Reviews (4)

A classic biography from the American West
Apart from Paul Horgan fans, probably most people coming to this book will be doing so to learn more about the real life archbishop who inspired Willa Cather's great novel DEATH COMES FOR THE ARCHBISHOP. And just as Cather's novel concerns the friendship and work of two major characters--Archbishop Jean Latour and his vicar Father Joseph Vaillant--so Horgan's biography necessarily tells the story not only of Juan Bautista Lamy but also Joseph Machebeuf.

Horgan's biography succeeds magnificently in two ways. First, for those who will be coming to the book from reading Cather, one will find vastly greater depth and detail than was possible in that novel. So, the book is a boon for Cather fans. Second, even if one has not read Cather, the book tells a magnificent story of a truly heroic man and his closest friend. Their story is also the story of the West as a whole, and Santa Fe in particular.

There are biographies that record the rote facts about an individual, and unfortunately most fall into this category. And the there are biographies that almost manage to bring you into contact and introduce you to someone you have never met. Lamy emerges almost as someone you know, instead of someone you merely know things about.

I heartily recommend this book to anyone interested in either history of the American West or in Willa Cather's great novel. Although I am not myself Roman Catholic, it would probably also be enjoyed by those whose main interest is in Church History. It is a tragedy that this book is not currently in print. With so many much weaker and less interesting biographies available, it is unfortunate that many of the truly excellent ones are not.

A Fullsome Biography of Dedication and Accomplishment
If there is proof that religion is cultural Paul Horgan demonstrates it in this work which is more than a single biography, but two. Lamy's initial dilemma, besides getting to his Santa Fe assignment, was to overcome the politics of Mexican Catholicism, and bend its will to his own. It was not the good Church defeating evil so much as it was Lamy's determination to arrange things in their proper order while at the same time creating an infrastructure to benefit his parishioners. His monument is the cathedral at Santa Fe in front of which is a stature to his memory as a man beloved by all. Still, Lamy shows a natural reluctance to relinquish habitual authority after retirement. The Archbishop was a man, after all, but a man with a calling he was determined to fulfill. Incidentally, when a character from one book shows up in another unrelated work (Lamy's eventual successor, in Tucson), 'On the Border With Crook,' it lends co-incident authenticity to both.

An absolutely tremendous book
It would be difficult if not impossible to overpraise this book. As a narrative of what the southwestern United States was like during the nineteenth century, as a triumph of research into a multitude of different sources spread out all over the United States and western Europe, and as a biography of an undeniably great man (the first Roman Catholic Archbishop of Santa Fe, whose life this book tells from his departure from France around 1839 to serve as a missionary to the United States to his death in New Mexico the late 1880s), this book succeeds wonderfully. It's one of the best books I have ever read.

An epic work on a historical figure of the Southwest
This outstanding book on the first Archbishop of Santa Fe - the French-born Jean Baptiste Lamy , details Lamy's tireless efforts at rebuilding the Catholic church in New Mexico from the state of shocking neglect which he found it to be in. It delineates the work Lamy did to improve both the spiritual and material lives of the people under his care. It also enumerates the many hardships Lamy endured. Evidence of the tremendous devotion, unwavering faith and sterling character of this man of God can be found throughout the book. If there is one word which can best describe Lamy, that word would be - Saint!

Author Paul Horgan won a Pulitzer prize for this book and it is not difficult to see why. It was readily apparent that Horgan had done exhaustive research from the numerous details contained in the book.

All in all, a meticulously researched book on a most remarkable individual of the American Southwest written by a diligent author. ... Read more

Reviews (4)

Can You Imagine A Town Called Pie Town?
At first when I read the title of the book, Pie Town Woman, authored by Joan Myers, I could not imagine a town being called Pie Town! However, the town actually exists and is located in New Mexico. Its population is about 55 persons, certainly not a metropolis!

