books

A Rivet Runs Through It

An April Fools literary parody

Mar 31 • John Clayton

The detective novel as failed Western

Rex Stout, Montana, and the emotionally suppressed origins of Nero Wolfe

Mar 24 • John Clayton

The "Forest Fire" at the end of Western individualism

The lurid overtones of a 1933 novel hid its cultural critique

Mar 17 • John Clayton

Why the first gay Western came from a straight Easterner more interested in ideas than romance

The noble failure of Rex Stout’s Forest Fire

Mar 10 • John Clayton

Sinclair Lewis’ Yellowstone frontier

America’s first big writer in America’s national park

Feb 18 • John Clayton

Cowboy Girl vs. Rustler

What did feminism look like on the old frontier?

Jan 14 • John Clayton

Why AI can't write history

An AI wanted to write Yellowstone history for me. Here's what went wrong, and why it matters.

Jan 7 • John Clayton

Lies, interpretations, and Yellowstone history

The stories we inherit, and how to retell them—or not

Dec 17, 2025 • John Clayton

The bouncers at national park bookstores

Curation, censorship, and the value of cultural gatekeeping

Nov 12, 2025 • John Clayton

Shipwrecks, songs, and stories

John U. Bacon’s passion writes a bestseller

Oct 21, 2025 • John Clayton

The bear’s inner life

Mark Spragg slays the nature faker debate

Oct 14, 2025 • John Clayton

A language of vanishing forests

Gary Ferguson listens to ponderosas on home, grief, and ecological loss

Oct 7, 2025 • John Clayton

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