Best Reads (And They Aren't All Westerns)
Western writers share the books that most influenced their lives and craft.
By: TW Editors 07/01/2007
Act One
Moss Hart
One of my great loves is the history of American popular song and musical theatre from Stephen Foster to Stephen Sondheim, and this is the book which first awakened my interest. The 1959 book tells the ultimate rags-to-riches story of a poor kid from the Bronx who became one of the most remarkable, most glittering, most successful of all Broadway writers and producers. Moss Hart, a master storyteller, takes the reader on a witty, unforgettable journey from tank-town drama to the elegant beauty of My Fair Lady. What a tragedy he never lived to write Act Two.
Gold Is Where You Hide It
W. Stanley Moss
This obscure, little 1956 book, found in a secondhand bookstore, played perhaps the most significant part in my life of any that I ever read. It tells the story of the disappearance—theft—of the Reichsbank reserves, buried in the mountains of southern Germany in 1945, which The Guinness Book of Records later listed as the biggest robbery of all time. I knew there was a great “what if?” thriller in there somewhere, and I was right. Published in 1976, The Mittenwald Syndicate became a huge bestseller and enabled me to buy the lovely old house I have lived in since that year. Thank you, Stanley.
The Godfather
Mario Puzo
This 1969 novel contains a tour de force of characterization with brilliantly orchestrated scenes of violence and murder, this huge, masterfully managed family saga achieved its remarkable success not only by ignoring the sordid actualities of half a century of mafia mobdom, but also by humanizing the participants to such an extent that ruthless mercenary killers seemed, well, family. Was there a better scene ever written than the one where the movie mogul finds a horse’s head in his bed, or a better line written than “I’ll make him an offer he can’t refuse?”
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