Why am I passionate about this?

I’ve been teaching, writing, and learning about Indian issues, past and present, for more than four decades. I taught for several years on the Rosebud Sioux Reservation in South Dakota, and for years I was a correspondent for Indian Country Today and reported from reservations across the country and several Mexican states. I’ve written and published widely about rez issues including cultural repatriation, land use, Native corporations, language preservation, environmental dumping, and Indian law. I’ve spent a lot of time listening, watching, and reading before putting my own thoughts down on paper, and these are some of the books that have deeply moved me.


I wrote

Song of Dewey Beard: Last Survivor of the Little Bighorn

By Philip Burnham,

Book cover of Song of Dewey Beard: Last Survivor of the Little Bighorn

What is my book about?

Most people have heard of Crazy Horse or Sitting Bull. But few know of Dewey Beard, a Lakota hero in his…

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The books I picked & why

Book cover of Lame Deer, Seeker of Visions

Philip Burnham Why did I love this book?

John (Fire) Lame Deer gets right to the heart of modern rez life: the crazy humor, the quest to preserve culture, the bumbling government policies, and the chronic problems that beset Native people. An outspoken Lakota medicine man, Lame Deer’s story is more than just his own—it’s a ‘community autobiography’ that breaks the mold of American memoir. Call it what you will: reverent or profane, amusing or grim, tender or feisty, Lame Deer calls into question many of the upbeat assumptions so common in American life stories. There are more rags than riches in this story, and that suits Lame Deer just fine.

By Richard Erdoes, John (Fire) Lame Deer,

Why should I read it?

3 authors picked Lame Deer, Seeker of Visions as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Storyteller, rebel, medicine man, Lame Deer was born almost a century ago on the Rosebud Reservation in South Dakota. A full-blooded Sioux, he was many things in the white man's world - rodeo clown, painter, prisoner. But, above all, he was a holy man of the Lakota tribe. The story he tells is one of harsh youth and reckless manhood, shotgun marriage and divorce, history and folklore as rich today as ever - and of his fierce struggle to keep pride alive, though living as a stranger in his own ancestral land.


Book cover of Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI

Philip Burnham Why did I love this book?

An old cliché has it that nobody loves a rich Indian. As David Grann reveals in his account of 1920s Osage County, Oklahoma, outsiders stopped at nothing short of maiming and murdering Osage tribal people who found themselves sitting on large oil deposits and a windfall of cash. Even J. Edgar Hoover and the FBI are called west to try and solve the mysterious deaths of numerous tribal members in a scandal, long forgotten by many, that rocked the press in the era of Prohibition and The Roaring Twenties.  

By David Grann,

Why should I read it?

21 authors picked Killers of the Flower Moon as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

In the 1920s, the richest people per capita in the world were members of the Osage Indian nation in Oklahoma. After oil was discovered beneath their land, they rode in chauffeured automobiles, built mansions and sent their children to study in Europe.

Then, one by one, the Osage began to be killed off. As the death toll climbed, the FBI took up the case. But the bureau badly bungled the investigation. In desperation, its young director, J. Edgar Hoover, turned to a former Texas Ranger named Tom White to unravel the mystery. Together with the Osage he and his undercover…


Book cover of Indians in Unexpected Places

Philip Burnham Why did I love this book?

Buffalo Bill made a movie on the rez about Indians? Geronimo had a Cadillac? Indian rhythms are all over 20th-century classical music? Philip Deloria has a knack for showing us how Indian people usually defy what the media says they are—they turn up in funny places, do remarkable things, and achieve extraordinary results. Many of the Indians in this book aren’t found on the reservation, a reminder that Native people have traveled far and wide to do astonishing things when the spirit of adventure calls.

By Philip J. Deloria,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Indians in Unexpected Places as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

What is Geronimo doing sitting in a Cadillac? Why is an Indian woman in beaded buckskin sitting under a salon hairdryer? Such images startle and challenge our outdated visions of Native America. Philip Deloria's revealing accounts of Indians doing unexpected things - singing opera, driving cars, acting in Hollywood - explores this cultural discordance in ways that suggest new directions for American Indian history. Deloria chronicles how Indians came to represent themselves in Wild West shows, Hollywood films, sports, music, and even Indian people's use of the automobile - an ironic counterpoint to today's highways teeming with Dakota pickups and…


Book cover of Wooden Leg: A Warrior Who Fought Custer

Philip Burnham Why did I love this book?

