I'm not a big western fan but I pushed my way through this, and most of the time it wasn't that difficult. Good characters in a well told story. ( )

Deserving of it's Pulitzer. The American Myth reverently portrayed. ( )

one of my favorite books in the world. ( )

loved it! Wonderful story. I felt like I was on the cattle drive with them. Characters touched my heart. ( )

Lovingly written, wonderful characterisations, realistic cowboy tale. A bit too realistic in some parts but we are given the understanding that these events were more in line with the true old west than many 20th Century media would have us believe. The novel had an authentic feel to it and was rich with a history that leads one to realize that McMurtry knows of which he speaks. A true epic western with color and detail. I just could not put it down.

There have been enough blurbs about it, and it won the Pulitzer (I think). Another one I pick up and reread (anywhere in the book) when I have run out of new books to read. Other books in the series are also very good, especially Streets of Laredo. This is not just a western, whatever that usually is like. It is a great novel. ( )

Really liked this book. Loved the characters. ( )

Epic novel depicting the harsh life lived by creative characters in and around the Hat Creek Cattle Company - Gus, Captain Call, Dewt, Pea Eye, Lorena, Clara. The tale weaves a story around the trek from Lonesome Dove, Texas to the unknown territory of Montana - the camaraderie that develops between the characters and the unexpected surprises so deftly told.

I enjoyed this story, as it gave me a view into the lives of a different time and a different world. Augustus McCrae becomes my unexpected hero as his kind heart mixes with extraordinary bravery to have endeared himself not only to the other characters, but the reader as well.

One of my all time favorites. Only book I've read more than twice. Gus and Call are great! ( )

Well, this won the Pulitizer so my review counts for next to nothing, but though I'm not a reader of "westerns," this book is certainly in the top 5 of the best books I have ever read. The adventures are thrilling, the protagonists are heroic, and the villains are beyond cruel. Larry McMurtry has created some of the richest characters I've ever encountered on the printed page. And he doesn't just create marvelous male characters; Lorena and Clara are strong women, women the reader can envision fighting Indians or stitching wounds or enduring rape and torture. About two-thirds of the way through the book, Gus McCrae succumbs to his wounds and I sat and sobbed. I felt like a family member had died. I watched the mini-series and was pleasantly surprised by the faithfulness of the screenplay and the wonderful cast. I sobbed again when Gus died. If I could give this book six or seven stars I would. It's that good. ( )

My all time favorite. ( )

It begins in the office of The Hat Creek Cattle Company of the Rio Grande. It ends as a journey into the heart of every adventurer who ever lived... More than a love story, more than an adventure, LONESOME DOVE is an epic: a monumental novel which embraces the spirit of the last defiant wilderness. If you only read one Western in your life read this one. No other ha approached the accomplishment of LONESOME DOVE. ( )

After liking Terms of Endearment so much, I felt like I had to read something else by Larry McMurtry. This was the next logical step since it won the Pulitzer Prize and all.

This is, quite literally, one of the most wonderful books I've ever read. I can't think of a single thing I would change.

The time period isn't really set, but it's probably the 1880s or 1890s. A group of old Texas Rangers who had been sitting around the Mexican border and antagonizing vaqueros for around 20 years. When one of their old acquaintances rides up and tells them that Montana is a cattle paradise and they should grab some land, the Texas Rangers rustle some cattle and head across the great plains to the Canadian border.

I think the thing I liked most about it were all the little stories and nuances between the characters. There was always the fact that the cattle were heading north, but there was also a side story about the acquaintance that started it all, Jake Spoon, being chased by a sheriff from a town where he accidentally killed a man. The sheriff and two or three other parties from the same town intersect the story at various points, Jake Spoon has his own narrative that weaves in and out with the main plot, and even among the cowboys that are driving all the cows, there are many different relationships and strange characters. I've never read a book quite like this where it was so easy to like almost every single character.

The highlight for me was Augustus McCrae, who was the show-stopper, and his partner Woodrow Call. They were the two who owned the Hat Creek Company and the two that started the drive. They're polar opposites, but their friendship is an amazing thing. I suppose it's of the manly sort where it's never acknowledged, but both know how much the other means to them. This is actually proved at the end of the book, where one does the a pretty crazy favor because the other asked him to. The entire ending was pretty sad, actually, and I may have cried through the last 150 or so pages.

