"The Swamp Fox, Francis Marion" by Noel Gerson

I am pretty sure that The Swamp Fox, Francis Marion was on my to-be-read shelves longer than any other book I currently own.  I believe I bought it back when we lived in Wisconsin.  We left Wisconsin in December of 2007.  That means I have packed up and moved this book three times.  

Well, I'm glad I hung onto it for nearly twenty years, rather than getting rid of it along the way, because I quite enjoyed this book!  Even though it was not quite what I was expecting.

I thought this book was going to be a non-fiction account of Francis Marion's guerrilla warfare against the British soldiers during the American Revolution.  Instead, it's written like fiction, and starts off in 1752, when Marion is a very young man!  It traces his on-again, off-again romance with the beautiful Esther Videau over several decades, while also showing how a young South Carolina plantation owner could become the kind of man who would basically invent guerilla warfare.

I did a scanty bit of research after finishing the book and found that a lot of what this book includes was true -- particularly that he really didn't get married until he was in his 50s, after the war had ended.  Since it's written in a fictionalized style, I didn't expect it to adhere strictly to facts, but it looks like the biggest thing they invented was saying that Marion only employed freedmen on his plantation.  In reality, he was a slaveowner like the vast majority of South Carolina plantation owners; this was published in 1967, during the tail end of the Civil Rights Era, so I'm guessing that may have played some part in that particular aspect.

Overall, this was a fun book, but I was disappointed that only a few chapters dealt with his Revolutionary War exploits, since I was expecting the whole book to be about that.  I'm glad I've finally read it, though!  And this marks my fourth book read for my #RevolutionaryWarReads challenge!

If This was a Movie, I Would Rate It: PG for descriptions of warfare and death.  It's pretty tame and generalized.  There's a bit of mild cussing here and there, too.  No smut or overt gore.

"Curtain: Poirot's Last Case" by Agatha Christie

This is sad and melancholy and was hard to read.  I'm glad I randomly read it because I wanted to finish off a hardcover anthology and not because I was reading all the Poirot stories in order, because if I was reading them in order and got to this as the very last one, I would now be very depressed.  Instead, I have plenty of jolly Poirot mysteries to enjoy in the future still.

Poirot and faithful Hastings end up at Styles, the same house where the very first Hercule Poirot mystery takes place.  They have to catch a diabolical fiend who is responsible for a strong of deaths, and also protect Hastings's daughter from said fiend.  Poirot is in failing health, and seeing him through the kind eyes of Hastings was sometimes almost enough to bring me to tears.  So I wouldn't say I enjoyed this book, really.  I doubt I will reread it.

If This was a Movie, I Would Rate It: PG-13 for descriptions of some poisonings, discussions of marital infidelity, and a smattering of bad language.

This is my 39th book read and reviewed for my fourth Classics Club list.  Although Curtain was published in 1975, which is after my usual cut-off for when I will consider a book a classic, it was written during WWII.  So I think it suits.

"Pictures by J. R. R. Tolkien" ed. by Christopher Tolkien

My husband got me this book for my birthday, and it is a visual treat!  Oodles and oodles of drawings and paintings by Tolkien, mainly related to Middle-earth, but not entirely.  And each one has a note from his son Christopher explaining what the picture is, when it was done, where it was published before, and so on.  

Many of the pictures have the original black-and-white artwork by Tolkien and then a version that had color added for a calendar or some book edition.  I found those especially fascinating, maybe because I'm very drawn to black-and-white artwork.  And I'm fascinated by the process of someone else trying to stay true to the original artist's idea while adding color to the artwork.

This book doesn't take long to enjoy, but it's one I'll pull out and savor again and again.

If This was a Movie, I Would Rate It: G.  Nothing objectionable here.

"The Bronze Bow" by Elizabeth George Speare

I know I read this at least once as a teen.  I remembered basically none of it.  In fact, I actually misremembered things about it -- I thought it took place during the boyhood of King David, but that's completely wrong.  It takes place during the life of Jesus Christ!  I was way off.

