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A very interesting topic; Southern CA is NO paradise for the shooter or hunter but it IS a place where you can find any book, cheap. I have taken notes....

Michael et al: interesting mentions of "Earth Abides." I had the honor of knowing Professor Stewart quite well, or as well as a young squirt can know a scholar and writer at the top of his game. He served on my doctoral comprehensive exam at Berkeley, covering the topic of Evolutionary Theory in American Lit., and later was on the review committee for my dissertation and a source of information for it. He was an old-fashioned gentleman; gentle enough, and very much his own man in a English department famous for wearing people out.

"Earth Abides" is what I would call a "curiously reassuring book," like the book of the Bible from which its title is drawn (I'm no Bible pounder, but as I age, I find myself drawn to "Ecclesiastes" often...) I like it better than Cormac McCarthy's "The Road," (which I must admit I read in one sitting. tho). Pandemic, it is always with us, like "Fire," and "Storm," two other books of his. I read "Fire" right after helping fight a huge "campaign fire," something every young man should get a chance to do.

My dissertation was on an Oregon novelist and poet, H.L. Davis. He was the nephew of a very innovative Oregon gunsmith whose name slips my mind at the moment, and a relative of the pioneer Applegate clan, one of whom was also an innovative Oregon gunsmith the last time I looked (Robert). If you look at Davis' work, his most famous book (Pulitzer in 1935, to the horror of the contemporary Left) was "Honey in the Horn." The book to start with, if you can find it, is "Winds of Morning," tho. He knew his guns, but better yet, he knew his folks and the natural world. Excuse me, thanks to you guys, I got more books to look for!