Shoreline Park

The Portable Western Reader

The Portable Western Reader is one of the better westerns I have read. The book is a collection of short stories (and poems which I can’t comprehend) divided into three distinct sections.

Unlike Spaghetti Westerns (and similar books) these are extraordinary stories of ordinary people. Most authors are people who have lived in the west. If you have read Western fiction and want a different insight on lives of people there, you should read this one.

The story I liked most is Carrion Spring from Wolf Willow by Wallace Stegner.

Reading

Today, after several months of effort, I finished reading the The Portable Western Reader. This is an excellent book and deserves a separate entry of it own. Here I want to talk about reading in general.

I read slowly and can invest only a little time everyday to reading. Under these conditions I generally progress no more than 2-3 pages a day. Yet reading is immensely pleasurable activity. Reading slowly adds another dimension to the activity. It gives me more time to ponder over those couple of pages read in the last sitting. Sometimes thoughts turn to the writer. Sometimes to the story. I can’t really say whether that leads to a better understanding of the book or to more confusion.

My next book is Lincoln. Given the character of the man, I look forward to an interesting read. And there is some travel time coming up in the next few weeks. Ample time to read at leisure.