Winter is a wonderful time to plan a trip to the West—and take along a reading list to match:
Dream West
If Western art inspires you, Montana’s Charlie Russell: Art in the Collection of the Montana Historical Society (Montana Historical Society Press, 2014) is guaranteed to send you trekking in search of Russell’s West.
Get Your Kicks
If your Western road trip starts on the Mother Road, Route 66, then Jim Hinckley’s The Illustrated Route 66 Historical Atlas (Voyageur Press, 2014) is a must to own, and will look great next to another 2014 Voyageur Press imprint, Bob Boze Bell’s The 66 Kid.
Where a War Ends, the West Begins
Empire and Liberty: The Civil War and the West, edited by Virginia Scharff (University of California Press, March 2015), will inspire a Western visit in search of the Civil War and the beginning of the post-war West. Sounds like a road trip to me!
Ode to Easy Rider
James Whiteside’s Old Blue’s Road: A Historian’s Motorcycle Journeys in the American West (University of Colorado Press, Feb. 2015) celebrates six years in search of the soul of the West. Is that “Born to be Wild” playing in the background?
—Stuart Rosebrook
