Christmas reading

[Sterling Clover]

 From my bookshelf, a ripping read is The Autobiography of Big Bill  
Haywood, whose early sections also capture the freewheeling farmer/ 
entrepreneur types from which plenty of miners were drawn. Mark  
Wyman's Hard Rock Epic is a more scholarly take, and then the  
appropriate sections from Dos Passos' U.S.A. trilogy are pretty vivid  
as well and I'm sure Pynchon has some deliberate echos of those in  
particular in ATD. That's just a start though. I'd be interested to  
see what other folks suggest. I'd also be interested in some pointers  
towards good reads on Italian anarchism (speaking of which, can  
anyone source that miner's myth about the snake-beast with some  
historic documentation? it seems fairly authentic. [the myth, i mean,  
not the beast itself])

While I'm on the topic of good suggested background readings, let me  
recommend Luc Sante's Lowlife on the NY Bowry, which I'd read  
recently before ATD and had plenty of good background -- the sections  
on scams, entertainment and games of chance also bore relevance to  
some of the stuff set elsewhere. Again, I wouldn't be surprised if  
Pynchon drew some of at least his *sense* of the scene and period  
directly from this book.

--S

On Dec 9, 2006, at 7:19 PM, John Pendergast wrote:

> All,
>
> A month or so ago, as we were all gearing up for the big read, I  
> vaguely remember a recommendation for a history of the Colorado  
> labor movemement. Maybe there was more than one. Now that I have  
> finished AtD, and before I embark on a second read, I want to read  
> up on some background history of the events in the novel. Off-list  
> is fine.
>
> Thanks,
>
> John P.
>