I did remember it being really good, and that memory was totally accurate, though.  Whew.

Daniel is an angry young Jewish man whose parents were killed by Roman soldiers when he was a boy.  Now he's part of a renegade band of rebels who ostensibly fight the Romans, but mostly just steal stuff.  He befriends a nice brother and sister from a good family, and through them, he encounters Jesus more than once, and also gets a real job, is able to start caring for his younger sister, and gradually realizes that armed rebellion against the Roman Empire is not going to fix his problems.

I almost feel like this is Ben-Hur for teens, because it has a lot of the same themes of letting go of anger and hatred, learning to forgive, and finding peace in the midst of trouble. 

Particularly Good Bits:

"Can't you see, Daniel, it is hate that is the enemy?  Not men.  Hate does not die with killing.  It only springs up a hundredfold.  The only thing stronger than hate is love" (p. 224).

If This was a Movie, I Would Rate It: PG-13 for violence, including descriptions of crucifixion.

This was my 36th book read for my fourth Classics Club list.

"The Lilies of the Field" by William E. Barrett

I loved this book even more the second time through.  Its simplicity, straightforwardness, and gentleness impressed me so much the first time I read it, and now I've added "feels like an old friend" to that list of reasons I love it.  I hugged this book more than once while reading it.

This is an uplifting and hope-filled story of how kindness can dismantle boundaries.  Black handyman Homer Smith does a day's work for a group of German refugee nuns in the shadow of the Rocky Mountains, insists there's no way he will build a chapel for them, and then their faith and humility and ready friendship touches his heart, so he builds their chapel for them.  That's the whole story right there -- like I said, very simple.  And yet, so complex.  

I had my 6th through 12th grade literature class at our homeschool co-op read this, and we had a wonderful discussion of how the characters both reflected and refuted stereotypes of the 1960s, when the book was written and set.

Particularly Good Bits:

Their smiles made him welcome and Homer felt immediately at ease with them.  They did not have any color line; he was just people to them (p. 15).

He had a prayer in his own heart when he accepted food.  Nobody took food for granted when he was a child.  It wasn't always easy to get and a person learned to be thankful when it was there (p. 37).

He looked at them and his heart lifted.  These were people who needed something that he had to give (p. 60).

If This was a Movie, I Would Rate It: G.  It's a lovely, clean, uplifting book.

"Ride the Dark Trail" by Louis L'Amour

I'm coming close to the end of my personal "My Years with the Sacketts" challenge.  Only one true Sackett novel left, and one that's tangentially related (or so they tell me).  

Ride the Dark Trail is a galloping good time.  You've got Em Talon, a fiery old woman holding off a host of greedy landgrabbers.  You've got Logan Sackett, a somewhat shiftless gunfighter discovering he's related to the old woman and coming to her aid.  You've got the Sackett version of the Bat Signal going up, and the Sackett version of "Avengers, Assemble!" happening, which is never anything less than delightful.  Smart and savvy folks on both sides, pert young woman to keep everyone on their toes, and a batch of rousing fights and brawls -- good stuff, friends.

Particularly Good Bits:

Now we Clinch Mountain Sacketts ain't noted for gentle ways.  The way I figure it is if a man is big enough to open his mouth he's big enough to take the consequences, and I was getting tired of talk (p. 11).

If This Was a Movie, I Would Rate It: PG for mild cussing, lots of violence with guns and fists, and very mild innuendo about a young woman leaving an employer because he made improper advances.

This is my 24th book read from my TBR shelves for the 2024 Mount TBR Challenge.

"The Last Unicorn" by Peter S. Beagle

This book felt like what you'd get if Neil Gaiman and C. S. Lewis co-wrote a novel.  It's sometimes eerie and dark, sometimes just weird and funny, sometimes heartwarming, and always off-kilter, but with deeper meaning below the surface.

It has a fairly simple storyline: the last unicorn learns she is the last unicorn and sets out to find out what happened to the rest of her kind.  She meets bad guys and good guys and mediocre guys.  She has adventures.  She gets in and out of dangerous situations.  She almost decides to give up her quest, but doesn't.  She grows wiser and helps others grow kinder or wiser or more noble.  

