Western Books Crossing My Path My mailboxes (real and virtual) have been filling up with news, notes and announcements of the end of 2020 books and...
Rough Drafts
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Western Books and Movies
Still Blasting Away
Six decades ago this September 30, a Western series premiered, starring a ballplayer-turned-actor and a one-season Mouseketeer as father-and-son...
Gambling, Gold and Women
Deadwood has always attracted big names. In 1874, even before the town’s creation, George Armstrong Custer and his command scouted the Black Hills...
High Noon: The Hollywood Blacklist and the Making of an American Classic
In this engrossing follow-up to his bestseller about The Searchers, the Pulitzer Prize-winning international reporter reveals much more than the...
The Best of the Weird Western
Stephen King’s The Dark Tower, an endlessly-in-the-works film that finally premiered on August 4, disappointed fans because, unlike the novels, it’s...
Farewell to Curly Bill
On May 14, 2017, actor Powers Boothe died just short of his 69th birthday. A magnetic and commanding presence, he enjoyed simultaneous stardom as...
Building Your Western Library With Harlan Hague
Harlan Hague grew up in Texas and never quite got over it. He was posted with the U.S. Navy in Japan, later lived in England, visited about seventy...
Princess Wenona
While Annie Oakley is well known as the demure darling of the lady sharpshooters of the Wild West shows of old, only the more ardent Western...
Utah Sovereignty
Antebellum America saw continuous political conflict over the expansion of slavery into new Territories. Popular sovereignty—allowing Territories...
The Practical and Spiritual Mores of the High Plains Peoples
Michael Gibbs’s first volume in his “High Plains Warrior” series, Spirit Wolf (CreateSpace, $12.95), plots catastrophic events in the lives of the...
Building Your Western Library with Andrew McBride
Englishman Andrew McBride fell in love with the American West after reading novels—such as A.B. Guthrie’s The Big Sky, John Prebble’s The Buffalo...
The Screen’s Greatest Horse Stuntman
The most memorable action sequence in Stagecoach comes near the end of the 1939 film. Shortly after the river crossing, the passengers expect a...