefited sooner and faster by paying more attention to native medical practices. There are a few places where Weatherford probably pushes the idea a bit too far; but overall, I thoroughly enjoyed reading "Indian Givers" and would suggest reading it with "1491," an equally intriguing look at how old, wise, and diverse the New World was before the Old World arrived to plunder.
1491 Charles C. Mann	In a very readable way, author Charles C. Mann re-orients our thinking about the Pre-Columbian world throughout its history and at the moment it dramatically changed in 1492. Mann synthesizes what we have learned through advances in archaeological methods and techniques over the last 30 years to call into question how and when the native population arrived in the Western Hemisphere, how many lived here, and the innovative ways the various populations adapted their divergent environments to suit cultures that were in many ways rivals to the world of Europe at the same time. What I enjoyed most was Mann's ability to show how scientific thinking and knowledge have changed, where it still disagrees and why, and what it does and does not know, particularly on such questions as how many people lived in North and South America when Columbus arrived, how many died in the first huge wave of diseases the Europeans brought with them, where corn came from, and how the indigenous people lived in the Amazon. I wish the book had spent additional time in North America, although the South American information was fascinating. And I would have also liked the book to have included a time line so I could have seen all the cultures he explored organized chronologically next to a single map showing their geographic relationship and communication routes. Nevertheless, I really enjoyed reading this book and recommend it highly.
Positively 4th Street David Hajdu	This is a biography of a time and the people whose public life caused it or rose from within it -- the lives Bob Dylan, Joan Baez, and Mimi and Richard Farina when folk music and the singer-songwriter bloomed between 1959 and 1966. I lived through it without fully understanding how it happened and why or how it helped shape a country moving from Eisenhower to Kennedy, from the Cold War to Vietnam and Civil Rights. You don't need to have survived the 60's to enjoy this. The book will give you a richer understanding of the music that launched or influenced changes that swept over America. It also made me listen to some great music I hadn't heard in a while.
Exploring Native North America David Hurst Thomas	In this terrifically entertaining and informative piece of non-fiction, Thomas looks at 18 famous and important archaeological sites, ranging from Alaska, to the Serpent's Mound and the Mississippi culture, Pueblo Bonito in Chaco Canyon and the Little Big Horn. His choice of sites covers a lot of history concisely without seeming superficial. This is very readable science, with exceptionally valuable illustrations, a fine list of recommended readings and instructions on how to visit the site without disturbing it after each chapter.
Son of the Morning Star Evan Connell	A history of arrogant, foolish and very dead George Armstrong Custer and the battle of the Little Big Horn, Connell's work spills over the Great Plains, capturing the Native Americans at the moment of their last and greatest victory and the cavalry and county's cavalier attitude toward wiping out the Plains Indian culture between 1850 and 1890 in order to promote westward expansion. Connell - along with Larry McMurtry - was among Wallace Stegner's students at the Stanford writing project.
Straight Man Richard Russo	Equally hilarious, sad, ironic and tragic, the story about a pretentious English Department at a small Pennsylvania college during a rumored budget cutback focuses on the main character's relationship with his parents, wife, children, dogs and colleagues. In the end, the story boils down to two questions. Youth want to know: Who am I? And adults ask: What have I become? Russo believes you don't know the answers until you have to make choices.
The Lance and The Shield: The Life and Times of Sitting Bull Robert Utley	This wonderfully readable and entertaining history traces the last 60 years of the Lakota (called Sioux by American immigrants) culture when it was free to roam the northern plains under the leadership of Sitting Bull. Robert Utley, former chief historian for the National Park Service, tells the story of the great Lakota chief by explaining his relationship with the U.S. Cavalary, the frontier and the other Lakota chiefs trying to adjust to the rapid population explosion of American culture migrating westward.
Crazy Horse: The Strange Man of the Oglalas Mari Sandoz	I can't remember a book that did a better job putting me inside a different culture. Told from Crazy Horse's perspective, Sandoz's fictional/historical biography uses the writings of traders, Indian agents and cavalry officers and late-in-life interviews with those who fought with and against Oglala Sioux (Lakota) spiritual and military leader Crazy Horse in the 1860s and 1870s as American westward expansion ended a culture that had roamed the Northern Plains for hundreds of years. The tale is insightful and moving and made feel like I was there as things happened.
