Me too! It violates every expectation I have of rooms :) And thank you, Mary! I’m sure it will resolve eventually. We’re already down the occasional tilt.
I'm surprised that I don't reread books I have loved in the past, but I haven't done it often. A few classics, Steinbeck, Morrison, Fitzgerald (just "Gatsby") a few others, but there have been so many. How to choose? A TBR pile and a TBR-R pile?
I hope your vertigo goes away soon, Betsy. Take good care.
I don't even bother to separate the TBR from the TBR-R list, Judy. I just read whatever book wants to be read and trust that there is a reason for that book at that moment. I have never re-read Gatsby. And I will probably never re-read Steinbeck's big novels. You've got me thinking about what lies behind the choice to re-read a book or not. Thanks for the good wishes. I'm improving daily!
We are traveling across the country in our RV this summer and we stayed in Nashville for a spell and I went to Parnassus Books and bought owner Ann Patchett’s new book Whisperer and am enjoying that. I have Lonesome Dove on my bookshelf at home but have yet to read it, but you have given me a nudge.
And just to tell you I do love audiobooks and my favorite is Crossing to Safety by Wallace Stegner and That Old Cape Magic by Richard Russo. And anything by Fannie Flagg because she narrated most of them and her voice is so soothing. Also Where’d You Go Bernadette is well narrated one too. If the narration is bad, even for a good book, it ruins it. I usually listen to samples first.
As for vertigo, Ugh, I have had to deal with it and off for decades and it’s the worst. Stay well hydrated and avoid caffeine and there are some movements that help too.
Your trip sounds wonderful. I think visiting Parnassus is a huge deal. I've asked for Whistler for an upcoming birthday and if I don't get it, I'll buy it for myself because I read whatever Patchett writes no matter how it ranks with her other books.
I remember that you loved Crossing to Safety but not that you listened to it. A friend of mine who listens to all her books echoes what you say about narration. The voice telling the story can hugely impact how it its the ear and sensibility. I listen to samples from timet to time as well.
Thanks for the advice re: vertigo. It kind of comes and goes and I'm soaking up all advice to MAKE IT STOP.
Now I feel like I have to try reading Lonesome Dove (again). The heft of it. The stereotypes. (I'd wager they'd bother me less if I could stick with it long enough to dive deeper into the characters and epic themes). Shakespeare of the western frontier, I get it. But I'm a lot more comfortable in the saddle with Cormac McCarthy, Annie Proulx, Jim Harrison, Patrick DeWitt. I read a pile of Louis L'Amour years ago when I was outlining my ironic/comic cowgirl novel "Olive Grove, Who Are You?" (spring 2027) and everything they say about L'Amour is true -- you only need to read one and you've read them all. So sorry you are suffering with vertigo, Elizabeth. Hope your world stops spinning very soon!
I love listening to books when I'm driving long distances because it keeps me alert and makes time fly. Almost any other time, even with a really great book, it puts me to sleep -- which is good for me (an insomniac) but bad for the book. Best audio experience bar none: recovering from a stroke from a botched spine surgery that left me half-blinded for several months. Jill Bolte Taylor had conveniently just released her groundbreaking "My Stroke of Insight" about brain plasticity, which gave me enormous hope.
The heft was not the obstacle for me -- the pacing is expert and it kind of carried me through. The writing is amazing. My initial resistance stemmed in part from impatience with stereotypes. They are there although by far the most resistance stemmed from being stuck with so many men for so long in such a male world. I smiled when I read your comment about reading Louis L'Mour books - so true, if you've read one you've read them all. I know this because his books were staples in the house I grew up in and because I read anything that was handy, I consumed them. I read in part to see if just once there would be something different.
I know, too, what you mean about falling asleep while listening. I found I listened better if I sat up somewhere or moved around but as I cleaned the house with the story running, I realized that I don't like to do something else when I'm reading. The full reading experience is partly escape from me and I like to sink in with few distractions.
