Reading Suggestion

[David]

I recommend, to whoever is interested (not "whomever"), Walter Prescott Webb's masterpiece "The Great Plains," followed by Webb's first-rate near-masterpiece "The Great Frontier." If you're not in the mood for any of that, read Webb's essay collection "An Honest Preface."

After that, it's on to another masterpiece, De Voto's "Across the Wide Missouri," followed by a collection of Benny's writing on conservation & range expansion issues, "The Western Paradox," in a recent edition with Arthur Schlesinger Jr.'s foreward.

After that, move on to Volume 10 (Age of Steel) of the American Heritage Illustrated History of the United States, filled with all sorts of data on populism, progressivism, steel barons, oil barons, railroad barons, & & the burgeoning plutocracy of the 19th century. Excellent illustrations & photos, too.

Finally, cap it all off with Mark Twain & Charles Dudley Warner's (not Mark Twain's & Charles Dudley Warner's because the two wrote the novel in tandem) "The Gilded Age."

If you have any get-up-&-go after all that, watch Gillian Anderson in "The House of Mirth" because she gives such an extraordinary, rapturous performance.

Ultimately, you will need to buy or rent the Val Lewton DVD box set, too.