A Gathering of Zion/Mormon Country Wallace Stegner	Wallace Stegner's two histories brilliantly fill in this chapter of America settling the west, a story largely ignored by too many who are uncomfortable with the Mormon religion. Stegner, who spent time growing up in Utah and is sympathetic to Mormons without sacrificing his objectivity, follows the incredible hardships encountered on the Mormon Trail in "The Gathering of Zion" and then uses dozens of short stories, small biographies, natural history and sketches to paint "The Mormon Country" they settled in. This is great reading, as dramatic as the best fiction you will read.
Founding Brothers Joseph Ellis	This is the inside story of the American Revolution, the backroom deals and machinations that whitewashed history books didn't tell as Thomas Jefferson and James Madison battled George Washington and John Adams to shape the government and country we were and would become. Ellis explores how the disagreement over slavery determined national policy and the capital and how the conflict between individual liberty and a strong central government has been the national political dividing line from the time nation formed. This is history at its best and most enjoyable, although it will leave you wondering how we ever survived long enough to become a nation.
Dancing at the Rascal Fair/English Creek/Ride with Me, Mariah Montana/Mountain Time Ivan Doig	Doig's Montana quartet is hard to beat for great reading, fascinating history and appreciation for land and nature. He follows the McKaskills from pioneering the Rocky Mountain region (near what became Glacier National Park) to watching it suffer in modern times as the battle rages on between preservation and exploitation. Doig, like Wallace Stegner, brings perspective to writing about the West. When they are gone, no writers will be left who reach directly back to the first settlers and the land when it was frontier. Doig's grandparents were pioneers and his parents ranchers. He and Stegner blend history and the land into their fiction, describing how the national experience and myth were shaped by unforgiving natural forces. Stegner student Wendell Berry captured the idea best by explaining that you can't know who you are unless you know where you are.
Cold Mountain Charles Frazier	Moody and evocative with a great sense of authenticity and place, the story follows a Southern soldier who deserted late in the Civil War and is heading home through a war-ravaged countryside to the North Carolina woman he loves. Obviously modeled on The Odyssey, the plot alternates between chapters about the wandering soldier and the women trying to live while the men are off killing each other. The writing is sparse yet crisp, really making you feel like you are there. Some people have trouble starting this book. It is worth the effort.
The World According to Garp John Irving	Rereading this more than 20 years later, I was still sucked in and equally entertained and repulsed by Irving's first novel, a black comedy about fate, tragedy, love, sexuality, the art of writing, relationships and sexual role reversals. T.S. Garp's 33 years range from Vienna to New Hampshire, wrestling to writing, son to husband and father and demon and icon of women's liberation. If you haven't read this, buy it today. If you have, re-read it. Literature doesn't get much better or richer.
Love Medicine Louise Erdrich	This is one of those incredible literary journeys where I thoroughly enjoyed the trip and followed the story easily, although I am not sure where I ended. Erdrich (half Chippewa and half German-American) traces two familes over 54 years living in and around the Ojibwa (corrupted to Chippewa by English) reservation in the Dakotas. The novel has multiple narrators and often repeats the same stories from different perspectives many years later. So perceptions of what you read and think occurred change over time in this slice-of-life about 20th Century Native Americans caught between two clashing cultures.
The Last Report on the Miracles at Little No Horse Louise Erdrich	Sister Cecelia becomes Agnes DeWitt who is shot by a Depression-era bank robber but survives only to be snatched by a flood that carries her and her piano on a journey and life as a Father, serving as priest to some Ojibwas living around Fargo, North Dakota. She has an affair with another priest and builds a church on a rock that covers a nest of snakes that come out when Agnes/Father Damien plays the piano. The second Erdrich novel I read was even more enjoyable and spectacular than the first. Her world is borderline magic realism, filled with coincidences and spirits. She jumps forward and backward in time, filling in detail and foreshadowing and using multiple narratives and narrators to create a fluid picture of a time, place and people that made me laugh and think and immediately start recommending the book to co-workers.
The Wonderful Country Tom Lea	A grand adventure story about changes and passages, pistoleros and caballeros, Lea wrote and illustrated this 1952 poetic portrait about a bicultural boy becoming a man in El Paso, Texas, when the U.S. Cavalry, Texas Rangers, trains, horses, capitalists and Mexican politics collided with native cultures in the 1870s and 1880s. This book is out-of-print, but worth tracking down. I found it and paid $15 for an excellent hard-cover edition after searching online at Bibliofind.com and Advanced Book Exchange. If you like Cormac McCarthy, try this one. I bet McCarthy read it while growing up or while writing The Border Trilogy. The similarities in writing styles, subject and mood seem too striking to be random. Send me e-mail at jbunin@slonet.org if there are any McCarthy or Lea fans out there who know.
