Books

HAPPY THANKSGIVING to those readers in the U.S. and Canada, and to those who don't celebrate it, HAPPY THANKSGIVING!!! Our family group will be celebrating turkey day at the Rustler's Roost Restaurant at the Pointe, South Mountain, here in Phoenix, a great place for Thanksgiving dinner. We've ordered two turkeys for the meal, which will be more than enough, and the Roost provides the turkeys and everything else. 

By the Gun, a collection of short stories by Richard Matheson and published in 1994 by Berkley, had some exciting and brutal stories, but that's what you would expect from the title. The one about the sixteen-year-old taking some cattle to market, but couldn't cross some land without giving up some of them in payment was especially good. And the first one in the book, about a city boy going west to make a name for himself was also worth the time it took to read it. Mr. Matheson is the author of Journal of the Gun Years (a Spur Award winner) and the Gunfight.

Another book from my small and inadequate library is Reminiscing Along the Sweetwater, by Ruth Beebe published in 1974 by Johnson Publishing Company, Boulder, Colorado. This particular one is autographed by Ms. Beebe, and I don't know from what used book store I procured it. In it, the author gives some history of the area and enumerates the farmers and ranchers along the river and its tributaries from the first settlers to the present day, giving an abbreviated history of each rancher. A valuable tool for researchers and historians, in my estimation, and writers.

There are several pictures of western art in the October 2008 edition of True West mag as it covers the Charlie Russell Art Trail and an article entitled Big Country Big Art, if you are interested in the art of the west.