The writing was beautifully image-rich and often surprising, sometimes making me think of Jasper Fforde and sometimes of L. M. Montgomery.  But mostly of Gaiman and Lewis.

I spent most of this book going, "What, now?" because it's generally pretty trippy stuff.  I did enjoy it, overall, and I could see using it for high school history for my kids if they begged me for more fantasy for lit class, since it's definitely a modern fantasy classic.

Particularly Good Bits:

"One good woman more in the world is worth every single unicorn gone" (p. 250).

"Things must happen when it is time for them to happen. Quests may not simply be abandoned; prophecies may not be left to rot like unpicked fruit; unicorns may go unrescued for a long time, but not forever. The happy ending cannot come in the middle of the story" (p. 251).

If This was a Movie, I Would Rate It: PG-13 for some lightly bawdy humor, plus some dark and perilous and creepy things.

This is my 27th book read for my 4th Classics Club list.

"Treasure Mountain" by Louis L'Amour

It's so convenient that Tell Sackett is my favorite Sackett, because L'Amour uses Tell as his narrator for a LOT of the Sackett books.  And Tell never fails to delight me, with his keen observational skills and dry humor.  Treasure Mountain is no exception!  Also, I love the books where multiple Sacketts and their friends pop up, and this has Tell, Orrin, Tyrel, and random friends bopping in and out as well.  Very good fun!

In Treasure Mountain, Orrin Sackett goes to New Orleans looking for any possible clues as to where his dad went twenty years earlier when he left New Orleans and was never seen again.  It's a very cold trail to follow, but these are Sacketts, people.  They're part bloodhound.  And they're all smart and savvy and wise to the ways of the wicked.  

Except Orrin is always falling afoul of witches women.  And he goes missing.  So then Tell shows up in New Orleans looking for Orrin.  And, because Tell really just never fails to find what he's seeking, he and Orrin then head off on the cold trail of their dad, who, it turns out, left N.O. looking for a million dollars in gold someone had buried in the Southwest.  But there are bad guys, and bad women, and dubious food, and extreme landscapes, all standing in the way of the Sacketts and their quest to find any remains of their dad, who was on a quest to find gold.  Which, of course, makes for a great yarn.  I enjoyed it.

Today just happens to be actor Sam Elliott's 80th birthday.  Sam Elliott played Tell Sackett in the 1979 TV miniseries The Sacketts, which my husband and I happen to be planning to finish watching this weekend.  So this seemed like the perfect time to finally post this review.  Happy birthday, Sam Elliott!!!

Particularly Good Bits: 

"Once a man has lived with mountains you can't offer him a home with a prairie dog" (p. 34).

"Mountains are hard upon evil," I said.  "They don't hold with it" (p. 175).

If This was a Movie, I Would Rate It: PG for a smattering of cuss words and some violence.

This has been my 18th book read from my TBR shelves for the 2024 Mount TBR Reading Challenge.

"The Westing Game" by Ellen Raskin (again)

I have a rule for myself: I have to wait five years between rereads of The Westing Game.  I've had that rule since I first read it 30ish years ago, and I have stuck to it!  This rule is born of me reading it twice in quick succession and realizing that much of my enjoyment of the book comes from the quirky surprises it contains.  When I remember what is coming, it's less fun for me.

This time, I read it aloud to my family.  My son had read it several times, my oldest daughter had read it five years ago and didn't remember it, and my husband and my youngest daughter had not read it at all.  We had the jolliest time experiencing this book together!  We now have several new family in-jokes because of it.

The basic plot is this: when paper products mogul Sam Westing is murdered, he leaves his money to whoever can win the Westing Game he has set up.  Players of the game all live in a new apartment building, though they didn't realize their living there was all a part of Westing's pre-death plan to get them to play.  As friendships form, alliances collapse, and families learn important things about each other, the tension mounts to see who will decipher all the mysterious clues and win the Westing Game -- and millions of dollars.

