Book Review: Lonesome Dove

Well folks, on Friday I finally finished Lonesome Dove, by Larry McMurtry.  All I can say is...wow!  What an incredible story.  The book started out pretty rough.  It was extremely slow and I had to work hard to keep my interest.  However, I feel as though those first boring 100 pages were completely necessary, to set the scene for the next 845.  

The book is begins in the dusty little "town" of Lonesome Dove, Texas, right on the Mexican border.  This is a true cowboy book, and the story is centered around two former Texas rangers, Gus McCrae and Woodrow Call.  Now that their rangering days are over, Gus and Call deal in horses and cattle.  The adventure begins when the duo decide to take three thousand cattle up to Montana to settle. 

I'm not usually one for cowboy stories, but this one blew me away.  The journey is difficult and claims several lives.  I have not cried this much while reading a book in a long time.  The book is full of powerful characters and emotion, and I was blown away by the storytelling and its affect on me.  

I don't think I'm doing a very good job of selling this book - or even properly explaining what it is about, because to be honest, the storyline is far too complex to summarize decently.  As previously mentioned, Lonesome Dove is lengthy - my copy was 945 pages - but I whipped through it.  On Friday, I sat down and read the last 400 pages in no time - I literally could not put it down.  

Please, read this book.

Book Review: The Bonfire of the Vanities

Now that the wedding is over and I have a life again, I've started getting into normal-people things...you know, laundry, reading, etc.  Those of you who knew me as a young lass probably know that I was quite the reader in my day.  Then came college, and grad school, and I didn't really have time for reading for pleasure for about 6 years.  Boo.  

Since I moved to DC, I have been reading pretty voraciously, although Matt makes fun of me and claims I start reading several books and never finish any.  This is not true!  Case in point, I recently finished three books (okay, two of them I read at the same time).  I thought that, now that I am also free to BLOG about anything I want, that it would be a great time for a book review of my latest conquer:  The Bonfire of the Vanities by Tom Wolfe.

I highly recommend this book.  This was my first Tom Wolfe novel, and if you've never read anything by him before, please note that he has a singular style.  It was a little difficult for me at first to get into the book, as his style threw me off a little bit.  Soon, I realized that I had read 100, then 200 pages, and at that point there was no putting it down.  The book is just over 600 pages and I read it in about 3 days.  It is a fabulous social commentary, and although it was written (and set) in the 1980s, there are a lot of sentiments that still hold true today.  

The book follows a millionaire investment banker who lives in an amazing 14-room apartment on Park Avenue, an assistant DA in the Bronx, and several other characters who all seem to focus on, well, their vanities.  In the end, the material things they all hold so dear contribute to their demise.  

I don't want to give too much away, because I hope you'll read this one!

The next book review, if I can ever finish the book, will be Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry.  I started this book three days ago and I'm only on page 53.  Both my husband and my father-in-law have informed me that the first 100 pages are incredibly boring...and after you get through that chunk, it will fly!  Which is probably good, because the book is 945 pages.  I'll keep you posted!