Austin360 blogs > Out & About > Archives > 2009 > June > 14 > Entry
Colorado Road Trip 10: Michael’s Books
“Colorado: A History of the Centennial State” by Carl Abbott. Arid, conventional, chronological and thematic — also thoroughly useful. Parallels with Texas easy for the reader to make. Improved our survey of the state’s historical locales immeasurably.
“Riders of the Purple Sage” by Zane Grey. Well, now I know. Purple prose meets Western melodrama. I can see why his pulp fiction fed the Hollywood action mill early on.
“The Big Rich: The Rise and Fall of the Greatest Texas Oil Fortunes” by Bryan Burrough. A treasure trove of 20th-century Texas history. Aids my social beat enormously. Now I’m able to make connections among the wealthy Texas families I’ve watched all my life. Despite small errors, a must for my field.
Also spent time with “The Oxford History of the American West,” but that’s more of a reference book, not meant to be read casually.
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By eugene
June 14, 2009 6:30 PM | Link to this
Ok. I'm ordering The Big Rich as soon as my Kindle DX arrives on Tuesday!