208 pages

I originally read Walter Benjamin At The Dairy Queen about 6 or 7 years ago, and just had to re-read it again. Simply, it is one of my favorite books. This volume is an eclectic curation of memoir / writing / reading / story-telling / and the closing of the western frontier. Any big fan of the Lonesome Dove series (or the West, in general) should not miss this. This book was nothing short of superb.

Two of my favorite quotes:

I have long been a disciple of the Dusty Miller school of book shelving. Dusty Miller was a much admired London bookseller, who when asked how he arranged his books, replied that if he bought a short fat book he tried to find a short fat hole.

The fact is, the American West was settled in one long lifetime. From Lewis and Clark to Wounded Knee is less than ninety years; the pioneer cattleman Charles Goodnight lived longer, and so did the plains historian Angie Debo. Well before the Custer battle, that shrewd entrepreneur William F. Cody (Buffalo Bill) was already putting on Wild West Shows for people who had never been, and would never be, west of New Jersey.

Buy this book.