I liked Lonesome Dove, almost grudgingly, despite the stereotypes. McMurtry is a great story teller. Like Kevin, though, my favorite western, is Charles Portis's True Grit, in which 14-year-old Mattie Ross hires hard-drinking Marshall Rooster Cogburn to avenge the murder of her father. Great characters; tough stuff with some rough humor. The 2010 Coen Brothers movie, with Jeff Bridges as Cogburn and Hattie Steinfeld as Mattie, is good too.
I read Lonesome Dove so long ago, I don't think I could discuss it intelligently. Would have to re-read. I'm currently reading Monster of a Land by Lauren Hough, and I'm loving it. Her writing is so present, it's like having a conversation.
I write western crossovers with science fiction and fantasy. Not the stereotypic Southwestern settings with battles between indigenous peoples and settlers, or the shoot 'em outs in cattle towns sort of things--more the contemporary Western style. Think Craig Johnson and Longmire. Ivan Doig and his Scotch Heaven settlers. My settings are in the Pacific Northwest and frequently touch on issues like--trying to keep the ranch going in the face of corporate takeovers (the novella *Shadow Harvest*, currently available as part of *Life in the Shadows*, or the original premise for the Martiniere Legacy Quartet). In fantasy, it takes the form of settings other than medieval Europe. No castles. No knights in armor. It can be quite freeing to think of fantasy stories in that form.
And I'm currently developing a neoWestern multiverse time travel series that has heavy elements of PNW settlement issues, abolitionism, suffragism and more to it. My novella *Bearing Witness* is part of this world.
So yeah, I like me a good Western. Especially ones that deal with current issues in the West, like climate change impacts, wildfire, and holding out against powerful corporate interests.
It's fascinating to read how you've incorporated the West and also the Western as a genre into your work. I've not read either Johnson or Doig and so I am not familiar with the more contemporary Western style. That's interesting too.
Yeah, there are a LOT of contemporary Western writers out there who aren't particularly visible to New York. Many of them write for small, regional presses. New York publishing tends to lean toward the Southwest and the old tropes as rehashed through Cormac McCarthy and others like him (personally, I don't care for McCarthy). But writers like Molly Gloss, Beth Piatote, Laura Pritchett and others contribute to a deep redefining of Western writing and...I hope I'm part of it.
I am looking at ‘True Grit’ by Charles Portis on our bookshelf right now. Not my original copy. One of those books I lent to a long forgotten friend decades ago and never saw again. I bought a secondhand copy to read again during lockdown. This time I have yet to forget how good the story and narration by Mattie is. It is in my top ten novels and a nod to my childhood love of western films, especially Randolph Scott and Joel McCrea, who both star in my favourite western, ‘A Ride in the High Country.’ Poignant rather than sad. I still watch the occasional western on television, otherwise the genre has lost its appeal.
As for audio books/stories, do short stories, such as I listen to most weeks on BBC Radio count? I am rarely disappointed. 🐰
Lonesome Dove is one of the great American novels. Russel and I read it aloud to each other (I read 90%) and we loved it. We've seen the series and it is good, but nothing can ever truly replace McMurtry's writing style.
As to audiobooks, I'm with the majority who listens once in a while. But if you listen, please go with a brilliant narrator not just a good one.
I highly recommend the actor Will Patton reading anything, especially Lonesome Dove, if any of you readers have not yet read it. He's a wonderful narrator, in every way.
Westerns are a favorite film genre of ours too. So many great films. My favorite might be The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance with Jimmy Stewart John Wayne, Vera Miles, Lee Marvin, Woody Strode and even more great actors I can't recall.
Started with my brothers watching TV Westerns and me watching the horses. Then I grew to enjoy the tropes and the artifice of them. Sort of camp before I knew the concept of camp. Like the 1960s eyeliner and the perfectly pressed clothes in the 1890s. Now I suppose they are a sort of comfort food.
