Reviews (24)

A Daring Refelction
Unlike most books I read, I was able to meet with the author of The Funhouse Mirror, Robert Ellis Gordon, on a few occasions.He had published his book through Washington State University Press, and a friend of mine was trying top help him distribute it to a wider academic audience.Knowledgeable, soft spoken and generous, Robert gave me a stack of his books on the promise that I would speak to colleagues and instructors in the Massachusetts area while on a 5 week seminar at Amherst College. Merging Reflections
This book allows the reader to enter the worlds found inprisons in ways not encountered in other books on the topic. It is truly extraordinary to have the voices of this diverse group all somehow merge together to reflect aspects of our common humanity.I believe this quality in the writing by the prisoners could only happen with the wise guidance of an immensely skilled teacher and understanding person.Robert Gordon must be someone who sees and cares about the lives of others yet does not fall into the trap of becoming overly sentimental about the ironies and cruelties encountered in learning about and working with this group.Gordon manages A Terrific Collection of Prison Writing
I started reading The Funhouse Mirror up while I was waiting for a connection in an airport.I got so absorbed in it that I almost missed my plane.It is a collection of stories by prisoners in Washington State.Their pieces are remarkable, but what really makes the book are the interspersed commentaries and stories by the editor, Robert Ellis Gordon.Gordon spent several years working in the prison system as a writing teacher, and the prisoners who wrote these stories were his students.While the prisoners' stories are good, Gordon himself is a far more accomplished and vivid writer.Reading Gordon's own pieces really brought home to me the hell that is our prison system, and the difficult moral and emotional problems that it poses.This is a wonderful, gripping, depressing book that I recommend to anyone who wants to learn about what our prisons are really like. ... Read more

Subjects:  1. 20th Century American Literature    2. Biography / Autobiography    3. Correctional personnel    4. Criminals & Outlaws    5. General    6. Penal Institutions    7. Penology    8. Prisoners    9. Prisoners' writings, American    10. Prisons    11. Regional Subjects - West    12. Social Science    13. Sociology    14. Washington (State)    15. Crime And Criminals   

Subjects:  1. Adventurers & Explorers    2. Biography / Autobiography    3. Biography/Autobiography    4. Historical - U.S.    5. Regional Subjects - West    6. Biography: general    7. Western & Pacific Coast states   

Reviews (2)

Jibes With My Yellowstone Years
I spent the summer of 1990-1991 at Yellowstone National Park as a cook at Old Faithful Inn.It was one of the most wonderful summers of my life.The job wasn't pleasant and the money wasn't good, but I spent an entire summer getting to know the park.The geysers, the mud pots and hot pools are so beautiful and very meaningful to me.Most tourists come, eat at the restaurant and see Old Faithful go off.They never venture out into the areas where the most interesting geysers are.I encountered My Yellowstone Years while I was there.I love this book.While life as a ranger is much different than being a cook, there is a connection in how much the park becomes part of your life and your memories.I highly recommend this book if you really want to get a feel of the park and what it is like to "really be there."

Passion for Yellowstone on every page
I recently came across this out-of-print book and enjoyed every line of it.
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Subjects:  1. Biography    2. Biography / Autobiography    3. Biography/Autobiography    4. Park rangers    5. Regional Subjects - West    6. Stewart, Donald C    7. U.S. Local History - Western United States    8. Yellowstone National Park   

Subjects:  1. 1808-1890    2. Biography    3. Biography & Autobiography    4. Biography / Autobiography    5. Biography/Autobiography    6. California    7. Historical - General    8. Historical - U.S.    9. Mexicans    10. Military governors    11. Pioneers    12. Political    13. Regional Subjects - West    14. Vallejo, Mariano Guadalupe,    15. Vallejo, Mariano Guadalupe   

Reviews (5)

So compellling I couldn't put it down-didn't want it to end.
Having known Tom for many years as a fascinating guy with a "past" that he only hinted of( with his knowledge of snakes, for instance )which he shared with the Boy Scouts-but you never really knew howor where he had acquired this knowledge-then when The Gringo Kid waspublished, voila, now we know. Karen Fisher did such a great job incapturing Tom -in his speech patterns and vernacular what a talent she has. I hear a mini series is in the works for t.v. Can hardly wait to see it. I have shared the book with many people- always the same response - GREAT!

