Lando (original 1962; edition 2006)

by Louis L'Amour, Josh Hamilton (Reader)

Series: The Sacketts - publishing order (1962-12), The Sacketts - chronological (7), The Sacketts (7)

Members	Reviews	Popularity	Average rating	Mentions
348	6	28,560	(3.7)	6

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Title	Lando
Author Hamilton, Josh	Louis L'Amour
Tags	Western, Historical Fiction, Audiobook, Don't Own
Collections	My Library, Read in 2010, Audiobooks, Read but unowned
Rating
Review	Up to this point my experience with Westerns has been limited to shelving them at the library and observing how much the Amish young men of my hometown loved them. That and the aggressively male tone of the genre combined to make me think that Westerns were somehow inferior to my usual reads — too formulaic, too predictable, and too blinded by their own conventions to be enjoyed by anyone outside the circle of the campfire. But I have come to realize how much I enjoy genre-driven books. Don't formulas exist because they work? Anyone who enjoys a good murder mystery, as I do, would have to agree. Formulaic isn't always bad. Prolific and immensely popular, Louis L'Amour is to Westerns what Agatha Christie is to mysteries. I wanted to break into the genre with something in the mainstream, and considering L'Amour's 80+ titles, he seemed a good choice. And so I picked up the audiobook of Lando, seventh in L'Amour's Sackett saga. Perhaps L'Amour experts can tell me if this was a good option for my first Western or if there are other titles they would have recommended, but I certainly enjoyed it. This unabridged audiobook was read by Josh Hamilton for Random House Audio. Lando tells the story of Orlando Sackett, who, at age eleven, is left by his recently widowed father with Mr. McCaffrey for his education and upbringing, paid for in mysterious Spanish gold. But McCaffrey is a hard man, and Lando runs away to live alone at the old family homestead in the Tennessee mountains. Five years later he leaves those mountains with the Tinker, who brings news of Lando's three uncles who are bent on murdering him. They wander west, in a way that seems aimless at first. But it soon becomes clear that there is a secret purpose to the Tinker's travels — a long-lost treasure sunk off the Mexican coast. Where did Lando's father Falcon Sackett get that rich Spanish gold? And did he teach Lando the clues to its whereabouts before he left? The story is surprisingly complex, encompassing a quest, exile, horseracing, a monumental boxing match, imprisonment, torture, revenge, lovely ladies, double-crossing landowners, pirates, outlaws, and more. I can see why the Amish boys would gulp this stuff down so hungrily — I found myself inhaling the story impatiently as I made my daily commute. Perhaps those Amish boys and I aren't so different after all. We both love good storytelling. And there's just so much that is fun about a tale like this... the manly men, the pretty women with their various secret agendas, the gunslinging and fist action, the history woven casually into the narrative. L'Amour is a master of pacing and more than once I smiled (and grimaced!) at the cliffhangers at the end of his long chapters. Occasionally the prose felt a bit stilted; maybe it's just the way that Hamilton reads. But I noticed this less and less as the story gathered steam. So I read my first Western, and I'm glad curiosity got the best of my snobbery. Lando is great fun and I'll be looking for more of L'Amour's books, especially those in the Sackett cycle.
Other authors Hamilton, Josh Reader 169 2	Reader – Hamilton, Josh


Publication date	2006
Publication	Random House Audio (2006), Edition: Unabridged, Audio CD
ISBN	0739321145 / 9780739321140
Number of volumes	4
Number of copies	1
Dimensions	5.5 x 4.9 x 1 inches
Weight	0.55 pounds


LC Classification 1	PZ3.L1937Lan
Dewey	813.52


Subjects	Americans › Mexico › Fiction Gold mines and mining › Fiction Large type books Mexico › Fiction Prisoners › Fiction Revenge › Fiction Sackett family (Fictitious characters) › Fiction Western stories


Primary language eng	English
Secondary language	(blank)
Original language


Comments
Date acquired
Date started	2010-07-10
Date finished	2010-07-17
Summary 0	Lando by Louis L'Amour (2006)


BCID	XXX-
From where?
Data source	amazon.com
Private	No


Citation	MLA, APA, BibTeX, Chicago/Turabian, Wikipedia citation