Lonesome Dove
Larry McMurtry, 1985
Historical fiction Contemporary fictionLiterary fictionRomance
Two retired Texas Rangers drive a herd north from the Rio Grande and find the frontier they knew is already disappearing.
Feels like nostalgia and wonder. About friendship, adventure and memory.
A page from the book
The advice you give a friend who wants one thing too badly.
Lorie darlin’, life in San Francisco, you see, is still just life. If you want any one thing too badly, it’s likely to turn out to be a disappointment. The only healthy way to live life is to learn to like all the little everyday things, like a sip of good whiskey in the evening, a soft bed, a glass of buttermilk, or a feisty gentleman like myself. Larry McMurtry.Larry McMurtry grew up on a Texas ranch and co-founded the bookstore Booked Up; Lonesome Dove won the 1986 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction.
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Questions readers ask
- What is Lonesome Dove like?
- Feels like nostalgia and wonder. About friendship, adventure and memory.
- What should I read after Lonesome Dove?
- If you liked Lonesome Dove, try Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe (Fannie Flagg), The Alloy of Law (Brandon Sanderson) and Little House on the Prairie (Laura Ingalls Wilder).
A taste of the feed
The one thing she'd change about her life is a driver's license.
"But I never drove a car . . . I’ve been stranded most all my life. Always stayed close to home. Always had to wait for somebody to come and carry me to the store or to the doctor or down to the church. Years ago, you used to be able to take a trolley to Birmingham, but they stopped running a long time ago. The only thing I’d do different if I could go back would be to get myself a driver’s license.
Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe · Fannie Flagg
Some evenings the only way to breathe is to leave the ground behind.
He smiled, then flared his steel and Pushed off the top of the streetlight to send himself in a wide arc through the air. Mist streamed past him, swirling as the wind rushed against his face. It was thrilling. A man never truly felt free until he’d thrown off gravity’s chains and sought the sky.
The Alloy of Law · Brandon Sanderson
The prairie before anyone has claimed it, and the strange relief of being no one.
There was only the enormous, empty prairie, with grasses blowing in waves of light and shadow across it, and the great blue sky above it, and birds flying up from it and singing with joy because the sun was rising. And on the whole enormous prairie there was no sign that any other human being had ever been there.
Little House on the Prairie · Laura Ingalls Wilder
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