Smoke from This Altar
"When one sees that Louis L'Amour is six  feet tall and views  his 185 pounds of bone and  muscle, one is inclined to agree with  [critic] Walt  Mills who one expressed surprise that one who could   polish off an opponent in the prize ring could also  polish off a  sonnet of startling  beauty."So read the sales brochure forSmoke From This Altar, a book that has  become legendary among  Louis L'Amour readers--the  very first book he ever published. It  appeared, to  great critical praise, for sale only in Oklahoma   bookstores more than fifty years ago. Since then it  has become the  most sought-after L'Amour title of  all, with the few circulating  copies from the  small print run commanding top dollar from rare book   collectors. Now, at last, it is being published  nationally in this  beautiful keepsake Bantam  edition.It was inSmoke From  This  Altarthat L'Amour first gave public  voice to his now-celebrated  spirit of wanderlust.  Like the short stories in his classic,   million-copy-sellingYondering, and his  best-selling memoirEducation Of A  Wandering Man, the poems in this book are   inspired by his experiences and memories of his journeys  across oceans  and continents. It is vintage  L'Amour storytelling--in verse--about  nature, the land,  and the people who loved and braved   it.Smoke From This Altarbegins with a newly written  introduction by his wife  Kathy in which she discusses the special  place this  work has held in the L'Amours' lives. In  concludes with  twenty previously uncollected L'Amour poems  selected by his   family.Impassioned, adventurous, heroic, and humorous,Smoke  From This Altaris unique L'Amour  writing, to be read and enjoyed  again and again.