You may ask how the town derived its name? Apparently, around 1922 a fellow by the name of Clyde Norman came to New Mexico in order to homestead. As he could not find a desirable property he decided to open a mining operation on a forty-acre piece of land that later became known as Highway 60. In order to survive he opened a grocery store that sold various items such as food, gasoline, kerosene and other commodities.
Norman saw the opportunity to sell doughnuts to his customers and this in turn led him to bake and sell pies. The pies became an immediate success and he soon replaced his original sign to read "Pie Town." Eventually Norman sold his enterprise to someone by the name of Harmon L. Craig who was instrumental in convincing the appropriate authorities to call the town Pie Town.

A photographer by the name of Russell Lee and his wife Jean became acquainted with Pie Town in April of 1940. They were very moved by the fortitude of the homesteaders who farmed in and around the area and how they barely eked out a living. As the author states, "the people were enacting the role of pioneers in the legendary drama of a frontier community. Although the Depression was a desperate time, the days when a family could clear a patch of land, raise a few crops, and be contentedly self-sufficient were over in the rest of the country."
Lee, who was an employee of the Farmers Security Administration and other New Deal Agencies, convinced his boss, Roy Styker, that it would be extremely useful to tell the story of this part of New Mexico with a series of photographs in order to convince the FSA to adopt programs to aid homesteaders. At the time no programs of this nature existed.

During the course of his stay in Pie Town, Lee and his wife had taken innumerable photographs that served as an historical record of small-town America. These photographs ultimately have found their way into the archives of the Library of Congress. Among the more than six hundred photos taken of Pie Town and vicinity were about one hundred taken of a woman by the name of Doris Caudill, her husband Faro and their daughter Josie.

In 1984, photographer and writer Joan Myers found herself in Pie Town on her way back from visiting her brother in Arizona. She vaguely remembered Russell Lee, the photographer, and his photographs of Pie Town. However, what did in fact leave a lasting impression on Myers was a photograph of a woman looking proudly at one of her jars of canned goods. This woman was Doris Caudill.
Myers decided to track down Doris and she is led to Cascade Locks, Oregon. The book recounts the many conversations the author has with Doris describing her life as a homesteader. The lack of food, medical care, electricity, water accessibility and even the difficulty of burying people are all portrayed by their conversations and some of Doris's photos that are shared with the author. Eventually, spurned on by her curiosity and the stories recounted to her by Doris, Myers returns to Pie Town and the nearby town of Divide where Doris actually lived.
The book is generously illustrated with reproductions of several of Russell Lee's photographs as well as those of the author. It is these photographs that compliment the author's conversations with Doris in depicting the social, economic, and geographic elements that characterized many of these small towns during the Depression.

One criticism I have about the book is that there should have been some background information as to what was the homestead law and what exactly was homesteading. The author apparently presumes that the reader is aware of one of the most important laws ever passed in the United States. Unfortunately, many readers never heard of the law or its objective.

Another shortcoming of the book is the lack of coherent organization of the various chapters. For example, the chapter dealing with Russell Lee should have appeared at the very beginning of the book in order to give the reader an idea as to what were the objectives of the photographs.

Apart from these shortcomings, readers of this book will be captivated by the hardships endured by many homesteaders wherever they may have been living during the terrible Depression years.

Norm Goldman Editor of Bookpleasures

Pie Town, Photos, and the use of Propaganda.
This is a fascinating account of a vanished place and attitudes that explores the use of photography to tell a story and create a point of view. This is both a honest unvarnished look at a hard life and an exploration of the manner in which pictures make their own reality. The structure of the book is excellent and the narrow focus on an isolated part of New Mexico expands to shed light on the entire country,

A PIE TOWN WOMAN'S LIE
THE WORDS WRITTEN IN THIS BOOK ARE THE WORDS OF AN INSANE OLD WOMAN. THIS IS WHAT I CALL A POOR ME BOOK THAT IN NO WAY TELLS THE TRUTH. THE BOOK WAS WRITTEN FOR ATTENTION AND NOTHING ELSE.
THE BOOK IS A COMICAL RELIEF TO THE PEOPLE WHO REALLY KNOW DORIS. I WOULD SUGGEST THAT YOU ONLY BUY THIS BOOK FOR A BIT OF HUMOR AND NOTHING ELSE.

