A few good reads -- and GoodReads

If you’re an avid reader, you probably already know about GoodReads.

The site helps you track what books you want to read, review ones you already have, see what your friends are reading, and get recommendations for what to add next to your “I’m gonna read these soon, I swear” pile.

I recently decided to give it a whirl, and created a profile.

To wade in, I reviewed three books about Eureka Springs that will be source materials for my upcoming book, Welcome to Eureka Springs: The I-Sh*t-You-Not History of America’s Quirkiest Town.

First, there’s Cutter’s Guide to the Eureka Springs of Arkansas, published in 1884. It has some great testimonials of cures that took place in Eureka Springs' earliest days. I’ll quote from those in my chapter about Jenny Cowan, whose 7-year blindness was cured after coming here. Were such cures real? I’ll talk about that in the chapter.

Next up is Life and Adventures of John Gaskins, in the Early History of Northwest Arkansas: Tales by an Old Hunter. If you’ve ever eaten at Gaskins Cabin Steakhouse, you’ve seen the inside of the home of one of the area’s earliest pioneers. Naturally, I’m quoting from his 1893 memoir in my chapter about him.

Winding it up is Stair-Step-Town by mid-century Eureka Springs author and newspaper columnist Cora Pinkley-Call. Her small book put local oral history down on paper. Her story about a robbery will make my chapter about the James Gang, and her own amazing life story will of course be front and center in my chapter about Cora herself.

That’s all I had time to sit and write reviews for, but a great many more books about Eureka Springs are in my collection. I am greatly indebted to all those authors who came before me and provided such a rich well of knowledge. I hope that my own research of more modern times adds another link in the chain for someone further down the road.

Down the road, on the road again – that reminds me: gotta line up more interviews for the Willie Nelson chapter …