If This was a Movie, I Would Rate It: PG for some discussion of corpses and murder, bombs, broken limbs, and an accident that results in disfigurement.  No cussing.

"Stiff Upper Lip, Jeeves" by P. G. Wodehouse (audiobook read by Jonathan Cecil)

I happened upon the audiobook version of Stiff Upper Lip, Jeeves by P. G. Wodehouse at a used book store this spring.  When I saw it was read by Jonathan Cecil, I snapped it up because I was pretty sure this would be a fun book for our family vacation.  My kids know who Jonathan Cecil is because he played Captain Hastings in several Poirot mysteries opposite Peter Ustinov, and we are definite fans of that particular iteration of Poirot.

Anyway, we had a jolly time listening to this book over a couple of days on our drive home last week!  We got a lot of laughs out of it, and we've acquired a few new favorite things to quote to each other (especially, "In that case, I shall now eat a ham sandwich!").

In this book, Bertie Wooster tries very hard not to get invited to a big manor house, not to get tangled up in his friends' problems, and not to get rid of the jaunty blue alpine hat with a pink feather that he loves and Jeeves hates.  As you can expect, he fails on all three counts, with hilarious and delightful results.  

I find it very heartening that Wodehouse published this book when he was 82.  And published two more Jeeves books after it!  Makes me hope I could have another 40ish years of writing ahead of me yet.

If This was a Movie, I Would Rate It: PG for a smattering of mild cussing here and there.

This is my 26th book read and reviewed for my fourth Classics Club list and my 17th from my TBR shelves for the 2024 Mount TBR Reading Challenge.  I'm counting it for the latter because, although I bought the audiobook this year, the paperback has been on my TBR shelves since 2023.

"Galloway" by Louis L'Amour

Why is this one called Galloway when it's mostly about Galloway Sackett's brother Flagan?  I mean, Galloway is in it, lots -- but it starts out from Flagan's point of view, and he gets to narrate it in first person here and there, whereas Galloway's chapters get told in third person.  I'm not saying the title makes no sense, because Galloway does play a key role here -- but it's really Flagan's story.  That's Flagan on the cover, even.  Huh.  I wonder if the publisher titled this one, or L'Amour himself.

Anyway, I liked this book a LOT.  Flagan Sackett escapes from some angry Apaches, stark naked and on foot, and manages to not only evade them, but survive in the mountains alone, and eventually find other people... and more trouble, which is where the actual plot takes place -- there's a mean guy and his mean followers who want to take over and control a whole section of the country, and Flagan and Galloway Sackett like the looks of that area and want to ranch there too, and so other people take sides, and more Sacketts get involved, and there's not quite a range war, but it gets close to one.  Since one Sackett is a whole lot of Sacketts, and there are four involved here, it's pretty clear who will win in the end.  The fun is in seeing how they do it.

Particularly Good Bits:

Back up at the forks of the creek in Tennessee they don't raise many foolish children, and the foolish men don't live long enough to get knee-high to a short sheep (p. 26).

There's a saying in the mountains that if you harm a cricket his friends will come and eat your socks (p. 28) (This made me laugh so much!)

I had lived long enough to know that nothing lasts forever, and men torture themselves who believe that it will.  The one law that does not change is that everything changes (p. 46).

There's a saying that when guns are outlawed, only outlaws will have guns (p. 52).

If This was a Movie, I Would Rate It: PG-10 for some brief discussions of torture, scenes of survival in harsh conditions, a little mild cussing, and western violence.

This is my 14th book read from my TBR shelves for the 2024 Mount TBR Challenge.

"Mustang Man" by Louis L'Amour

I liked this one all right.  It was an enjoyable and fast-paced read, but I didn't love it.  I'm not sure why, either, as the story was solid, and Nolan Sackett was an interesting character.  But he felt a little detached, as a narrator, or maybe like he was trying to distance himself and the readers from the story in a way?