Photography & History & Personal Essay all in one great book
This was the most interesting book I've read in years. As a photographer with a minor interest in history of the Western US, I found this book to be an intriguing mix. Initially I was uncertain that a book written by a photographer (from a photographer's point of view) could really go beyond simple observations, but Joan Myers does a great job in doing just that. Though the title of the book and much of the subject matter refers to a woman who grew up in the 1930s & 1940s - it is a history of a way of life gone from most of the country, it is about Russell Lee, a photographer in the 1940s, it is about the modern West, and it is about Joan Myers herself. The great thing about this book is that with great photographs from the early 1900s to 1940s mixed with the author's own wonderful modern photographs (which give the feeling that not much has changed in the Pie Town area since the 1940s) mixed with a text which reads much like a journal- the book becomes a history lesson even for people who aren't fans of reading history. It should also appeal to fans of early 20th C. photography because it gives insight to photographs well beyond the typical "this is what was happening then" caption. ... Read more

Reviews (1)

Great read! Davy is a corker!
Some have complained, over the years, that this book was more novel than biography. Okay, then... what a great NOVEL! This was in my elementary school library in Elgin, AZ, and if I'd studied my textbooks like I studied this, I might have been a MONSTER! Connie Roarke made a great book, and I bless her name for it!

BONUS: Read how Davy was a true Small-government conservative in the Jacksonian (read that "Proto-Clintonian") big-government epoch! It's the true hero tale of the book!

Al ... Read more

Book Description

General Mariano Guadalupe Vallejo was one of California's most distinguished citizens in the mid-nineteenth century.A frontier cosmopolitan and visionary, Vallejo owned vast ranchos in northern California and wielded enormous political power throughout the province.While serving as military governor during Mexican rule, he established an open immigration policy that encouraged and facilitated the American entrada to northern California.Dissatisfied with the remoteness of Mexican sovereignty, Vallejo believed that only the United States and "American Democracy" could unleash California's untapped economic potential.

This richly textured and thoughtful biography explores the contradictions and passions of this most complex of men, shedding light not only on Vallejo, but on the formation of California as a modern state. ... Read more

Reviews (1)

My Place To Start
I've read a lot of history over the last twenty years, but despite having lived in northern California the entire time and despite being more than sympathetic to both Mexican and Native American perspectives on California history, I've read very little pre-1848 history of the state. General Vallejo and the Advent of the Americans is a short, impressionistic biography of Commandant General Mariano Guadalupe Vallejo, who was born in 1807 in the town of Monterey in the Mexican province of California and was a major participant in the following sixty most tumultuous years of California history. He died peacefully in 1890 at his home in the town of Sonoma in the American state of California.

The book has been my reason and place to start reading pre-1848 California history. And it's been fun.

Oh, yes. General Vallejo's wife's given name was Francisca Benicia Carrillo. I worked in Vallejo, California, for the last three years before I retired, and I'll be returning to my home in Benicia, California, next summer. ... Read more

Book Description

is a revealing book covering fascinating inside stories of theeffect of fame and fortune on young people raised in Hollywood andtheir lives in the spotlight as stars or children of the stars. theseriveting stories expose the trauma they face being assaulted byunstable parents torn apart by violent custody battles and destroyed bydrugs. Don Crutchfield knows the facts better than any tabloid evercould. For three decades he has been regarded as Hollywood's topprivate investigator to the stars. His list of clients reads like aWho's Who of Hollywood. Don has selected the most provocative casesfrom his extensive files including those involving Michael Jackson O.J.Simpson Roseanne Barr and many more. ... Read more

