Great American Eccentrics

I had a moment, about halfway through reading this book, of what could only be called giddiness. I don't even remember what the particular story was that I was looking it--a man looking for liquid gold beneath a mountain and tunneling up through a dirt road, a man insanely harassed for having a beard, a man dressed all in leather tromping the same 300-mile circle over and over, a woman that refused to leave her hotel room for decades, or a woman that became one of the most famous stagecoach drivers of the Old West without ever revealing that she WAS a woman--but at some point the cumulative force of so much weirdness just overwhelmed me and I was left feeling very silly and excited about it all. Giddy. I recommend this book. It's not perfect--there are way too many misers, it has a weird and extremely pro-Catholic attitude, and it neglects most of the country outside of New York and California--but I really enjoyed it, and my dinner conversations became very interesting for the next short while. Check it out, for sure.