The storyline is good stuff -- Nolan Sackett, who could be a hero but is often labeled an outlaw, falls afoul of a witch.  Well, not a witch, really, but a sociopathic woman who likes to poison people and torture people and kill people.  Anyway, he escapes her clutches and then encounters a Wise Old Mentor who gives him tools and advice.  Then he finds a Woman in Distress and helps her seek out a treasure.  It's very myth-based storytelling, if you can't tell, and I usually really like that! 

You know, now that I've been mulling over it a bit, I think I know what the problem is.  I didn't really like the main female character, Penelope.  She didn't get as well-fleshed-out as most of L'Amour's heroines, and so I never got a chance to know her, and that means I didn't get invested in Nolan's desire to help her and his secret hope that she might see him as more than a crooked-nosed outlaw.

Oh well -- not every Sackett book needs to be my favorite!

Particularly Good Bits:

I knew I wouldn't get anywhere now trying to run; and when it comes to that, I am not a man who cares to run, unless it's toward something (p. 37).

It was always as Ivanhoe that I saw myself, and always as the Norman knight that I was being seen by others (p. 73).

If This was a Movie, I Would Rate It:  PG-13 for violence, non-detailed descriptions of someone who has been tortured, and a brief mention of prostitution.  Also some mild cussing.

This has been my 13th book read off my TBR shelves for the 2024 Mount TBR Reading Challenge.

"Beowulf: Dragonslayer" by Rosemary Sutcliff

I didn't grow up knowing the story of Beowulf.  I'd heard the name and knew it was some kind of Norse legend or something, but my first real contact with it was going to see The Thirteenth Warrior (1999) with my college bestie.  She told me it was a retelling of Beowulf, and that intrigued me because I loved the movie, but I was busy with reading-heavy college courses and simply didn't have time to find and read any versions of the myth.  Plus, based on how things go in the movie, I wasn't sure I wanted to read it, even though I have seen the movie at least a dozen times over the years.  The fate of Buliwyf in the film just felt like.... reading this will make me sad.

Over the years, I've learned a bit more about the story -- thanks to all those college lit courses, I knew things about its place in literary history, but I still haven't read a full version of it.  However!  I did read Rosemary Sutcliff's classic retelling for kids today, and it was really fun.  I have J. R. R. Tolkien's translation on my TBR shelves, and reading this has bumped it up a lot higher on my to-read list.  

Why?

Because all these years, I thought Beowulf died slaying Grendel's mother!  I was today years old when I learned that nope, he lived a long and successful and battle-glory-filled life before dying while slaying a dragon.  What?!?!?  I am so happy!  This is awesome!  I'm suddenly a fan.  

If This was a Movie, I Would Rate It: PG.  Totally appropriate for kids.  Yes, there's death and violence, but it's the good kind -- heroes defeating monsters to protect others.  

I'm counting this as my 25th book read for my 4th Classics Club list because not only does it retell one of our absolute oldest stories, it's by a well-known and important author, and more than 50 years old.

"The Lonely Men" by Louis L'Amour

Not my favorite Sackett book, I'm afraid.  Even though it stars Tell Sackett, who IS my favorite Sackett!  Mostly, I think I disliked it because it had Laura Sackett for a villain, Orrin's ex-wife, and she is poisonous and spiteful and horrid.  I just wanted to get myself (and Tell) as far away from her as possible.  She's really just in bits here and there, but ugh, I hated having to deal with her whenever she cropped up.

I did love how Tell and three friends risked everything to rescue some children.  I love protective characters, and that is no doubt why I love Tell Sackett.  Also, Dorset was another of L'Amour's wonderful female characters filled with grit and grace.  She was the direct opposite of Laura, which was refreshing.

Particularly Good Bits: 

With none to share our sorrows or regrets, we kept them to ourselves, and our faces were impassive.  Men with no one to share their feelings learn to conceal those feelings.  We often spoke lightly of things which we took very seriously indeed (p. 17).

I figure I was shaped to be a wallflower, but I don't mind.  I sort of like to set back and listen to folks, to drink coffee, and contemplate (p. 20).  (ME TOO, Tell!)

The desert is the enemy of the careless (p. 40).

