Book sales are really sucking this month.

I mean they are terrible. The pits.

Why isn’t anyone reading?

It’s the end of October, so blame the autumn doldrums.

Blame the World Series for taking everyone's attention away from reading..

Blame the weather.

Blame Halloween.

And if it’s not something to do with October, blame the economy.

Blame Amazon algorithms.

Blame Obama, the House, the Senate.

Blame ISIS, ebola, the upcoming elections.

Or better yet, don’t blame anything.

Roll with it, baby.

Ups and downs.

Best bet: fuggedabout it.

Open up the work in progress. Write.

A few readers have asked me, since I write a weird Western series, what my favorite “cowboy movies” are. It’s too rich a cinematic field for me to be definitive, so I’ve chosen ten films I keep coming back to and which do what I’m trying to do with my RIDERS OF THE WEIRD WEST series - films which, at the time of their creation, were 1) aware of more or less the entire genre and 2) tried to take the genre somewhere it hadn’t quite been before.

1 Once Upon a Time in the West - Just for the way it’s shot. I could watch this with the sound off - but of course then I’d miss that ominous harmonica...

2 Tombstone - Perfect mix of action, history, romance, tall tale, humor, bloodbath, and Hollywood escapism

3Dances with Wolves - Deserved every Oscar it won, and probably the ones it was only nominated for as well.

4 3:10 to Yuma (2007) - As edge-of-your-seat as anything set in modern day (and written by mystery master Elmore Leonard!)

5 Blazing Saddles - Because if there were a fifth wall, Mel Brooks would have broken that down too.

6 Unforgiven - Because Clint is basically the meanest drunk ever.

7 High Plains Drifter - Because Clint literally paints the town red.

8 The Searchers - Because John Wayne needs to be on this list, and because that closing door at the end makes the entire movie.

9 Django Unchained - Quintessential Tarantino, successfully taking all the right risks.

10 Grim Prairie Tales - A little known Western horror anthology film starring none other than James Earl Jones and Grima Wormtongue (Brad Dourif)! Look it up for a surprisingly diverse set of tales.