True Life adventure at it's best!
The book caught and held my interest.Tom obviously has nine lives to have lived through the adventures that he experienced.The book is written like it is being told by a great storyteller; something that Tom definetlyis. I would reccomend this book to anyone who enjoys reading about theuntamed southwest.The fact that it is based on Tom's life makes it eventhe more interesting.

A wonderful journey into a time warp!
Whether you are a reader of westerns (I'm not) or a James Ellroy fan (I am), you will be caught immediately by this disarming narrative of honor and courage.The time is 1940, but it might as well be 1880.This is theold southwest as it must have been...as I like to think it was. I didn'twant this book to end. ... Read more

Subjects:  1. Biography / Autobiography    2. Farmers & Ranchers    3. Regional Subjects - West    4. Anecdotes    5. Fisk, Tom   

Reviews (5)

Entertaining & Elucidating Essays
This is the second book of Shannon Applegate's that I have read.(Check out "Skookum" for another great tale about the Applegate family.)So I knew that I was going to be treated to a good storytelling.I was not disappointed.
A very well told tale
It is obvious that quite a lot of work went into this story - for one thing, the last couple of pages are an extensive bibliography. I deducted a star for the editing. Frankly, I was puzzled that there were a few mechanical errors that jumped out at me, leaving me with the impression that Ms. Applegate's (likely) correct English usage was wrongly changed by an editor?See if you can spot them.

Living Among Headstones - Life in a Country Cemetery
Living Among Headstones - Life in a Country Cemetery by Shannon Applegate
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Subjects:  1. Biography / Autobiography    2. Death & Dying    3. Death And Dying (Sociological Aspects)    4. Regional Subjects - West    5. Social Science    6. Sociology    7. Biography: general    8. Body, Mind & Spirit / Spirituality / General   

Reviews (2)

Author's style is "hit or miss"
During his lifetime, Charles Siringo wrote six or seven books about his life experiences.The beauty of Howard R. Lamar's book is the way he encapsulates Siringo's books, and manages to put these stories in chronological order and in historical perspective.I have read most of Siringo's original writings, and found that Siringo presents his stories in a somewhat scattered way. I do have a better understanding of his life after reading this book.Lamar also did a great deal of research on the Matagorda Bay area of Texas, where Charles spent his formative years. This study is of great interest to Siringo affection ado's like myself.There is also a chapter full of great insight at the end of the book, which deals masterfully with Siringo's societal success during the later years of his life in Hollywood, CA.
Matagorda's Most Famous Cowboy!
"Charlie Siringo's West: An Interpretive Biography" by Howard R. Lamar weaves an intriguing tale of how one small boy from Matagorda grew up to become the epitome of the American cowboy.
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Subjects:  1. Biography    2. Biography & Autobiography    3. Biography / Autobiography    4. Biography/Autobiography    5. Cowboys    6. Frontier and pioneer life    7. Historical - General    8. Historical - U.S.    9. Private investigators    10. Regional Subjects - West    11. Texas    12. United States    13. United States - 19th Century    14. West (U.S.)    15. Biography & Autobiography / Historical    16. Biography: general    17. USA   

Editorial Review

William Kittredge, the distinguished writer of the American West, revisits the ranch life of his youth, set in the remote Warner Valley, "a hidden world" in which "landlocked waters flow from snowy mountains to the west but don't find a way out to the sea." In that rugged landscape, won by violence against both humankind and nature, Kittredge's family constructed myths, stories of how they came to be in that faraway place. Through those stories, he learned that accepted notions of patriotism and loyalty were less important than the values of community and generosity, and that, as Emerson observed, "Nothing is at last sacred but the integrity of your own mind."Read more

Reviews (1)

More Kitteredge, please
I love Bill Kitteredge as a storyteller, thinker, and even as a prophet.His vision of how story informs ethics is among the most sane approaches I've read, both to the art and role of storytelling and to ethics itself. His applicaton of his ethos to life in the West is sage.I've readKitteredge's previous books and this book, *Taking Care* is a well-wroughtdistillation of Kittredge's former books with some fine tuning. Read more

Subjects:  1. American authors    2. Authorship    3. Biography    4. Biography / Autobiography    5. Composition & Creative Writing - General    6. Essays    7. Homes and haunts    8. Kittredge, William    9. Literary    10. Nature    11. Nature/Ecology    12. Regional Subjects - West    13. Social aspects    14. Storytelling    15. West (U.S.)   

