08-13-2021, 01:33 PM
This was partly natural history at the beginning, with a chapter on prehistory, and then each chapter focused on someone who was in the area at some time. So we get info on the following: Sarah Winnemucca, Dat So La Lee, two native Americans who were murdered and eaten by the Donner Party, Mark Twain, John Steinbeck, Bertrand Russell, and Frank Sinatra. Towards the end he goes off course a little, and uses Maxine Hong Kingston's fiction to frame a chapter on Chinese railroad laborers - which worked fairly well - but then he has a chapter purely about fiction and claims it somehow presents visions of the future of the area. Huh?
Fairly interesting and not hard to read. Unfortunately it has neither footnotes nor bibliography, so you only get references if he mentions them in the text. Doom recommended? Maybe if you want some light reading on the area. Greg will want to read it for the Steinbeck material no doubt.
Fairly interesting and not hard to read. Unfortunately it has neither footnotes nor bibliography, so you only get references if he mentions them in the text. Doom recommended? Maybe if you want some light reading on the area. Greg will want to read it for the Steinbeck material no doubt.
the hands that guide me are invisible