READERSVOICE.COM: If you could travel by time machine to the Old West, what would you like to see or whom would you like to meet?

ALTON PRYOR: If I could go back in time, there are two people I would really like to have met. One, naturally, was Louis L’Amour. The other would have been Will Rogers. Louis L’Amour was one of the best researchers that ever put words to a book. Rogers was the funniest and most insightful man that ever lived.
While I was in the Navy, I found a little book in the base library that was composed of telegrams between Will Rogers and a number of our presidents. It may have been one of funniest, most amusing reads I’ve ever found.[Will Rogers’ Daily Telegrams]

RV: I read in one interview that you liked reading Western fiction. What are some of your favourite novels in this genre?

AP: On top of my western fiction choices was John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath. Talk about “people watching”, this man didn’t miss a move. He was a genuinely interesting writer. I also liked Advise and Consent by Allen Drury and Michelangelo by Irving Stone.
Actually I like reading everything, from the cereal boxes in the morning to the small printed labels on the bottles of Angostura Bitters.
One of my very favorite novels was James Michener’s book Hawaii and Roots by Alex Haley. Both, in my opinion, were classics.

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-copyright Simon Sandall.