"True West isn�t just a state of mind or a piece of history, but a direction," says Executive Editor Bob Boze Bell from the magazine offices in Cave Creek, Arizona. "It points us to who we are as Americans." True Tales and Amazing Legends of the Old West from True West Magazine includes stories about Sacagawea, Wyatt Earp, Wild Bill Hickok, the Wild Bunch, the Sioux Uprising of 1862, the massacre at Sand Creek, Mountain Men, the "Trial of the Century" from the 1800s, Bulldogger Bill Pickett and �The most daring cowgirl who ever rode the West�Vera McGinnis.�

The 26 stories in this new book�published by a division of Random House, one of the nation�s leading publishers�are a sampling of what you find when you take an honest look at the Old West. Some stories are touching, some are funny, some are disgusting. But all are part of the great human drama of settling the West.

As the book notes in its introduction, "By the time True West Magazine debuted in 1953, millions of words had already been written about the wild and wooly West�most of them wrong."

Since then, through 10 owners and homes in four states, the magazine has been devoted to celebrating the West�s true colors, giving the men and women who settled there accurate voices, exploring their triumphs and tragedies, exposing both their vices and virtues. Over the last 52 years, True West has received critical acclaim and become a leading authority on the history of the Old West. Each issue now reaches more than 193,000 readers in a dozen countries. Subscribe to the magazine today!

The book was released August 17, 2005, by Clarkson Potter/Publishers, an imprint of the Crown Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc. of New York City.