Hi Betsy: Glad you're reading LD. It is the best novel I've ever read. It is #1 on all my "Top" lists, and what I consistently recommend to those that ask me which book influenced me and my writing the most. I smiled when you described it as a book about the American west. It is, of course, but so very much more.
Why? Why is this book so important, such an urgent read? My answer- McMurtry's character creation and development. McRae, Call, Deets, Jake...you feel along with them in a way that's at all times nuanced, urgent and heartbreaking. Is Gus really that carefree? Of course not. How can Call so blithely ignore his legacy? He can't and doesn't.
A reference to LD appears in some form in all three of my novels. I strive daily to make my characters as alive as McMurtry's in LD.
For these, and so very many other reasons, I hope you love it.
That smile made me smile, Robin. You are right of course, the book -- like all great novels -- is a lot more than a story about a place or time. Still, this particular story could not have happened anywhere else -- the landscape, the voices, the history. And there are all those cowboys! They are complete, complex people but they are also very much fit an archtype.
As I read, I am responding to the very things you mention in your comment -- the depiction of complex characters, their arcs and therein lies some of my deepest conflicts triggered as I read. I look forward to trying to explain that. It's personal and so might not be a very universally shared take.
There are books that make such an impression that they become part of one and it seems as though LD was one of those books for you. I love that.
Hope you are feeling much better, Betsy.
Well, my copy of Lonesome Dove arrived today and I am diving in.
I hope you feel better soon! Vertigo sounds awful. I hate when rooms are spinning.
Me too! It violates every expectation I have of rooms :) And thank you, Mary! I’m sure it will resolve eventually. We’re already down the occasional tilt.
I'm surprised that I don't reread books I have loved in the past, but I haven't done it often. A few classics, Steinbeck, Morrison, Fitzgerald (just "Gatsby") a few others, but there have been so many. How to choose? A TBR pile and a TBR-R pile?
I hope your vertigo goes away soon, Betsy. Take good care.
I don't even bother to separate the TBR from the TBR-R list, Judy. I just read whatever book wants to be read and trust that there is a reason for that book at that moment. I have never re-read Gatsby. And I will probably never re-read Steinbeck's big novels. You've got me thinking about what lies behind the choice to re-read a book or not. Thanks for the good wishes. I'm improving daily!
Yesteryear is an excellent novel. Loved the plot twists.
Thanks, Kathy. They are good, the twists. But I'm not sure yet where I fall out on it as a story. Still figuring that out!
This one might turn out to be a "love it or dislike it" book. The major twist astonished me. I did not see that coming.
We are traveling across the country in our RV this summer and we stayed in Nashville for a spell and I went to Parnassus Books and bought owner Ann Patchett’s new book Whisperer and am enjoying that. I have Lonesome Dove on my bookshelf at home but have yet to read it, but you have given me a nudge.
And just to tell you I do love audiobooks and my favorite is Crossing to Safety by Wallace Stegner and That Old Cape Magic by Richard Russo. And anything by Fannie Flagg because she narrated most of them and her voice is so soothing. Also Where’d You Go Bernadette is well narrated one too. If the narration is bad, even for a good book, it ruins it. I usually listen to samples first.
As for vertigo, Ugh, I have had to deal with it and off for decades and it’s the worst. Stay well hydrated and avoid caffeine and there are some movements that help too.
And take extra good care of yourself.
Your trip sounds wonderful. I think visiting Parnassus is a huge deal. I've asked for Whistler for an upcoming birthday and if I don't get it, I'll buy it for myself because I read whatever Patchett writes no matter how it ranks with her other books.
I remember that you loved Crossing to Safety but not that you listened to it. A friend of mine who listens to all her books echoes what you say about narration. The voice telling the story can hugely impact how it its the ear and sensibility. I listen to samples from timet to time as well.
Thanks for the advice re: vertigo. It kind of comes and goes and I'm soaking up all advice to MAKE IT STOP.
