American Westerns discussion
Currently reading
I have read several in this series and enjoyed them. I have thoroughly enjoyed almost every W.W. Johnston book. His nephew J.A. Johnston is doing a great job carrying on for him.
I just finished Some Must Die, an unusual Western from suspense writer Gil Brewer and started Temptations of Valerie by Harry Whittington, which is based on the fine film "Valerie" starring Sterling Hayden and Anita Ekberg.
I finished the August Group Read Deer Run Trail - my review here and started .44 by H.A. DeRosso. I also picked up The Time It Never Rained on eBay and am waiting for delivery.
I started Luke Short's Ride the Man Down. I'm fond of the old western made from Short's work by the same title, starring Rod Cameron. Good stuff so far, just like the underrated film.
Started reading
I'm up to page 63 and was looking downstairs to see if I could find any other Donald Hamilton Westerns in my library. Didn't find where I have them stashed (if any) but I discovered that I own a forgotten paperback of
Didn't know I had that one. I purchased & read the e-book edition last year sometime.
I've gotten a little bit better at not buying books that I already own, and not starting books that I've already read since I've joined Goodreads. I really need to inventory my library one of these days too.
I used to keep track of my Western library, but along came ebooks, I fell behind and just totally stopped. Still have the notebook, I wrote the titles in, recorded it on Word Pad on my computer, marked them as I did them and be about 5 years worth of books to track down, add to the notebook.
Reading these posts, I'm thinking about finding time to go through my old collection in the barn to start an inventory of what I already have. Kindle and local library have made it too easy to read books that I know I already own. Since I've found more western and pulp/noir authors I'm interested in that I've learned about from group reads and reviews, I'm also looking forward to yard sales & book sales to find new books to read. Something about finding a good used copy of a book for cheap makes it even more enjoyable to read.
I ended up donating most of my current popular fiction to the library because the ebooks are easy to find, cheap and take up a lot less space. I have an affinity for paperbacks from the 50s and 60s so I look for of out-of-print books at book sales and used book stores. Ebook publishers don't seem too keen on reprinting writers like Short, Flynn, Gruber, Shirrefs, Savage Jr, DeRosso, etc. so paper is the only way to read them.
Spring cleaning isn't far off, and both my wife & I have agreed to sell or give away what we can as far as books, magazines, CDs, etc. we don't need (library donations, etc.) and store most everything worth keeping. Digital media is so much easier to deal with, although my Spaghetti Westerns DVD collection (200+) and my Hendrix concerts CD collection (another 150+) are non-negotiable. Condensed my music collection & copied to 3 separate hard drives, need to do the same with DVD movies. iTunes Match makes it easy to carry all my music wherever I go, all magazines now on iPad, Kindle and ebooks on Paperwhite & Mac Pro, but I do still like to pick up an old paperback novel when I get the chance.
I donated a lot of stuff I had to a charitable thrift shop chain last year, slimming down to what I knew I would reread. A few rare items and a lot of books and series by authors from the past I kept, but if it was a read-it-once, won't probably-read-it-again, I made some space. There was some great stuff I got rid of, but since it was just going to sit there without being read again, it was just taking up space. A lot I kept is out of print now, so it's great to have them on hand to return to.
Tim wrote: "Spring cleaning isn't far off, and both my wife & I have agreed to sell or give away what we can as far as books, magazines, CDs, etc. we don't need (library donations, etc.) and store most everyth.. Condensed my music collection & copied to 3 separate hard drives, need to do the same with DVD movies. iTunes Match makes it easy to carry all my music wherever I go,"Which reminds me of current frustrations and on-going nightmares:
I blew out 2 different Seagate external hard drives in 2016.
They contained various pieces of vinyl I'd converted to WAV and Flac.
Also hours and hours of purloined films.
I'm now in the process of backing up certain files from my external HDs on to thumb-drives.
Just finished reading Luke Short's Ride the Man Down, a terrific Western. Shame he's out of print, but at least he's on Kindle thanks to Open Road Media.
While going through my unread Westerns I came across a paperback (from Popular Library #249 date unknown) by W. C. Tuttle -another Pulp favorite.It's a Hashknife Hartley and Sleepy Stevens saga, TWISTED TALES aka THE SANTA DOLORES STAGE published originally in 1929, 1930, and 1934.
This is so much fun to read... it's half-comedy, half-hardboiled.
If you can find a copy, buy it!
Found at library used book sale - Longarm in Silver City and Longarm and the Blackmailers. Looks like there are over 400 books in this series, and these two were supposedly written by Harry Whittington and James Reasoner, both fine authors. Is this series still ongoing?
Edwin wrote: "Found at library used book sale - Longarm in Silver City and Longarm and the Blackmailers. Looks like there are over 400 books in this series, and these two were suppo..."All four of the long running adult Western series were victims of the major publishing companies abandoning or cutting back on the Westerns that they publish. The last one was Longarm and the Model Prisoner #436 came out in Feb. 2015, also Slocum, the Trailsman are also gone and just the Gunsmith lives on as ebooks published from Piccadilly Publishing. Since Robert J Randisi owned the Gunsmith it'll live on and Peter Brandvold does have two different series, 'The Revenger' and 'Bear Haskell' to help fill the void.
It's unfortunate that they all got sacked. Seems like those series were still generally pretty popular too.The unambiguous morality of Westerns seems to be just the remedy for these divisive times. Maybe now is the time for a resurgence of the genre.
I'm reading Valley of Wild horses by Zane Grey on the western side (also reading a few other books) and it's a terrific piece of storytelling so far, showing Panhandle Smith as he grows from infant to man. Really love it so far. I took a slight detour by reading Some Christmas Camouflage by Elisabeth Grace Foley, a warm and heartfelt short story. I think she's in this group with myself and several other writers, as she also writes in this genre.