Editorial Review

Sorting through the innumerable legends about Wyatt Earp and his brothers is a monumental task, but Allen Barra, a sports columnist for the Read more

Reviews (47)

Not bad for a yankee writer from Jersey
Those who enjoy reading, studying and thinking about the Wild West will find this book refreshing, a painstaking effort of writing objectively to reveal the subject and his times. Most reviewers of this book carp on the editorial mistakes, a ring more pedantic than relevant - the majority of books in this genre share similar flaws. Lack of editorial development, however, should be viewed of no consequence; the content in Barra's book thrives.
Not quite what it should be
At 62, I've enjoyed a life-long interest in the `Wild West'. In fact the topic of Wyatt Earp is a favorite. While not a historian, I feel justified in claiming a comfortable familiarity with the subject. It's this familiarity that brings both favorable and unfavorable remarks.
Setting the record straight about Wyatt Earp
It's not very often that you get to read the biography of a famous western character, such as Wyatt Earp, that is as well researched and as well presented as this one.The author obviously did his homework.He should also be applauded for his insightful analyses, particular where only scant, biased, or conflicting information is available.Rather than embellishing the story, or presenting it as he hoped it might have happened, he attempted to reason out the most likely scenario based on the character of the various participants.For example: Is it really reasonable to assume that Wyatt Earp, after being a highly respected lawman in Wichita and Dodge City, Kansas, where he scrupulously avoided the necessity to kill anyone, would suddenly go to Tombstone, Arizona and become a stage robber, thief, and eventually an outlaw killer.Not likely.
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Subjects:  1. Biography & Autobiography    2. Biography / Autobiography    3. Biography/Autobiography    4. General    5. Historical - U.S.    6. Regional Subjects - West    7. United States - 19th Century/Old West   

Subjects:  1. Biography    2. Biography / Autobiography    3. Cowboys    4. Farmers & Ranchers    5. General    6. History    7. History: American    8. Interviews    9. Ranch life    10. Regional Subjects - West    11. Sociology - Rural    12. United States - State & Local - General    13. West (U.S.)    14. 20th century    15. Social history    16. Western & Pacific Coast states   

Reviews (4)

An honest story of an unusual friendship, words & pictures
DuBuys' and Harris' friendship with Jacobo Romero was an education for their minds and spirits and they share what they learned in this elegant volume.New Mexicans are hard to write about, because they use languagemore directly, to a different purpose, than most other Americans. It'sdifficult to tell a New Mexican's story, because it's hard to use a NewMexican's language. DuBuys has stood in a neutral place to see himself, hisfriend Alex Harris, their women, and his friend Jacobo Romero, his wife,and others, and to tell a story that is from the heart without beingromanticized, that shares what he learned with striking generosity.Thepictures are beautiful--the landscape of New Mexican people is even morestirring than the landscape of New Mexican land.

Lovely, lovely, lovely.
A captivating read, a joy, a lovely picture book.You will fall in love with this book...You will not be able to help yourself.