Reviews (2)

An insightful book on the career of a legendary Hollywood PI
I disagree with the review which states Don over uses his poetic license to show the reader he "saves the day", that's what private investigators do.People hire private investigators to succeed, and that's what Don does.Crutchfield captures the essence of the "old guard" gum shoe.The old guard uses congnition instead of ammunition.I purchased Don's book in Boca Raton, FL recently while I was conducting a case, and found it to be well written, certainly in the style of a very professional private investigator.The case histories and side commentary really hits home.I look forward to some day in which I can meet Don and tell him how much he's influenced my career.Patrick K. Collard Collard Investigations Internationale, LLC

I'd give it a B+ rating
I thought this book was pretty good.Don Crutchfield wrote as if he was talking to you.If you like gossip and juicy hearsay, this is the book for you.He has inside stories to the Beatles, Marlon Brando, Terry Moore, Jerry Lewis, Michael Jackson, and more. I've read other "tell all" books before, but what I thought Don brought, that other autthors couldn't, was a objective perspective to these celebrities' lives.As far as I know, these stories are true but I'm sure a little embellished. The one thing that got on my nerves was the way Don always came out as the hero, the one guy who was right, "If if wasn't for me...".That theme was all worn out by Chapter 3. Overall, just fun, light entertainment. ... Read more

Book Description

Reviews (3)

One of the best books on Tombstone
The only truly first hand account of the vendetta between Earp and the Cowboys. Breakenridge is obviously sympathetic to the Cowboys therefore his work has constantly been belittled by the Earp worshippers. Of course what does he know? He was only there. The Earp Idolators can't stand that he has left a first hand account of what really happened. They'd rather see the events through the filter of Burns and Lake. But this book is the real deal. Read it and understand.

Helldorado- Bringing the Law to the Mesquite
If you would like to read about how the non Wyatt Earp supporters felt about "Tombstone" back then read this book.

This is a greatly Revised edition of the orginal work.
Having read the orginal version of Helldorado 20 years ago, anticipation of again reading this first hand account of Tombstone days quickly lead to disappoint due to the blatant revisions in this book. For example, the chapter about John Ringo has been completely omitted and substitutions based on author Jack Burrows's derogatory comments from the Gunfighter Who Never Was have been substituted. Orignal photographs have also been omitted. Since William Breakenridge was actually acquainted with the people and times he wrote about, why should a modern revisionist feel compelled to correct his original observations and opinions and thus distort history? If an author has a different viewpoint, then let him/her write their own version, not use the title of another's work. ... Read more

Reviews (1)

Right in there with him
This book is a worthy read. William Cody tells about his life and all its sudden,dramatic turns which lead him from one fantastic adventure to the other way out west,where great men were made. And by letting them tell their stories,great books like this one is made. Cody has a way with words that make you feel as if you`re right in there with him. Reading this book is going to make you feel that everything is possible and that there are no limits! Pick up a copy today! ... Read more

Book Description

Mary MacLane became an overnight sensation when she published this book in 1902. She was 19 years old and lived in the rough-and-tumble, masculine mining town of Butte, Montana. This book is a breath-taking tour de force about life, love and longing as fascinating today as it was shocking when it was first published. This edition with an added introduction by Dr. Julia Watson whose insight into Mary MacLane makes the book an even more compelling read. ... Read more

Book Description

John Harris Behan, as author Bob Alexander so capably demonstrates, was a true frontiersman of the early Arizona Territory. Long portrayed as a villain in the Tombstone conflicts, and the nemesis of Wyatt Earp, "Sacrificed Sheriff" presents the story of a 40-year lawman and public servant who was skilled with gun and horse, yet who consistently fought crime and arrested bad guys without killing anyone. Behan also was a Civil War volunteer, twice a Territorial Legislator, and Yuma Prison Superintendent. At an age when some Western "heroes" were mouthing memoirs to journalists, Behan served in the Spanish American War and the Boxer Rebellion. This is the Western lawman that everyone has heard of but no one knows. With rigorous research, copious footnotes, and a lively style, Bob Alexander gives us Johnny Behan in the round. ... Read more