I'm trying to read a Day Keene novel. 
It's a beat up copy but it doesn't matter if it's destroyed because I also have this little nugget of gold I'm trying to keep in "good" condition.
Reading long out of print Hidden Blood by W.C. Tuttle in MS Word, fixing a heap of scan/OCR problems before converting to an ebook. Spell check has a really rough time with cowboy dialogue.
Edwin wrote: "Reading long out of print Hidden Blood by W.C. Tuttle in MS Word, fixing a heap of scan/OCR problems before converting to an ebook. Spell check has a really rough time with cowboy d..."Oh boy, this looks terrific!
Couldn't help but laugh about your problems converting the original text to ebook format and the issues with spell check when it comes to cowboy dialogue.
Beautiful cover on the original paperback, by the way.
Just finished Zane Grey's Valley of Wild Horses and thought it was a wonderful piece of storytelling. One of his finest works.
Currently reading Skin Medicine by Tim Curran.
Just finished David Robbins 'King of the Mountain' and here's a link to my review. https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6..."
Currently on my Currently reading GR shelf is
The Collected Short Stories of Louis L'Amour, Volume 1: Frontier Stories by Louis L'Amour This is one of those long term reading projects, along with the Complete Sherlock Holmes.
Reading "Inherent Vice" by Thomas Pynchon in my quest to read all the selections on the poll for April and I'm half way through this one to get a head start.I think having seen the movie first actually has helped me with this unusual read.
Pynchon really covers the area and time period well with the drug culture present, very funny at times and it's amazing that anything at all is ever accomplished in those days with everyone perpetually stoned.
Gary wrote: "Currently on my Currently reading GR shelf is [book:The Collected Short Stories of Louis L'Amour, Volume 1..."Looks like a great collection. L'Amour's short stories probably don't get the attention that they deserve, and sadly that may be true for short stories in general.
Coincidentally our upcoming Group Read for April is a L'Amour novel, "The Shadow Riders".
I'm still reading The Western Megapack: 25 Classic Western Stories, 64% done & it's been pretty enjoyable so far.Pretty sure next western up for me will be Hombre, and I'll probably be reading one by Bobby Underwood very soon.
Tim wrote: "Pretty sure next western up for me will be Hombre, and I'll probably be reading one by Bobby Underwood very soon."Awesome! I found a great old pulp western novel in one of those Megapacks a while back. I was debating over a Leinster pulp western I have (Kid Deputy) on Kindle, or a hardback of Luke Short's Coroner Creek I picked up off eBay, but I procrastinated too long so looks like I'll have to pick up The Shadow Riders for the Western read this month. Been a while since I read one of his, so should be a nice change. I like several of his Sackett ones, and Flint, Hondo, a slew of others from over the years. I liked Comstock Lode too, which was one of his later ones I guess. Never read Shadow Riders, so it'll be a new one for me.
I picked up Shadow Riders, think I've read it before but didn't find it on my shelf and if I did read it then it must have been back when it came out, the description sounds familiar.Recently picked up Blood Meridian, and the other two selections I'd like to read as well so it was a good list of choices this month.
The Shadow Riders was a top notch made for TV movie starring Tom Selleck, Sam Elliott, Katherine Ross, and Ben Johnson. I may have to track down the book and read it.
I just finished and reviewed The Rhodes Reader, a wonderful collection of short fiction and essays by Eugene Manlove Rhodes. I'd enjoyed a few of his books before, but this volume put him firmly near the head of my list of favorite Western writers.Just ordered The Shadow Riders from the library—looks interesting, and one I haven't read, so I decided to join in on the group read.
Glad to see people still reading Gene Rhodes. He has always. Even my favorite. He knew the cowboy and was a literate writer.
Awesome to see that Chucky got picked up by Pinnacle and has a new book coming out in October. https://www.amazon.com/Hell-Hath-Fury...
Just finished LITTLE HOUSE ON THE PRAIRIE. Really enjoyed it. Here's my book review of this children's classic that has been in print since its first publication in 1935. http://nik-writealot.blogspot.com.es/...
just started Shadow Riders, will enjoy reading this great story
started to read Texas Vigilante, by Bill Crider
Lowell wrote: "started to read Texas Vigilante, by Bill Crider"Crider's sequel to his excellent Outrage at Blanco, our February Group read. I've got this one on my to-read list.
I'm reading West Is West by Eugene Manlove Rhodes. It's novel-length, but made up of loosely interconnected shorter stories, rather like O. Henry's Cabbages and Kings, and I'm really enjoying it so far. His descriptions of a cattle roundup and working in the railroad loading pens are terrific.
Edwin wrote: "Lowell wrote: "started to read Texas Vigilante, by Bill Crider"Crider's sequel to his excellent Outrage at Blanco, our February Group read. I've got this one on my to-read list."
you should enjoy this one.
Just finished the monthly read, Bandera Pass, and liked it a lot.
It's not a western, but it covers the characters and tales that make westerns what they are.
Started reading Noble Outlaw bt Matt Braun
Started reading Les Savage, Jr. West of Laramie, to my reading list.
American Westerns
Books mentioned in this topic
Outrage at Blanco: An Ellie Taine Thriller (other topics)52 Weeks, 52 Western Novels: Old Favorites and New Discoveries (other topics)
Wolf Moon (other topics)
The Virginian (other topics)
True Grit (other topics)
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Authors mentioned in this topic
Gregory Urbach (other topics)Louis L'Amour (other topics)
Logan Stewart (other topics)
Hank Madison (other topics)
Louis L'Amour (other topics)
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Currently ready, anyone else read any in the series? Debating on getting more in the series.