A deserving Pulitzer finalist and a NYTimes Notable Book
This is a fluid and absorbing book. Eachchapter/vignette builds carefully upon the preceding one.The author's knowledge of the Southwest and its intertwined cultures and his affection for the land and his friendsmakes this a powerful read.Anyone interested in the Southwest, biographyand/or photography should read this.It's wonderful! ... Read more

Subjects:  1. Biography / Autobiography    2. History    3. History: American    4. New Mexico - Local History    5. Regional Subjects - West    6. United States - State & Local - General   

Editorial Review

More adventure books should be like this. In a genre rife withoverbearing machismo and braggadocio, this book, originally published in 1907,is a refreshing and at times hilarious take on exploration. Robert Dunn revealsthe bickering and frayed nerves, petty insecurities and trivial jealousies thatexisted alongside the courage, discipline, and determination exhibited by eachmember of the 1903 expedition that attempted the first ascent of Alaska's Mt.McKinley, the highest mountain in North America. Without downplaying thedifficulty of the task, Dunn's honest assessments of the men involved revealsthe complex motivations for undertaking arduous exploration and the humanweaknesses that are revealed in the process. Read more

Reviews (2)

Brilliant insights from a master
Dunn takes the cake from the grave! While the Crook Society scrambles to promote the old faker Dr. Cook, and Bryce tries to sue Washburn for his book about the McKinley fraud we have Dunn's magnificent work back in print. Predecessor to Into Thin Air
If you've read Krakauer's "Into Thin Air" you can only come away from reading "The Shameless Diary...." thinking how it must have been the model for the frankness and criticism he wrote of himself and his fellow climbers in his blockbuster Everest disaster story. Besides the no holds bared frankness of the author's daily reflections of the events of this expedition the reader is let into the authors inner mind as well as the levels of, what can only be considered, animal brutality required to actually complete such a journey, and, which could have only been common, yet previously unexposed, to all such expeditions of it's age.Read more

Subjects:  1. 1877-1955    2. Adventurers & Explorers    3. Alaska    4. Biography / Autobiography    5. Diaries    6. Discovery And Exploration (General)    7. Discovery and exploration    8. Dunn, Robert,    9. Explorers    10. Geologists    11. History    12. History: American    13. McKinley, Mount    14. McKinley, Mount (Alaska)    15. Mountain Climbing    16. Mountaineering    17. Regional Subjects - West    18. United States    19. United States - State & Local - General    20. American history    21. Biography: general    22. Climbing & mountaineering    23. Cook, Frederick Albert    24. Dunn, Robert    25. Geographical discovery & exploration    26. History / General    27. Local history    28. USA   

Reviews (1)

Begoso Cabin warms the heart & piques the adventurous spirit
Begoso Cabin is the account of a woman's experiences living in a remote canyon in the mountains of northern New Mexico. The author has described the land, the animals, the people in vivid detail. The book is replete withpleasing morsels of historical research beginning with the Pecos Indianswho once hunted the area, the region's importance as the entry into Mexicanterritory on the Santa Fe Trail, the takeover of the Southwest by theUnited States, the legal hassles over the old Spanish land grant on whichthe Begoso cabin is located, to today's village customs and economy. Begoso Cabin partakes of a genre of women's writing that is characterizedby such authors as Annie Dillard, Dorothy Gilman, Gretel Ehrlach and otherswho have retreated to the wilds to write their stories. Begoso Cabin is a good read, full of historical, and oftenhumorous, anecdotes, sensitve landscape description, and sociologicalcommentary on village life rendered in a vibrant and poetic prose. ... Read more

Subjects:  1. 1936-    2. Biography / Autobiography    3. Ethnic Studies - General    4. Grana, Mari,    5. Graäna, Mari,    6. Hispanic American Sociology    7. Hispanic Americans    8. Multicultural Nonfiction    9. New Mexico - Local History    10. Pecos River Region (N.M. and T    11. Pecos River Region (N.M. and Tex.)    12. Regional Subjects - West    13. Social Science    14. Social life and customs    15. United States - State & Local - General    16. Women    17. Biography: general    18. Graña, Mari    19. NATURAL HISTORY, COUNTRY LIFE & PETS    20. New Mexico   

Subjects:  1. Agriculture - Animal Husbandry    2. Biography    3. Biography / Autobiography    4. Farmers & Ranchers    5. History    6. History: American    7. New Mexico    8. Personal Memoirs    9. Ranch life    10. Ranchers    11. Regional Subjects - West    12. Texas    13. United States - State & Local - General    14. United States - State & Local - West   