Reviews (2)

Alexander is a true investigator!
The "Sacrificed Sheriff" is an excellent and well documented read. It provides a wealth of factual information about John Behan, the Sheriff of Cochise County, AZ. Behan's reputation, has too long been outright lies and innuendos. The footnotes in this text indicate it is well researched and make for easy confirmation of Alexander's story, unlike the so called auto-biographies of Wyatt, Virgil and Josephine Earp. Behan is nothing less than a partiot who served his country well while the Earps were seeking personal wealth and self-agrandized fame. You should read all the Earp texts before delving into this factual account of Arizona history.-Bill McLennan, San Antonio, TX

Good facts, poor history
I truly would like to recommend "Sacrificed Sheriff" more strongly.It provides a wealth of factual information about John Behan, the Sheriff of Cochise County, Arizona, when the city of Tombstone reached its pinnacle of fame as the site of the so-called Gunfight at the OK Corral and the surrounding events.Behan's reputation, as Bob Alexander vehemently protests, has long been assailed through innuendo and an unfairly selective use of evidence, painting him as a weak and corrupt opponent of Wyatt Earp and his brothers.In Alexander, Behan has at last found a very sympathetic biographer, perhaps a biographer too sympathetic to objectively view the historical questions involved.While Alexander repeatedly (and rightly) protests the negative assumptions and interpretations of evidence used in the past against Sheriff Behan by various writers, Alexander himself falls into the same trap, seemingly never missing an opportunity to paint Wyatt Earp in the darkest colors, repeating sketchy rumors and always promoting the most negative answer to any question.

I confess a particular personal aversion to some stylistic choices made by Alexander, most notably the lavish use of italicized words and exclamation points throughout his text.Reading this, I could not help but feel that the author is displaying an unseemly indignant petulance not at all appropriate for anyone attempting an objective history.In the end, I think that Mr. Alexander has eroded the effectiveness of his own book by such devices and through a blatant display of partisanship in his unceasing attacks upon Wyatt Earp at every opportunity (extending to creating such opportunities even where the narrative text about Behan, supposedly the focus of the book, does not logically involve Earp at all).At times, Alexander seems to confuse the opinions of earlier authors of an "anti-Earp" bent with actual evidence, citing with relish almost anything unflattering ever written about the man whom popular history has chosen, instead of Sheriff Behan, to be at the center of Tombstone's story.I believe that "Sacrificed Sheriff" would have benefited greatly from a strong editor who would have toned down Mr. Alexander's all too evident antipathy towards Wyatt Earp and kept the book's focus more clearly on its supposed central subject.

Do I encourage persons interested in the controversies surrounding Tombstone in its glory days to read Alexander's book?Yes, I do.But I caution them to read it for the facts given about John Behan's life rather than for the interpretations the author makes about Behan's opponents. ... Read more

Reviews (3)

The best book I've read this year.
I came across Arctic Schoolteacher by accident. I had taken my kids to a summer program at a county library. While we waited for the show to begin, I browsed the shelves and came across this book. I have probably read 20-30 books this year, and Arctic Schoolteacher makes the top of my list. In it, the author tells the story of how she and her husband travelled to a remote Alaskan village in the 1930s as government employees. Abbie taught school, and Ed, her husband, oversaw the reindeer herd. I don't want to give away too much of the story, but the book is filled with the numerous joys and sorrows that Abbie experienced in her two year stay in the Last Frontier. I only wish that Abbie had mentioned more about her life before Alaska, and about how she and Ed met. I am glad that the book included an epilogue by Abbie's daughter that mentions what happened in Abbie's life after Alaska.