For more than eighty years, the Cheyenne warrior Wooden Leg did a bit of just about everything. He joined a warrior society as a boy, fought against Custer and Crook in the Indian Wars, rode as an army scout, served as a tribal judge, converted to Christianity, and had to divorce one of his two wives (a heartrending scene!) before his new religion would accept him. His story is told by Thomas Marquis, a Cheyenne agency physician, who translated Wooden Leg’s story from sign language since they didn’t speak each other’s mother tongue. This is one of the best accounts of how Plains Indian men negotiated the challenge of transitioning from traditional ways to life on the reservation.

By Thomas B. Marquis,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Wooden Leg as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Told with vigor and insight, this is the memorable story of Wooden Leg (1858-1940), one of sixteen hundred warriors of the Northern Cheyennes who fought with the Lakotas against Custer at the Battle of the Little Bighorn. Wooden Leg remembers the world of the Cheyennes before they were forced onto reservations. He tells of growing up on the Great Plains and learning how to be a Cheyenne man. We hear from him about Cheyenne courtship, camp life, spirituality, and hunting; of skirmishes with Crows, Pawnees, and Shoshones; and of the Cheyennes' valiant but doomed resistance against the army of the…


Book cover of A Voice In Her Tribe: A Navajo Woman's Own Story

Philip Burnham Why did I love this book?

Thankfully, not all Indian stories are written or recounted by men. Irene Stewart, born at the base of Canyon de Chelly in 1907, grew up in the shadow of her father, a medicine man who had her kidnapped and taken against her will to boarding school. She survived three of those schools, including Haskell Institute, where she learned to bob her hair, studied home economics, and later became a Presbyterian. But this is no simple tale of assimilation. Like many of her schoolmates, she remained attached to tribal ways and remained true to Navajo tradition even while transforming herself for the world beyond the rez. 

By Irene Stewart,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked A Voice In Her Tribe as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

This is the story of Irene Stewart, a Navajo woman, told in her own words. Born in Canyon de Chelly, Arizona, she was raised by her grandmother after the death of her mother and the departure of her father. Yet her life has not been that of the traditional woman rug weaver of the sheep camp. From the moment when, at the age of nine, her father sent a Navajo policeman to kidnap his daughter from formal schooling, she was set on a path toward becoming a bilingual-bicultural Indian. She has learned to live in both Navajo and white American…


Explore my book 😀

Song of Dewey Beard: Last Survivor of the Little Bighorn

By Philip Burnham,

Book cover of Song of Dewey Beard: Last Survivor of the Little Bighorn

What is my book about?

Most people have heard of Crazy Horse or Sitting Bull. But few know of Dewey Beard, a Lakota hero in his own right whose life spanned from the Civil War to the Cold War, a century of trauma and transformation for Indian people across the West. Beard (ca. 1862-1955) fought in the Battle of the Little Bighorn and survived the Wounded Knee Massacre—where he witnessed the murder of almost half his family—while leading a remarkable life that included touring with William “Buffalo Bill” Cody’s Wild West show; working as a Hollywood Indian; ranching on a Pine Ridge allotment; and advocating in Washington for reparations due to his family and the Lakota people.

Book cover of Lame Deer, Seeker of Visions
Book cover of Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI
Book cover of Indians in Unexpected Places

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Book cover of Glimmer of the Other

Heather G. Harris Author Of Glimmer of the Other

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Why am I passionate about this?

Author

Heather's 3 favorite reads in 2024

What is my book about?

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By Heather G. Harris,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Glimmer of the Other as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

I can tell when you’re lying. Every. Single. Time.

I’m Jinx. As a private investigator, being a walking, talking lie detector is a useful skill – but let’s face it, it’s not normal. You’d think it would make my job way too easy, but even with my weird skills, I still haven’t been able to track down my parent’s killers.

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