The Prize: The Epic Quest for Oil, Money and Power Daniel Yergin	History that reads like fine literature, this fact- and fun-filled argosy takes you from the beginning of the oil industry through OPEC, the fall of the Shah and into Desert Storm, our war with Iraq. Along the way are some really incredible side journeys, passing by such landmarks as how the U.S. highway system got built, the origins of the gas station, how highjacked taxi cabs helped win World War I and a truly bizarre cast of characters.
Snow Falling on Cedars David Guterson	Set in the Pacific Northwest in 1954, the book is a cross-cultural love story, a documentary about salmon fishing and the Japanese relocation camps and a murder-mystery about a disillusioned journalist all rolled into a single beautifully written book that seems to span centuries by focusing on the World War II generation.
Into Thin Air Jon Krakauer	A gripping, insightful, first-person account of the 1996 disaster on Mt. Everest, when a half-dozen hikers, including two experienced guides, died after making a series of bad decisions. You will not want to climb Everest when you are done reading this and will question the sanity of any one who does. Krakauer masterfully mixes detail with description to paint a stunningly vivid picture of a nightmare.
Call of the Wild/White Fang Jack London	Re-reading both for the third time, although the first back-to-back, I was as swept up in great storytelling as a middle-aged adult as I was as a young boy first discovering the great adventures in literature. London vividly recreates the Alaskan wilderness and the men and dogs the frontier produced: a domesticated animal whose primitive spirit is awakened by the great outdoors and a half-wolf whose tenderness is kindled by kind-hearted human souls.
The Big Sky/The Way West A.B. Guthrie	The first two of Guthrie's six Big Sky novels capture what my favorite English professor described as the epic vision in American literature, the thrill of discovering new lands, great bounty, endless opportunity and the freedom to be yourself simply by being tough and perservering. "The Big Sky" follows mountainman Boone Caudill into the unknown and "The Way West" rides a wagon train though the mountains to the Pacific Northwest that Caudill's kind tamed and opened up.
Desert Cadillac Marc Reisner	This is a sad-but-true history of how the wild rivers of the West were tamed by the Bureau of Reclamation and U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, selling nature's heritage for cheap electric power and to help farmers get rich. The opening section about how Los Angeles stole the Owens Valley is among the most exciting piece of reporting you'll ever read. This a must-read books if you consider yourself an environmentalist.
The Poisonwood Bible Barbara Kingsolver	The narrative entwines the lives of four daughters and their mother dragged to primitive Africa in 1960 by their obsessed, minister father/husband just as the Congo gains independence and changes dictators as freedom is highjacked. Kingsolver, who is known for her writing about the American southwest, blends the four tales into a single story that is equally personal, epic and revealing both about Africa and the human soul.
One Vast Winter Count Colin Calloway	This is history on a grand scale, yet somehow intimate. It covers the First Nations of the West during their wanderings until the time of Lewis and Clark's journey. It is a story of pilgrims, driven by war, natural disaster, weather, social disintegration and reintegration, and the colonialism of the French, British and Spanish empires. Tribes settle, flourish, splinter, move, and merge. Calloway illustrates how global politics such as the French and Indian War (The Seven-Years War in Europe), trade and the arrival of disease, corn and the horse changed the culture and locations of the Native American population repeatedly until their freedom, land and heritage were nearly destroyed by American westward expansion.
House of Sand and Fog Andre Dubus III	An absorbing modern immigrant story set in the Far West, the plot follows Persian immigrants driven from Iran by the mullahs in the revolt against the Shah. The Iranians battles an alcoholic woman, whose husband has left her, and her new boyfriend for control of her house near San Francisco after she ignored notices to pay past taxes. This is a new spin on the foreigner coming to the land of opportunity and trying to take advantage of a situation created by a bureaucratic snafu. Nobody is entirely wrong or right, leaving the reader with distinctly mixed emotions.
Under the Banner of Heaven John Krakauer	Another intriguing Krakauer study about humans on the edge, Mormon fundamentalists this time, mixing in polygamy, murder and a history of the only truly successful modern religion. The history seems particularly timely and relevant as he weaves Osama bin Laden and President George W. Bush into the story since they are both religious extremists. This is fun reading about the dark side of a religion that was already viewed as the dark side and underbelly of America's westward migration.
