August's Best Reads

The Summer of Western Research™ draws to a close. It’s been a rousing success, not only committing me to writing the Western (though not immediately), but giving me a multitude of ideas and broadening my reading horizons. 

Here are the August highlights:

Hombre, Elmore Leonard. Quite possibly Leonard’s finest novel. Not a wasted word, but nothing left out, either. The decision to tell the story through a single set of eyes other than the main character’s was inspired. If you haven’t read it, you ought to. It’s a clinic. (I’ll have more to say about this and the movie next week.)

Appaloosa, Robert B. Parker. First of the series featuring itinerant lawmen Virgil Cole and Everett Hitch and the best of the four. (I’ll have more on that soon, too.) The sparse style and clipped dialog that Parker settled into late in the Spenser novels serves him much better here and the relationship between Cole and Hitch is fascinating and expertly done in this story about what is in essence a very strange love triangle.

Down & Out: The Magazine. Volume 1 Rick Ollerman, editor. I’m not a huge short story guy and anthologies are always iffy due to their unevenness, but Ollerman hit it out of the park in his first at bat for Down & Out. Not a weak story in the bunch and it wouldn’t surprise me to see Reed Farrel Coleman’s entry get notice during next year’s awards season. If you’re into digests of short crime, you should get on the bandwagon. Even if you’re not.

Astrophysics for People in a Hurry, Neil deGrasse Tyson. Picked this up in an airport waiting for a delayed flight. It’s exactly what it claims to be, as I started reading in the lounge and finished before the plane landed. Loaded with insights and tidbits not a lot of people are aware of with Tyson’s easy style and wit evident throughout. (“Yes, Einstein was a badass.”) An entertaining and enlightening read.