"It is easy to destroy a book, but an idea once implanted has roots no man can utterly destroy" (p. 94).

If This was a Movie, I Would Rate It: PG-16 for a lot of violence, including torture, and kids in peril.  The violence is not gory, but it isn't too glossed-over, either.  There is a smattering of bad language.

This is my 10th book read from my TBR shelves for the 2024 Mount TBR Reading Challenge.

"The Sky-Liners" by Louis L'Amour

Two Sackett boys that I first met in The Sackett Brand are the heroes for The Sky-Liners.  Flagan and Galloway Sackett are about to head west to make new lives for themselves when they take a disliking to the rowdy way a bunch of riders arrive in a small Tennessee town.  They decide the rowdy bunch needs some settling down, and they make good on their decision, but doing so embarrasses the leader of the riders, Black Fetchen.  

Worse yet, Flagan and Galloway then promise an elderly gent to escort his feisty granddaughter Judith to her father's home in Colorado.  Guess who Judith is set on marrying if she can just manage to get away from her grandfather?  Black Fetchen, of course.

By the time the Sacketts reach Colorado, they've had multiple run-ins with Fetchen and his gang, and they end up in a regular feud with his bunch before the book is over.  Of course, the Sackett boys come out on top in the long run... and one of them even falls in love with Judith.

This was not my favorite Sackett book, but it was a lot of fun anyway.

Particularly Good Bits: 

I went for coffee.  It was hot, blacker than sin, and strong enough to float a horseshoe.  It was cowboy's coffee (p. 80).

A man with nobody to care for is as lonesome as a lost hound dog, and as useless.  If he's to feel of any purpose to himself, he's got to feel he's needed, feel he stands between somebody and any trouble (p. 83).

If This was a Movie, I Would Rate It PG-10 for violence and a few old-fashioned cuss words.

This has been my 8th book read off my TBR shelves for the 2024 Mount TBR Challenge.

"The Sackett Brand" by Louis L'Amour

Ladies and gentlemen, I now have a favorite Sackett, and his name is Tell.

I am probably going to have to go back and reread Sackett and Mojave Crossing now because they also star Tell Sackett, and since I now love him, I must go back and appreciate him in those.  Though, truth be told, I will probably wait to do that until I have finished reading all the Sackett books.  Then I will go back and read all of Tell's books again.  Because I have 9 books left to read yet -- he may very well be in more of them!  (Please, if you know he's in more of them, don't list them all off to me.  I want to discover who each book is about on my own.)

Anyway.  Poor Tell Sackett.  Poor, dear Tell Sackett.  He finally marries Ange, the girl he met back during Sackett and fell in love with.  And then someone kills her.  And tries to kill him.  And nearly gets away with both.  So the whole book here is Tell recovering from almost dying and then figuring out who murdered his wife and why.  And getting himself repeatedly almost-killed in the process, until he's pretty well cornered by his wife's murderer's henchmen and going to die any minute...

...and then the cavalry arrives.  Only they aren't the U. S. Cavalry, they're a whole heap of Sacketts from all across the western half of the country.  (This is not really a spoiler, because they start to congregate about halfway through the book.)  Tell's brothers Orrin and Tyrel, their cousin Lando, and some spiffy new Sacketts I hadn't met yet but look forward to meeting -- they find out there's a Sackett in trouble, and they hustle over to help as fast as they can hustle.

This book, y'all.  It hit SO many big sweet spots for me!  Cavalry arrives to save the day?  Check.  Assemble a team of heroes?  Check.  Vow to avenge someone by bringing their killer to justice?  Check.  One dude taking on a huge force and slowly whittling down their numbers through superior skills and intelligence?  Check.  Bad guys turning on each other?  Check.  Surviving by making do with what you can find in the environment around you?  Check.  I mean, it's like this book was written for me.  Wow.

So, yeah.  I loved it.  A lot.  I'm already looking forward to re-reading it.

