Vegas!
The Books
As you might guess, I have a branch of my library
dedicated to this town; it started off with your
standard tourist picture souvenir booklets and it
went on from there as my reading habits and
patients improved.
However, before I go off babbling about the more literate titles in my stash, I better give a shout out to a paperback guide book called ‘Las Vegas 1979’. I remember getting this at The
Stardust for three bucks. It was published by Oracle Publishers and written by Eddie Anderson. According to the liner notes, Mr. Anderson made his living as a manager of Nevada Mining Co., “destined to become the finest and friendliest lounge and
super club in Las Vegas” at the Village Square on Sahara Ave. The book even lists the phone number to the place, but I currently don’t have the nerve to call up and see if destiny
served this place well.
This 155-page has your standard Vegas information, circa 1978/79, and I couldn’t put it down when I first got it. It was some sort of bible I carried around, especially around school
and I think I tried to write a book report on it, but my teacher put
a stop to it and almost got me suspended keeping this “adult” title in school.
​
NOTE: yup, I know there are MANY more Vegas books out there, including ones on people like Benny Binion ('Blood Aces') and Steve Wynn (‘Running Scared’) I would love to read, but time, physical space and manly money seems to dictate this matter for now. Stay tuned should I get lucky here.