Top 10 Favorite Books
 

Most of us Parker folks seem to think a bit alike and enjoy some of the same things. I'm just curious as to what your Top 10 Books or authors might be? Perhaps there may be one or two out there that some of us have missed. "Tis the season."
Steve Kleist Ely, MN

"Shotgunning, the Art and the Science" by Bob Brister.

That's a challenge for sure...

Not in any order, but...

Harold P. Sheldon

William Harnden Foster

John Taintor Foote

Gene Hill

Fred Everett

Burton P. Spiller

Nash Buckingham

George King, "That's Ruff"

Philip H. Babcock

Edmund Ware Smith

Corey Ford

Harry Middleton

John Gierach

Ted Nelson Lundrigan

George Bird Evans

Thomas Mcguane

Sparse Grey Hackle

Bill Tapply

Oh, you said ten... I'm sorry - I got carried away glancing over just a couple of shelves but I know I've missed a bunch of good ones.

Titles?... just about anything they wrote are all my favorites. I really can't narrow it to ten.

Judges, OT

Shooters Bible, 1945-1954. Top 20? Shooters Bible, 1945-1964

Anything by Thor Hyerdahl, John Steinbeck, Ernest Hemmingway, and most especially, Winston S. Churchill

Robert Ruark. My favorite is The Old Man and the Boy. All of Ruark's books are excellent.

Robert Ruark, Jack O'Connor, Russell Annabel, Corey Ford, Gene Hill, John "Pondoro" Taylor, Charley Dickey, Gordon MacQuarrie, Peter Capstick.

Gunther, Mullens, Parker and Price. Chas. Askins the Senior, Gordan MacQuarrie, A.W. Money (Bluerock), Havilah Babcock, Nash Buckingham, Elmer Keith.

One book I enjoyed many years ago was The 13 valley by John Del Vecchio. I don't read much any more, just The Book. Enjoyed bad word, The book was intersting. A book about war so one can't really enjoy it.

My Top 10 Writers and Titles
 

Here's my favorites. Thanks for sharing your best stories!

Top 10 Writers/Stories

Gordon MacQuarrie - (the entire Old Duck Hunter’s Trilogy) The Old Brown Mackinaw, Nothing to Do for Three Weeks, Bluebill Day, Man Tired, We shall Gather by the Icehouse, Just Look at this Country
Nathan Jorgenson - Waiting for White Horses, The Perfect Weekend
Gene Hill – Firesides, Being There, Bingo
Robert Ruark – The Old Man and the Boy
Albert Hochbaum – To Ride the Wind
Aldo Leopold – A Sand County Almanac
Sam Cook – Up North, Quiet Magic, Friendship Fires
Corey Ford - The Road to Tinkamtown
Jerry Wilber – Of Woodsmoke and Quiet Places
Calvin Rutstrum – Paradise Below Zero, North American Canoe Country

I now have a few new ones to find. Steve Kleist

No one has mentioned J S Surtees or other english authors of the 19th cent.

Hmmmmm ,

1. George Bird Evans

2. Jack O'Conner

3. Nash Buckingham

4. Burt Spiller

5. William Harden Foster

6. Havilah Babcock

7. Charlie Dell (schuetzen rifles)

8. Bill Tappley

9. John Geirach

10. Frank Woolner

Of the folks mentioned I was only able to ever speak to one of them . Back in the mid to late 80's I spoke with George Bird Evans and his wife occasionally on the phone for about 5 years . Wish I could have met them in person as they certainly were graciouse on the phone !

Wait thats no totally correct , I chatted Charlie Dell a few times before he died or should I say he talked I listened and I tried to talk loud enough for him to understand me . Charlie had shot so much in his life along with being in loud places that his hearing was not good by any stretch of the imagination !

One I forgot that certainly needs to be in my top ELEVEN !

Archibald Rutledge !

Woops lets make this into the top DOZEN !

Dr.Charles Norris

starbuck valley dont remember the author

"Soldier" by Col. Anthony Herbert. A book about responsibility and doing what was right when it was the hardest thing to do.A true story.

One everybody should have is "The Golden Age Of Shotgunning" by Bob Hinman.

Yup I agree Bill...A wonderful book!

Let's not leave out "Shotgunning- The art and the science" by Bob Brister. He's the man who really got me thinking about shotgun patterns. I had the pleasure of meeting and talking shotguns with Brister and Gene Hill in the early 1980's at a pigeon shoot in PA. Both real genuine guys.

Daryl, I agree a very informative book. I would have loved to have been with ya when you meet Gene. I really enjoy his writting style....it takes ya there....with a smile..:)

Gene Hill was the most laid back guy and really loved double guns so we had a lot in common. Back then quite a few guys shot SxS's mostly Mod21's, Parkers and high end British guns. He really knew how to capture and put into words how we feel about dogs, guns, bird hunting, or whatever crossed his mind. There has'nt been a writer since to match his style and class. He would have loved the Parker/Smith challenge at the Southern.

Ted Lundrigan
 

Steve,You would like Ted Lundrigan. Good grouse books. Good guy and a fellow Minnesotan. jim

Charlie Dickey AKA Sam Cole was another good one as was Bob Milek and Coret Ford.

Corey Ford.......

Anything by Archibald Rutledge (particularly his earlier works), The Bear by William Faulkner, The Parker Story

. . . Gamefield Classics by Michael McIntosh and William Headrick, AH Fox by Michael McIntosh, Tales of Quails N' Such & My Health is Better in November by Havilah Babcock, American Wild Turkey by Henry Davis, Ducks Dogs and Friends by Jack Cay (private printing in Savannah), Bobwhite Quail by Walter Rosene

One more . . . Audubon's Birds of America. Anyone with an interest in the outdoors should have a copy.

One last author no one has mentioned, Patrick McManus. He was a humorist who wrote a number of articles in outdoor magazines that always reminded me of "The Old Man And The Boy", only funnier. His articles were consolidated into 5 or 6 books including A fine And Pleasant Misery", "They Shoot canoes, Don't They?", "Never Sniff A Gift Fish" etc. most of his stories will make you laugh out loud. His best, in my opinion, details his first deer hunt which required him to peddle his bike to the top of a mountain, passing a number of deer camps on the way. At the top, he shoots his first deer. At the time he did not realize that he had only stunned it with a horn hit. Since all he had was his bike. He set the deer on the back fender and draped its front legs over his shoulders. On the way down the mountain, passing one of the deer camps, the deer comes to........

I'll second Corey Ford. He is one of my favorites. When a lot of us were just kids we lived vicariously through the characters he wrote of in "Tales of The Lower Forty" in Field & Stream magazine.

Nobody could name characters like McManus. Remember Retch McSweeny?

...or Rancid Crabtree :eek:

"The Rifle and Hound in Ceylon" by Sir Samual Baker
"Moby Dick" by Herman Melville
"Great Gatsby" by F. Scott Fitzgerald
Anything by J.R.R. Tolkien
"The History of The Gun" by W.W. Greener
The Illiad and The Oddesey by Homer
....and some other I would not list on this forum as I would probably be laughed at by you older guys.