The Devil in the White City Erik Larson	Alternating between the architects and personalities who built the 1893 Chicago World's Fair (honoring the 400th anniversary of Columbus landing in the new world) and a serial killer operating nearby, historian Erik Larson creates a work of non-fiction that is as much a page-turner as any fiction I've read. The fair is a cultural landmark and a marvelous example of human ingenuity and perseverance and the sideshow of H.H. Holmes getting away with murder is so astonishing that it would be incredible if it weren't true.
The Oregon Trail: Am American Saga David Dary	Dary traces this grand piece of history from its origins when Marco Polo stirred explorers to seek the Orient. We follow the fur trade and meet mountain men, missionaries and wagon trains heading West to Oregon and California, Mormons gathering in their Utah homeland, gold seekers racing to strikes in California, Colorado and Montana, the impact of the Civil War, the Native American population displaced by the immigrant onslaught, and the soldiers and government agents who protected travelers and massacred the First Nations. He concludes with a chapter on how the trail was preserved. This is history worth reading and knowing.
Masterson Richard Wheeler	This is the third and best of three excellent Richard Wheeler novels I've read ("Sierra" and "Fool's Coach"). Set in 1919, as a prohibition is about to restrict the freedom of drinking, the story captures Bat Masterson late in life as a sports reporter in New York who takes a train trip with his wife to explore and correct his own legend and see what happened in the towns where the myth was born and grew. It is a love story about two people and about the nation and the West, as we meet the men and the women who lived and loved the frontier and each other, and reconsider how the frontier shaped the national view of itself.
Thunderhead Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child	A rip-snorter of a good yarn about skinwalkers (bad medicine dudes) stalking an archaeology dig near Lake Powell. I couldn't wait to find out what happened next while learning about the Anasazi, desert weather and landscapes, and how archaeologists use scraps of information to recreate a culture that disappeared mysteriously 800 years earlier. I've added these guys to my reading list.
The Lovely Bones Alice Sebold	This is not the kind of book I would normally like, but it moved me. It is a fluid novel that moves through multiple minds, times and ideas. The story is told by a 14-year-old girl from heaven as she watches how her murder impacts her family, friends and community. Although it explores heaven and the afterlife, it is not about angels or religion, but about spirits, hearts and memories. It is simultaneously moving and thought-provoking. It made me think about things in new and different ways.
Buffalo Bill's America Louis Warren	Warren's writing isn't electric, but his ability to put William Cody's story in historic context is. He mixes in some incredible trivia and fascinating side trips, covering America from the 1840s to World War I. Warren's exploration of Bill's youth rides through Cody's myths about his the Pony Express, relationship with Custer and similar stories he stole from fellow frontier posers and imposters and how it became part of the national story as America emerged into a 20th Century world power symbolized by the Wild West. I was particularly fascinated by Warren's theory about Bram Stoker, Dracula and Cody and his use of the Lakota in his show.
Workin' Man Blues Gerald Haslam	Retired California State University, Sonoma, English Professor and native son of the Oildale/Bakersfield area, Gerald Haslam's "Workin' Man Blues" explores the ignored role the Golden State played in the creation, evolution, and popularization of Country-Western Music. He explores the music's origins and by decades to explain where Country came from, how Western got added, the conflicting Nashville and California sounds, and why performers wear fancy clothing despite singing about the poor, outsiders and the working class. Haslam puts the music into the national context, showing how the performers and audience came West with the Dust Bowl migration and World War II's industrialization of Southern California. He describes how the music's multiple currents -- bluegrass, hillbilly, rockabilly, Western swing, folk, country-rock, Old Time, mountain, and singing cowboys -- led to or were influenced by honky-tonks, dance halls, the horse opera Western movies Hollywood produced, the arrival and dominance of radio, and then the transition to television. I have listened to Country-Western for nearly 35 years and didn't realize how little I knew about it until I read this well-researched and well-written piece of California's and America's cultural history.
Out West Dayton Duncan	This entertaining history/travelogue follows the Lewis and Clark Trail in the mid-1980s, comparing their experience with the modern world that followed their footsteps almost 200 years later. Duncan is insightful, informative and funny and makes the Corps of Discovery journey seem even more remarkable and significant by putting their accomplishments and impact in perspective. More maps and photos would have been nice, but don't detract from the reading joy.