I can’t stop buying books
Seven months ago, I got back into reading in a big way. The bad news is that I’ve already boxed almost all my books in preparation for a planned move. I suppose I could unpack the boxes and find something to read, but it’s easier to just buy another book. And that’s what I’ve been doing. I’ve purchased 49 books in the last 30 weeks, including 31 paper (physical) books and 18 e-books. I still prefer the physical book, but the e-books come in handy when traveling or after lights out. I’ve read to completion 25 of the 49, and have started four others. Another five titles are lined up on the TBR (“to be read”) shelf, and I am eager to dive into them. I’ve already consigned to the DNF (“did not finish”) shelf three books that did...
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Arizona History Convention, April 10-12, 2014 in Prescott
I’ll be chairing a great panel on Saturday morning, April 12, at this year’s Arizona History Convention, to be held at the Prescott Resort and Conference Center. The panel title is “Turning Lives into Legends: Wyatt Earp, Pearl Hart, and Curly Bill.” Each of our speakers will examine how it is that three memorable Arizona residents–one lawman and two criminals–did or did not pass from their allotted fifteen minutes of fame or notoriety to legendary or even iconic status. Our speakers (and their topics) are: * Anne Collier: “Stuart Lake’s Wyatt Earp” * Jean E. Smith: “Pearl Hart: A Legend in Her Own Time” * Paul Cool: “Curly Bill: Arizona’s All-in-One Robin Hood, Black Knight, and Byronic Hero” Was Curly Bill Brocius an “outlaw hero”? I’ll be looking into how his contemporaries and Old West mythmakers drew upon legendary, mythical, and literary characters and character types to...
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Capture of New Mexico’s Rustler King John Kinney in Wild West magazine
The April 2014 issue of Wild West magazine includes my article on the capture of John Kinney by New Mexico militia (the “Shakespeare Guards” under Captain James Black), orchestrated by federal government Customs Bureau agents. The article provides, for the first time, the inside story on the events that led the Shakespeare Guards to John Kinney’s location inside Arizona Territory as he attempted to escape justice. The narrative is drawn in part from a report prepared by Customs Special Agent William Howland, accompanied by Howland’s previously unseen map of the chase, discovered by yours truly in the National Archives in Washington, DC. I’d like to thank Lincoln County War authority Frederick Nolan for his assistance in helping to get the story right and the editorial staff of Wild West magazine for improving the text’s readability and the article’s overall...
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The books that introduced me to and hooked me on the Old West
Several blog entries ago, I credited Hollywood films and TV shows with spurring my interest in history. Oddly enough, although I probably watched more Western movies and TV shows than anything else in my youth, they did not kick start any particular desire to read about the Old West. Most, if not all the books I bought in my teens and twenties were by subscription or book club choices. It was not until my late 30s that I began in earnest to purchase books on the Old West. But now they own and overflow that 11-foot long book shelf, the biggest one in the house. I’ll post later about the importance of the American Heritage Publishing Company to the early building of my library, but my first book on the West, at least that I still own, was a...
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The book that… first shaped my understanding of the American story …
Nathanael Greene, the general who George Washington increasingly relied upon as the Revolutionary War dragged on, described in correspondence his experience in the near-run campaign that turned the war’s tide: “We fight, get beat, rise, and fight again.” The American Revolution is an incredible story, a historical thriller, if you will.
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