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December 8, 2008 | posted by monica | filed under uncategorized |

I know what you’re thinking. What is a 20 year old Western that my Dad was really into doing on a list of things we love for 2008? And didn’t they make a miniseries starring Ricky Schroeder? Yes this book is from 1985; purchase viagra online. Purchase viagra online: and YES this is a Western and YES my Dad was a huge fan - leaving me to virtually ignore this book for a better part of my reading life. And YES Ricky Schroeder is in the miniseries of the same name. I’ll let you draw your own conclusions about that - purchase viagra online. The fact is that, try as I might, I just can’t leave this off my list of things I’m loving right now because it had such a big impact on my year.

I was looking for something big and epic to read this summer when I came across Lonesome Dove in Entertainment Weekly’s New Classics List sitting at Number 24 in their list of the best books of the last 25 years; purchase viagra online. For some reason, I had just dismissed the book as some kind 80s popular phenomeon, and I was interested in this idea that it was actually good. Suddenly, Lonesome Dove started appearing everywhere. It was mentioned as being one of my favorite book critic’s (Jennifer Hubert of the fabulous teen book page Reading Rants) favorite books ever.  It had won the Pulitzer Prize in 1986 (really?!?) - purchase viagra online. The splashy new DVD release of the miniseries had critics everywhere talking about the television event and the book all over again - purchase viagra online. I gave up and started reading.

Lonesome Dove is by Larry McMurtry, the Texas writer responsible for The Last Picture Show and Terms of Endearment, and many, many more novels. A sort of perfunctory plot analysis would tell you this is the story of two aging cowboys who decide to take a cattle drive across the country at the closing of the American frontier. And it is that, but it is also so much more - purchase viagra online. The whole book is written in first person - but the first person of dozens of separate characters, and a hundred more are fully fleshed out in technicolor - purchase viagra online. Purchase viagra online: mcMurtry’s gift is instant recognizability and empathy, even in characters who may have lots about them not worth liking. McMurtry embraces the limitations of the Western genre, stereotypes and themes included, but somehow crafts something that both subcribes and transcends, ultimately lending a gravity to one of the most romaticized periods in American history.

There was something so freeing about reading this book; purchase viagra online. Something that reminded me that reading is not only instructive or entertaining purchase viagra online, but absolutely transporting. Even if you don’t have the time or inclination to take in all 900+ pages of Larry McMurtry’s classic (and I suggest you do!) I hope you find something as inspiring to your reading life as this was to mine; purchase viagra online.

6 Comments


  1. Victoria A. Petersen said,


    Please note that the oh-so-awesome Robert Duvall and Tommy Lee Jones star in the mini-series, along with others too numerous to mention… :)

  2. Nanette said,


    This has been on my “want to read” list for quite a while…I’m going to have to pick it up when I get the chance. Thanks for reminding me about that!

  3. monica said,


    I did not mean to imply that the miniseries is not awesome. Although I haven’t yet seen it, common consensus is that it is one of the best miniseries achievements ever.

    In addition to participation from the very talented Robert Duvall and Tommy Lee Jones (as Victoria pointed out), Danny Glover, Angelica Huston, Diane Lane, Chris Cooper, and many other talented folks are involved.

  4. susanne said,


    I love this book too and I’ve often wondered if the cover puts people off. It doesn’t really convey “Pulitzer Prize winner.”

  5. susanne said,


    Hmm. I am not commenting at 12:30 AM. For me it’s about 1:30 in the afternoon. The site seems to be assigning me New York time.

  6. Mark said,


    It is the “great American’ novel, an American Illiad and Odyssey. It is difficult for me to estimate how many books I have read in my lifetime, but this one stands out like the brightest star in the horizon of words and books I have read.

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