Now I feel like I have to try reading Lonesome Dove (again). The heft of it. The stereotypes. (I'd wager they'd bother me less if I could stick with it long enough to dive deeper into the characters and epic themes). Shakespeare of the western frontier, I get it. But I'm a lot more comfortable in the saddle with Cormac McCarthy, Annie Proulx, Jim Harrison, Patrick DeWitt. I read a pile of Louis L'Amour years ago when I was outlining my ironic/comic cowgirl novel "Olive Grove, Who Are You?" (spring 2027) and everything they say about L'Amour is true -- you only need to read one and you've read them all. So sorry you are suffering with vertigo, Elizabeth. Hope your world stops spinning very soon!
I love listening to books when I'm driving long distances because it keeps me alert and makes time fly. Almost any other time, even with a really great book, it puts me to sleep -- which is good for me (an insomniac) but bad for the book. Best audio experience bar none: recovering from a stroke from a botched spine surgery that left me half-blinded for several months. Jill Bolte Taylor had conveniently just released her groundbreaking "My Stroke of Insight" about brain plasticity, which gave me enormous hope.
The heft was not the obstacle for me -- the pacing is expert and it kind of carried me through. The writing is amazing. My initial resistance stemmed in part from impatience with stereotypes. They are there although by far the most resistance stemmed from being stuck with so many men for so long in such a male world. I smiled when I read your comment about reading Louis L'Mour books - so true, if you've read one you've read them all. I know this because his books were staples in the house I grew up in and because I read anything that was handy, I consumed them. I read in part to see if just once there would be something different.
I know, too, what you mean about falling asleep while listening. I found I listened better if I sat up somewhere or moved around but as I cleaned the house with the story running, I realized that I don't like to do something else when I'm reading. The full reading experience is partly escape from me and I like to sink in with few distractions.
I liked Lonesome Dove, almost grudgingly, despite the stereotypes. McMurtry is a great story teller. Like Kevin, though, my favorite western, is Charles Portis's True Grit, in which 14-year-old Mattie Ross hires hard-drinking Marshall Rooster Cogburn to avenge the murder of her father. Great characters; tough stuff with some rough humor. The 2010 Coen Brothers movie, with Jeff Bridges as Cogburn and Hattie Steinfeld as Mattie, is good too.
I feel I know the story of True Grit but I have never read it. I think I will give it a try, just to see how it lands. Thanks, Andy.
I read Lonesome Dove so long ago, I don't think I could discuss it intelligently. Would have to re-read. I'm currently reading Monster of a Land by Lauren Hough, and I'm loving it. Her writing is so present, it's like having a conversation.
I'm reading Monster of a Land too! I love it and you are exactly right -- it's like having a conversation. Her voice is so particular to her.
I write western crossovers with science fiction and fantasy. Not the stereotypic Southwestern settings with battles between indigenous peoples and settlers, or the shoot 'em outs in cattle towns sort of things--more the contemporary Western style. Think Craig Johnson and Longmire. Ivan Doig and his Scotch Heaven settlers. My settings are in the Pacific Northwest and frequently touch on issues like--trying to keep the ranch going in the face of corporate takeovers (the novella *Shadow Harvest*, currently available as part of *Life in the Shadows*, or the original premise for the Martiniere Legacy Quartet). In fantasy, it takes the form of settings other than medieval Europe. No castles. No knights in armor. It can be quite freeing to think of fantasy stories in that form.
And I'm currently developing a neoWestern multiverse time travel series that has heavy elements of PNW settlement issues, abolitionism, suffragism and more to it. My novella *Bearing Witness* is part of this world.
So yeah, I like me a good Western. Especially ones that deal with current issues in the West, like climate change impacts, wildfire, and holding out against powerful corporate interests.
It's fascinating to read how you've incorporated the West and also the Western as a genre into your work. I've not read either Johnson or Doig and so I am not familiar with the more contemporary Western style. That's interesting too.
