Thursday, July 16, 2009

What is Michael A. Elliott reading?

The current featured contributor to Writers Read: Michael A. Elliott, author of Custerology: The Enduring Legacy of the Indian Wars and George Armstrong Custer.

One paragraph from his entry:
Mark Jude Porier’s novels are a delicious treat for me, and so I keep an eye out for anything that he blurbs. That is how I ended up reading The Cardboard Universe: A Guide to the World of Poebus K. Dank, by Christopher Miller. The novel is a kind of Pale Fire for the sci fi set. Written as a kind of literary encyclopedia of a prolific (but awful) science fiction novelist -- loosely modeled on Philip K. Dick -- the book is both a satire of and a love letter to the genre. Any science fiction reader with a sense of humor should have it on the shelf. As an aside, I have been reading Dick sporadically over the last five years, and just acquired the Library of America compilations of his works to read as well.[read on]
Among the praise for Custerology:
“Michael Elliott’s Custerology is vivid, trenchant, engrossing, and important. The American soldier George Armstrong Custer has been the subject of very nearly incessant debate for almost a century and a half, and the debate is multicultural, multinational, and multimedia. Mr. Elliott’s book provides by far the best overview, and no one interested in the long-haired soldier whom the Indians called Son of the Morning Star can afford to miss it.”
—Larry McMurtry
Read an excerpt from Custerology and learn more about the book at the University of Chicago Press website.

Learn more about Michael A. Elliott's scholarship at his faculty webpage.

The Page 99 Test: Custerology.

Writers Read: Michael A. Elliott.

--Marshal Zeringue