Particularly Good Bits:

One thing I've learned over the years: never to waste time moaning about what couldn't be helped.  If a body can do something, fine -- he should do it.  If he can't, then there's no use fussing about it until he can do something (p. 23).  (This is basically my entire attitude toward worry.)

If This was a Movie, I Would Rate It:  PG-16 for quite a bit of violence and deadly peril, plus an off-page assault of a woman that, if it wasn't rape, was going to be except she died first.  The word 'rape' is never used, but intent is there in the subtext.

This is my third book read off my TBR shelves for the 2024 Mount TBR Reading Challenge. 

"By the Great Horn Spoon!" by Sid Fleischman

Way back when I was ten or so, By the Great Horn Spoon! was the first Sid Fleischman book I ever encountered.  My mom read it aloud to my brother and I, and we laughed and laughed and laughed over it.  (My brother and I also picked up using "Blast!" like an expletive, like a ship's captain does in this book, which our mom eventually got very tired of.  I still say it when something goes wrong, thirty-some years later.  Very handy word, really.)

A few years ago, I read this aloud to my own kids.  We also laughed a lot over it.  I reread it again this week because I'm using it in a literature class for 3rd-5th grades that I'm teaching at our homeschool-coop.  And I laughed again.  What a rollicking good adventure this is!

Twelve-year-old Jack and his family's butler, Praiseworthy, stow away on a ship headed for the California gold fields.  The Gold Rush of 1849 is on, and our heroes are anxious to make their fortunes in gold, not because they want to be rich, but so they can save Jack's Aunt Arabella from losing her home.  Aunt Arabella has raised Jack and his sisters, who are orphans, and Jack can't bear the thought of her losing the house that has sheltered them all for so long.  Praiseworthy would do anything to help Aunt Arabella too, so the plucky heroes are off to make a fortune for her.  

Along the way, they encounter an array of peculiar and hilarious characters, from an irascible and competitive ship's captain to a gold miner who mixes his coffee beans with ground up acorns.  It's a tall tale in the grand tradition of American storytelling, and I love it very much.  It not only made me laugh aloud while reading it over again this week, it even made me get tears in my eyes when I hit the very last three lines.  Wonderful stuff.

Particularly Good Bits:

The stagecoach climbed as if it were part mountain goat.  It lurched, it halted, it bucked, it leaped, and it clung (p. 110).

If This was a Movie, I Would Rate It: PG.  There's no bad language, but there's a bit of violence involving a boxing match, a scene where a man is nearly lynched, a stagecoach robbery, and several times when the main characters are in great peril.  Nothing actually bad really happens to them, ever, but very young readers might worry a lot about them at times.

"The Ferguson Rifle" by Louis L'Amour

I decided to read this because it had Chantrys in it, and I had just reread Borden Chantry, which remains my favorite L'Amour book.  While I didn't love The Ferguson Rifle as much as Borden Chantry, it was still a very enjoyable read!

This one is set in the very early 1800s -- Lewis and Clark get mentioned as being contemporaries of the characters, so that tells you about what era this would be.  Ronan Chantry lost his wife and son in a terrible fire, and is a broken and haunted man.  Armed with a Ferguson rifle, an early sort of repeating rifle, he heads out into the wilderness to find... something.  Peace?  Himself?  Death?  He isn't sure.

Ronan takes up with some fur trappers, and they make plans to work together in the mountains.  But they run into Spanish soldiers who don't know about the Louisiana Purchase and think that the trappers are trespassers.  Then they run afoul of some Ute warriors.  And then, they rescue a woman and boy who were being pursued by various baddies because the woman might know where an ancient treasure is.  Then the whole book turns into a treasure hunt, which was a lot of fun.

Particularly Good Bits:

As long as one travels toward a promised land, the dream is there, to stop means to face the reality, and it is easier to dream than to realize the dream (p. 17).

"A man is born beside the road to death.  To die is not so much, it is inevitable.  The journey is what matters, and what one does along the way" (p. 99).

If This was a Movie, I Would Rate It:  PG for violence and some mild cussing.

This is my 52nd book read off my TBR shelves for #TheUnreadShelfChallenge2023.

