Last night I finished Taos Uprising, a collaboration by our John Green and Eddie Hartshorn. Though stories of the old west, these aren’t your stereotypical shoot-em-up cowboy stories. The first story “Taos Uprising” is a fictionalized account of the revolt of Pueblo Indians against the Spanish in the late 17th century and is rich in detail and filled with plenty of family and community drama. The attack itself is well-written and fun to read (if you like this sort of thing). The middle story, “The Last Gunfight in Ash Fork” by John Green is the passing on of that story from one generation to the next and told with such deftness it’s like hearing the story being told. The final story “The Stranger” by Eddie Hartshorn is novella-length and draws a picture of a western town visited by a stranger who is never named, but by the end of this morality tale he learns as much about himself as we do about life in the old west. What makes this book also worthy of being placed in the reference section of your book shelves, is that it contains an appendix with a history of the Pueblo revolt and a history of Ash Fork, Arizona. There are pictures and drawings included on some of the pages that helps bring the stories to life.– Steve Carr