Westward Ho!: A Reading Project

Several months ago, I wrote about certain topics that I'd like to explore through books. The biggest of those is a topic I've found to be even bigger and broader than expected, and to sum this topic up as succinctly as possible, I'd just have to call it "The West." The topics I am using this label to cover include:

• Westward expansion in relation to history and politics
• Stories of people who experienced the homestead life first-hand
• The American Indian experience, both past and present

After a recent visit to the library, during which I went a little crazy in the nonfiction section, I realized I had picked up a lot of books related to this topic, so I decided the Westward Ho reading project has officially begun! For this project, I'm planning to read a variety of books—fiction, nonfiction, modern, historical. I'd like my reading to paint a vast portrait of the "western experience" to discover the stories, the history, and the culture of life out there beyond the Mississippi River.

Last year, I read Dorothy Wickenden's Nothing Daunted: The Unexpected Education of Two Society Girls in the West, an NPR recommendation that helped with sparking an interest in this topic. So far, other titles I have on my list include:

1. The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fist Fight in Heaven by Sherman Alexie
2. The Wilder Life: My Adventures in the Lost World of Little House on the Prairie by Wendy McClure
3. Lions of the West: Heroes and Villains of Westward Expansion by Robert Morgan
4. West of Here by Jonathan Evison
5. Letters of a Woman Homesteader by Elinore Pruitt Stewart

In the next couple of months, I'll be tackling this topic from as many perspectives as I can find, and I welcome your comments, discussion, and book recommendations! I'll also later be joined by another book blogger for a cooperative effort on tackling Lions of the West so we can share and dispute our own preconceived notions and accepted histories of the characters Morgan credits with westward expansion. If you're interested in participating, get a head start now—we won't be starting that one for several more weeks!

Until then, share your favorite western-themed books below and pack your bags...

Don't know much about US history.

Photo credit: Flickr

So I'm probably in the minority here...but, I value my high school education more than my college one. For me, college was a lesson in experience, and yes, I got a whole lot out of it. But I learned that practical life and career stuff. It's the high school kind of learning that makes me feel...well, educated. Math equations and sentence structure and important dates and places....I like learning substantive information where you either know it or you don't, instead of the analytical, subjective stuff you have to do in college where you're measured against everyone else in your class.

Since it's been about six years since high school, my brain has been aching for some learnin'. Therefore, I am embarking on a big reading project—Howard Zinn's A People's History of the United States.

I've had this book since senior year AP US History where we had to read excerpts here and there...and I thought it was so boring and pointless. I thought it was just my left-leaning, aged hippie history teacher trying to spread his "liberal agenda" to Tennessee's 11th and 12th graders (because I was completely apolitical at the time and was wary of any side). And unfortunately for my teenage self, I completely lacked the analytical questioning skills required to read this book (didn't learn those until college...so I guess I did get something out of it!), nor did I really care to spend the time on it. Please, it was SENIOR YEAR. I just wanted the facts I'd need for the AP test and then to get the hell out of there!

So now I am reading it chapter by chapter in full marginal note-taking mode. I'll be taking this five chapters at a time and posting on every Friday. I have the 2003 edition, so there are 25 chapters. If anyone else is interested in embarking on this mission with me, as little or as much as you want, I invite you to join. The schedule I'll (try to) stick to:

November 19: Chapters 1–5 — roughly, Columbus to Revolutionary War
November 26: Chapters 6–10 — Independence to the Civil War
December 3: Chapters 11–15 — Post-War to The Depression
December 10: Chapters 16–20 — WWII to the 1970s
December 17: Chapters 21–25 — The 1980s to the "War on Terror"