Benjamin Percy

         This post was originally meant to be about The Virginian by Owen Wister but I don't think that it can be just about that any more.  This evening on my commute I was happy to hear the All Things Considered series You Must Read This come on the air.  You Must Read This is a great series that has famous authors tell about their favorite books.  I like this series because a lot of the books are older and are thus overlooked today.  This afternoon I heard Benjamin Percy talk about The Virginian by Owen Wister. As you might have all figured out by now I'm not always the most up to date on books and authors.  I'm OK with that.  If I don't find out about them now I'll certainly stumble over them at some time.  But as Benjamin Percy talked about this book that means so much to me, this book that embodies all that I always wanted out of a western I thought that it was a sweet piece done by a man of 50 or so.  Why? Because I have never HEARD of this prize winning author!  Not a clue who he was.  I was captivated by his Sam Elliot voice though and was shocked when I logged onto NPR to retrieve the story to tell you all to go and read this book when I see Benjamin's photo.  Surely, I thought to myself, someone else had to have read the story in his absence due to a cold or some other illness leaving the man unable to talk on NPR.  I thought this because no one who is the same age as me should have a voice that deep.  It's just not right to lead me to believe that you have eons of experience when you're my age!  Now I have to read his works.  Seriously, I need to go to Title Wave and see if they have his books.  How have I not heard of his stuff?  I'm so out of the loop that it's scary.

Oh yeah: go read  that book.  You'll love it.  It's the first western but don't think of it that way.  Just read it ok?