Subjects:  1. 20th century    2. Attitudes    3. Biography / Autobiography    4. California    5. Correctional personnel    6. Corrections    7. Criminology    8. General    9. History    10. Penology    11. Personal Memoirs    12. Prisons    13. Regional Subjects - West    14. Social Science    15. Sociology    16. United States   

Reviews (1)

Incredibly Fun and Very Informative
As you read this well crafted book you will feel as though you are on each and every movie and tv set that Denny has been on.He truly puts you "right there in the thick of it".Well versed, uniquely brash, and written with passion.I highly recommend this book for any planning their assault on Hollywood.
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Subjects:  1. Artists, Architects, Photographers    2. Biography & Autobiography    3. Biography / Autobiography    4. Biography/Autobiography    5. Personal Memoirs    6. Regional Subjects - West    7. Biography: general    8. Individual artists   

Subjects:  1. Biography / Autobiography    2. Music    3. Regional Subjects - West    4. Women   

Subjects:  1. Biography    2. Biography / Autobiography    3. Business    4. Businessmen    5. Colorado    6. Colorado - Local History    7. Colorado Springs    8. Historical - U.S.    9. History    10. History: American    11. Industrialists    12. Penrose, Spencer,    13. Philanthropists    14. Regional Subjects - West    15. Study & Teaching    16. Tourist Trade Management    17. Tutt, Charles Leaming    18. United States - State & Local - General    19. b. 1865    20. American history    21. Local history    22. Management of specific areas    23. Penrose, Spencer    24. Teaching of a specific subject    25. Tourism industry    26. USA   

Reviews (2)

Luke Short: a biography
This book is a great read for anyone interested in the life and times of one of the more colorful characters in the western expansion era. I enjoyed and learned of Luke Short and how his life interacted and effected some of the other well known characters of the time. I wish this author knew others of the same era as well, that he might write of them as well. Hated to see this book come to an end.

Luke Short: A Biography
I loved this book! The author totally draws you in and fills this book with such anecdotes, facts, speculations, and often subtle humor that you cannot put it down. I was eager to read this book and learn more about a less-known famous figure from the Old West, and have also read Short'sother books. I heartily reccomend all of them to anyone who enjoys humorousnon-fiction as well as nondisputable facts. Short has the cunning wit of anintellectual and the story telling gift of a grandfather. ... Read more

Subjects:  1. Biography / Autobiography    2. Biography/Autobiography    3. General    4. Regional Subjects - West    5. United States - 19th Century/Old West    6. 1854-1893    7. Biography    8. Gamblers    9. History    10. Short, Luke    11. Southwest, New   

Reviews (4)

A True Story of Survival and Friendship
This book "Touching the Ancient One - a True Story of Tragedy and Reunion" could have been a very good book had the author Rupert Pratt just written about the crash, the survival and the rescue. However, he exceeds the ordinary telling of a tragic story and takes us into the present time for a reunion and follow-up on those who were touched by the events of February 5, 1954; and that makes for an outstanding book!
Mountains
In myth, mountains represent "exposition, revelation and new learning."For Airman Rupert Pratt, that is what the plane crash on Mt. Kesugi, Alaska represented.First, the struggle to survive, then the ongoing search for how and why it all happened.Pratt keeps the reader riveted first, with the immediate survival issues.Then comes the search for comrades who survived.Much later, arises the soul's need to make sense of it all, and his search leads to many reunions and a vision of a greater role after retiring from teaching.Warning to readers:Be prepared to devote time to sharing Pratt's quest.In the midst of a project, I had to alot a full day to the book that is both suspenseful and inspiring.The author's adventure is heightened by his truthfulness and clarity of writing.Well done!

Touching the Ancient One
At the genesis of Touching the Ancient One, I was only ten, but the author's description of six men surviving a plane crash that happened more than half a century ago, conjures memories of my own parents relating the incident at our kitchen table, just days after that tragic moment in February 1954.
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Subjects:  1. Biography & Autobiography    2. Biography / Autobiography    3. Biography/Autobiography    4. General    5. Regional Subjects - West