HANDGUNS

Rarely does a book live up to its title. Clyde Milner and Carol O’Connor’s biography of Montana pioneer Granville Stuart, As Big As the West, is an exception.

The writer of the cowboy classic “The Old Double Diamond” is back with his first new studio album since 1992. McMahan’s unconventional voice may take some getting used to, but his stellar writing talents are in full effect on Goin’ My Way. This album was well worth the wait. —M.B.

Two or three times a year, the Grammy-award winning cowboy quartet Riders in the Sky performs with a symphony orchestra as part of a Pops series. However, when the band joined the Nashville Symphony Orchestra for three sold-out performances at Schermerhorn Hall in February 2009, it was a unique experience decades in the making.

How do you define the career of a music legend who’s spent five decades defying convention and blazing her own path? In a word, Dolly. This four-CD set includes all 21of Parton’s #1 country hits, as well as her duets, B-sides, seven previously-unreleased tracks, and a full-color booklet stuffed with rare photos. —Tom Wilmes

From its inception as a ragtag band of men charged with protecting settlers in the Texas territory from roving bands of cannibalistic Indians, to decades spent warring with outlaws, Comanche, Mexican banditos, and Union soldiers, Cox takes readers on a compelling and unflinching journey through the checkered past of the legendary Texas Rangers in the first of this two-volume series.