Western, western, west

What is a Western? What is western? What is the west? All fair questions, and all hard to really define, especially when it comes to reading tastes. Thankfully, we’re getting an idea of what the new west is, complements of bestselling author C.J. Box, who joined us (!!!!) for part of this episode of Booklovers. Box’s 23rd Joe Pickett novel, Storm Watch, was released to high praise in February, and the mystery amplifies the questions asked at the beginning of this paragraph: Is Storm Watch a Western? Is it a Western if it’s in the West? What makes a story of the American west different than an American Western? We’re tackling this topic with a discussion of what Box astutely calls the “rural new west”, a label that pulls together some of the most important issues facing the American west and the people who live and work there.

Also, screaming marmots.

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Titles discussed:

• Storm Watch by C. J. Box

• Clint Eastwood (lovingly known as Squint Eastwood)

• The films of Howard Hawks

• The films of John Ford

• Zane Grey

• William W. Johnstone

• The Searchers, directed by John Ford

• Regeneration Through Violence: The Mythology of the American Frontier, 1600-1860 by Richard Slotkin

• Unforgiven, directed by Clint Eastwood

• The Sisters Brothers by Patrick deWitt

• The Ten Thousand Crimes of Ming Tsu by Tom Lin

• How Much of These Hills Is Gold by C. Pam Zhang

• Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy

• The Last Picture Show, directed by Peter Bogdanovitch

• The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly, directed by Sergio Leone

• A Fistful of Dollars, directed by Sergio Leone

• For a Few Dollars More, directed by Sergio Leone

• Yojimbo, directed by Akira Kurosawa

• Westworld, created by Jonathan Nolan

• Spaghetti Westerns

• Ammon Bundy and the occupation of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge

• Lucky Peak Dam and water access rights

• The Greater sage-grouse and its roaming habits

• Wolf populations in America

• Yellowstone, created by Taylor Sheridan

• Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives, starring the one and only Guy Fieri

• Craig Johnson

• Keith McCafferty

Titles from the RA Corner:

• Meek’s Cutoff, directed by Kelly Reichardt

• Certain Women, directed by Kelly Reichardt

• The Only Good Indians by Stephen Graham Jones

• Fourth of July Creek by Smith Henderson

• Nope, directed by Jordan Peele

Find them in SCPL’s catalog by clicking here!

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Our music: “Budding” by Broke for Free, available through a Creative Commons License