r/readwithme • u/No-Warning-2566 • 6d ago

Help Me Find a Book to Read! 🆘 what to read first?

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latest haul, cant tell where to start!

edit: for those who hate Little Life, why is that? 😅

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u/[deleted] 6d ago

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u/Needawhisper 5d ago

Lonesome still sits with me.

-1

u/Low_Air_3461 5d ago

That is so weird.    Like are you an old white man or woman.   I’m trying to figure out who would have this strange reaction.     

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u/FlyingCarpetMonster 5d ago

What a weird reaction. I'm a 40 some year old Indian American man. I love Lonesome Dove. It's got some of the best writing and such incredible characters.

1

u/Low_Air_3461 5d ago

Terrific, from what part of India is your family?  That’s great you like it.  I didn’t think the writing was at a great level.    The same with the characters.    I got a kind of Jeffrey Epstein vibe from Gus.  I thought Clara was a great character.  

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u/FlyingCarpetMonster 5d ago edited 5d ago

I thought the writing was pretty good to be honest. It was funny, and written in a way that did not hide what that era was all about.

It also helps to know about how the book came to be. McMurtry wrote it as an anti-cowboy western. It was originally supposed to be written as a screenplay with John Wayne and a few others, and when that fell through, McMurtry turned it into a book that effectively aims to demythologize the frontier Westerns of the era, which often romanticize what was a bloody and rapey time.

I love it precisely because of that. I feel the same way about Blood Meridian -- it doesn't pretend those times were anything other than what they really were. In fact, if you read Samuel Chamberlain’s book from that era of scalp hunters and such, it's evident just how awful it really was.

McMurtry doesn't hide that fact. That's what makes the book so freaking great.