"A Right to Die" by Rex Stout

This is one of the best fiction books I have read that concerns the Civil Rights Movement and was actually written during the 1960s. 

A father asks Nero Wolfe to investigate his son's fiancee because he is sure there must be something wrong with her or her past, and that his son needs to be aware of it.  The father and son are black, and the fiancee is white, and it's 1964 -- the father is sure that either this girl has ulterior motives for wanting to marry a black man, or she is simply toying with his son's affections.

Wolfe ordinarily doesn't touch things involving digging up dirt on spouses, even potential spouses, but he owes the father a debt of sorts, so he sends Archie Goodwin to dig around in the girl's Midwestern hometown.  Before Archie returns, the case takes a sinister turn, and suddenly they're trying to prove someone is innocent of murder by catching the real murderer.

What made this book noteworthy, in my opinion, is Nero Wolfe and Archie Goodwin's straightforward attitude toward race.  They admit that, as white people they can't understand fully what life is like for black people, just as the black people they are working for and with can't fully understand what life is like for them.  But they do their best to treat everyone they encounter with equal dignity and seriousness.  As Archie puts it at one point, "...when I consider myself superior to anyone, as I frequently do, I need a better reason than his skin" (p. 56).  

I'd be interested to know how this book was received when it was released because it strikes me as something that could have ruffled some readers' feathers.  Wolfe and Archie are both of the opinion that interracial marriage is fine, for instance.  They are both working for a black man.  There are black characters who are nice, who are annoying, who are helpful, who are dodgy, who are trustworthy, who are proud, who are ugly, who are beautiful -- as complex and varied as any cast of white characters in his other books.  Stout is clearly saying that differences of appearance, habit, style, manners, or upbringing are all external things and don't matter.  What matter are a person's values, morals, and attitudes.

The mystery here is one of Stout's best, I think.  This is going high on my list of favorite Nero Wolfe books.

If This was a Movie, I Would Rate It: PG-13 for discussions of unmarried people sharing an apartment and a bed, though everything is handled delicately.  Suicide plays a central role in the plot, also.  Some mild cussing and reasonably tasteful descriptions of murder.

This is my 50th book read from my TBR shelves for #TheUnreadShelfProject2023.

"Mojave Crossing" by Louis L'Amour

I say!  This book is a rollicking good time.  It's all about Tell Sackett again, star of the earlier book Sackett, but this time he gets a much more straight-forward and focused story, and I appreciated that.  His narration wasn't quite as drily humorous, though that did return here and there, but I overall liked this book about him better.

Tell Sackett is basically just on his way to exchange a whole lot of gold for some trade goods in California.  Then he'll head back to Arizona and sell the trade goods.  Some of the gold is his, and some of it belongs to friends and neighbors who invested in his idea.

Well, he finds himself agreeing to take a black-eyed "witch woman" across the desert to California with him because she appears to be on the run, and he can't find it in himself to refuse to help a woman in trouble.  Only thing is, that woman IS trouble.  And Tell finds himself in plenty of dire situations before he finishes his errand and heads on back to Arizona.  Some of which involve a distant cousin of his, Nolan Sackett.

Also, there's a really fun, albeit small, twist at the very end that kinda makes me want to flip back through the book and reexamine a few conversations to find clues to it.  And I LOVE that kind of thing.

Particularly Good Bits:  

There are men who prefer to keep trouble from a woman, but it seems to me that is neither reasonable nor wise.  I've always respected the thinking of women, and also their ability to face up to trouble when it comes, and it shouldn't be allowed to come on them unexpected.  Many a man has sheltered his wife from his troubles, until suddenly he dies and she awakens to poverty as well as grief (p. 38).

It was not in me to believe myself fated to die at any given time.  Deep within me I knew, having seen many men die, that no man is immune to death at any time at all (p. 115).

If This was a Movie, I Would Rate It: PG-13 for quite a few cuss words, some western violence, and the brief mention of rape.

This is my 47th book read from my TBR shelves for #TheUnreadShelfProject2023.