Yeah, there are a LOT of contemporary Western writers out there who aren't particularly visible to New York. Many of them write for small, regional presses. New York publishing tends to lean toward the Southwest and the old tropes as rehashed through Cormac McCarthy and others like him (personally, I don't care for McCarthy). But writers like Molly Gloss, Beth Piatote, Laura Pritchett and others contribute to a deep redefining of Western writing and...I hope I'm part of it.
I am looking at ‘True Grit’ by Charles Portis on our bookshelf right now. Not my original copy. One of those books I lent to a long forgotten friend decades ago and never saw again. I bought a secondhand copy to read again during lockdown. This time I have yet to forget how good the story and narration by Mattie is. It is in my top ten novels and a nod to my childhood love of western films, especially Randolph Scott and Joel McCrea, who both star in my favourite western, ‘A Ride in the High Country.’ Poignant rather than sad. I still watch the occasional western on television, otherwise the genre has lost its appeal.
As for audio books/stories, do short stories, such as I listen to most weeks on BBC Radio count? I am rarely disappointed. 🐰
Yes, short stories on BBC most certainly count. I have always loved listening to a program here called Selected Shorts.
You are the second person to highlight True Grit here so I guess I will order it from the library to see how it reads for me. Thanks, Robert!
Lonesome Dove is one of the great American novels. Russel and I read it aloud to each other (I read 90%) and we loved it. We've seen the series and it is good, but nothing can ever truly replace McMurtry's writing style.
As to audiobooks, I'm with the majority who listens once in a while. But if you listen, please go with a brilliant narrator not just a good one.
I highly recommend the actor Will Patton reading anything, especially Lonesome Dove, if any of you readers have not yet read it. He's a wonderful narrator, in every way.
Westerns are a favorite film genre of ours too. So many great films. My favorite might be The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance with Jimmy Stewart John Wayne, Vera Miles, Lee Marvin, Woody Strode and even more great actors I can't recall.
Thanks for all of this, Jenny. What do you think led to your love of Westerns in film? Or does it depend mostly on execution -- in film or books?
Started with my brothers watching TV Westerns and me watching the horses. Then I grew to enjoy the tropes and the artifice of them. Sort of camp before I knew the concept of camp. Like the 1960s eyeliner and the perfectly pressed clothes in the 1890s. Now I suppose they are a sort of comfort food.
Hi Betsy: Glad you're reading LD. It is the best novel I've ever read. It is #1 on all my "Top" lists, and what I consistently recommend to those that ask me which book influenced me and my writing the most. I smiled when you described it as a book about the American west. It is, of course, but so very much more.
Why? Why is this book so important, such an urgent read? My answer- McMurtry's character creation and development. McRae, Call, Deets, Jake...you feel along with them in a way that's at all times nuanced, urgent and heartbreaking. Is Gus really that carefree? Of course not. How can Call so blithely ignore his legacy? He can't and doesn't.
A reference to LD appears in some form in all three of my novels. I strive daily to make my characters as alive as McMurtry's in LD.
For these, and so very many other reasons, I hope you love it.
Cheers! Hope the spinning stops soon.
That smile made me smile, Robin. You are right of course, the book -- like all great novels -- is a lot more than a story about a place or time. Still, this particular story could not have happened anywhere else -- the landscape, the voices, the history. And there are all those cowboys! They are complete, complex people but they are also very much fit an archtype.
As I read, I am responding to the very things you mention in your comment -- the depiction of complex characters, their arcs and therein lies some of my deepest conflicts triggered as I read. I look forward to trying to explain that. It's personal and so might not be a very universally shared take.
There are books that make such an impression that they become part of one and it seems as though LD was one of those books for you. I love that.
You are so right Betsy. The story could not have been set anywhere else. To think my favorite book is about a cattle drive. 😉
Thanks, Tom!
This is so well said, and I agree completely.