Worth Reading
A particularly moving story. This book takes place about the same time as "Tisha" but in the famed Bristol Bay Region in a village called Kulukak. It was published in 1992 and available in paperback, this book should be easy to locate.

It was not about teaching, but about her life in Kulukak.
I ordered this book because I like reading books about teachers in various parts of the world. This book was not about teaching,but about her life in Kulukak. That part was well written, but depressing. I guess it is what life was like there. Abbie Morgan handled the depressing landscape with humor and love. I was disappointed because it was not what I was looking for, but it does not mean that it is not a good book. If you are looking for a description of 1930 Alaska, then this is your book. Morgan describes life in this town with clarity and handles lifes disappointments with grace. She was an amazing woman to have worked there. ... Read more

Book Description

Twenty Miles From a Match, originally published in 1978, is the autobiography of an indomitable woman and her family's twenty years of adventures and misadventures in a desert wilderness. In 1908, a venturesome woman named Sarah Olds packed up her brood and went homesteading west of Sutcliffe on Pyramid Lake. Her ailing husband said, welcoming her to their new home, "There, old lady. There's your home, and it's damn near in the heart of Egypt."

Olds tells of the hardships, frustrations, poverty, and other tribulations her family suffered from shortly after the turn of the century until well into the Great Depression. Through it all, however, runs a thread of humor, cheerfulness, and the ability to laugh at adversity.

Twenty Miles From a Match is a story for everyone who has thought or dreamed about homesteading in a setting far removed from the bustling lifestyle in an urban area. It is a true story, told simply and honestly and with delightful humor. ... Read more

Reviews (1)

Twenty Miles From a Match
Delightful rendition of the Pioneer spirit. Easy to read and hard to put down. ... Read more

Book Description

The prototype of the modern man of letters as a man of business, Harte epitomized the professional writer in America immediately after the Civil War. ... Read more

Book Description

Here is the exciting story of Oklahoma University basketball coach Kelvin Sampson. During his 18-year career as a head coach, Sampson has been Coach of the Year in three different leagues and has taken the Oklahoma Sooners to seven straight NCAA Tournaments. Through personal interviews with the coach and some of his former players, author Steve Richardson weaves the story of one determined coach as he leads his team to the top. ... Read more

Book Description

This is a deeply felt and highly informed essay collection about life in the American west by one of the finest writers ever to emerge from that region. As the Seattle Times has said of Owning It All: "You may never again see the American west in quite the same way if you take the time to view it through the eyes of William Kittredge. [This is a] stunning book." Having grown up on his family's cattle ranch in eastern Oregon, Kittredge directly confronts the contradictions and myths that lie at the heart of the Western experience: male freedom and female domesticity, the wild and the tame, self-interest and love of the land.
... Read more

Reviews (2)

Probably one of the best books I've read...
A collection of essays that have appeared in various magazines & journals, Kittredge does a wonderful job painting a picture of Warner Valley and the American West. He makes it easy to understand how anyone could dream of traveling West in the hope of finding a new way of life. Easy to pick up but impossibe to put down!

The Best Book Ever Written About the Warner Valley!
The title says it all! If you've ever slept in the high country of Southeastern Oregon and been awakened by the brilliance of the moon, the mournful hooting of an owl or a coyote's howl at a time too late to remember but too early to get up, and while trying to get back to sleep on ground too hard and cold realized that we can never OWN the land, we only exist as part of it, you will appreciate Kittredge's eloquence in describing his own family's ultimately self-defeating attempts to do just that. This is Lake County as it was and is...a world apart from the Cool Green Vacationland of Western Oregon...where everything is connected to everything else, and Owning It All may be the only way to wrest a living from the land, but becomes an ephermeral concept that comes to no good end. History, geography, personal biography...an underappreciated book by a master whose prose is as tight as your puckered lips when it's 14 with a 45 mile an hour north wind on a late October morning in the Catlow Valley. ... Read more