The casual violence also made me laugh, even though I'm pretty sure it was never an attempt at comedy. The best example is a scene where Woodrow and Gus walk into a bar with a surly bartender. After hearing a couple snide comments, Gus suddenly bashes the man's face into the bar, pulls out his gigantic pistol, throws a glass up in the air, and fires off a bullet that shatters it. He may have then knocked the man unconscious. When the Sheriff is called in, it's a man who used to Ranger with them a long time ago, and he simply says the bartender had been getting too cocky. It's a great scene.

And again, this was an absolutely wonderful book. I'm definitely going to read the sequels, though I have to admit I'm a little less excited about them if they don't happen to include Gus and Woodrow. I believe there are some prequels which may cover their Texas Ranger days, though. ( )

Good long Western epic. Many characters interact and show how they were part of this passing age. ( )

Lonesome Dove was recommended by a highly respected professor of education in a workshop I attended last spring. It was published in 1985, and won the Pulitzer Prize for McMurtry. Like Roots, it was made into a mini-series for television. It is the story of a colorful cast of characters, the "Hat Creek outfit," led by former Texas Rangers W. F. Call and Augustus McCrae, and their 3,000-mile cattle drive, from deep in dusty, hot Texas all the way to snowy Montana. It's a great western, full of adventure, and fun to read. ( )

In the tradition of the best of frontier reading, this book paints broad its word pictures on a broad canvas. Memorable characters are brought to life with detail and dept. If you want a good read set in the cowboy west, I recommend this book. ( )

I'm not a western fan, but this one caught my attention because Larry McMurtry won the Pulitzer Prize for it. I was not sorry I made the effort to read it. Another book that once I picked it up I had a hard time putting it down again. I would say, just 50 pages this morning and end up doing nothing else but reading. The characters were rough, compassionate, flawed and all together charming. The challenges facing the cattle drive were daunting and tragic and I was sorry to see the book end. ( )

This was the greatest book I have ever read. The writing is fantastic but most readers would not stick around without interesting and likable characters. This book is full of them. Make this your next book! ( )

Larry McMurtry has a great ability to get into the minds of his characters and show them working out their fates against the physical, economic and sexual landscape of frontier America. Lorena the empty headed whore holds them together just as much as the ex Texas Rangers Call and Augustus. An brilliant achievement and who would have guessed that Americas greatest novel would appear in 1985 ? ( )

I must have read upwards of a thousand serious novels over the last 30 years. I have no hesitation whatsoever in declaring that in my opinion, Lonesome Dove is the finest among them.

There is no need in detailing the various story lines of the novel. Suffice it to say that Larry McMurtry has crafted a masterpiece in all respects. The characters he has invented, warts and all, will live forever in the hearts and minds of his readers. ( )

This book is my all time favorite and I read it over a decade ago. Nothing compares to it. The story of two former Texas rangers, different as night and day, driving cattle from Texas to Montana to establish a ranch there, and all the adventures they have along the way. This book has it all. Its hilarious, sad, exciting and extremely well written. ( )

2046 Lonesome Dove a novel by Larry McMurtry (read 17 Jan 1987) (Pulitzer Fiction prize in 1986) This is a "western" such as I've never read before, and it is powerful, and overwhelming. There is much about the people I don't like. There are nauseating crude sexual episodes, and few if any of the characters have morals I approve of (only Clara, so far as the book shows, of the major characters seems to have a moral history), but the grandeur of the panorama is awesome. It tells of Woodrow Call and Augustus McCrae, former Texas rangers, who are at Lonesome Dove, a little town near the Rio Grande, when Call decides to drive a herd of cattle to Montana. The drive is filled with melodrama. There is lots of death, with lots of explicit violence, but one can't help but rejoice when the less bad guys who are the heroes triumph over the evil guys. There is unbelievable coincidence galore, and impossible super-human behavior, and all in all it is the most memorable Western I am ever likely to read. It got better and better as I read it, and the ending chapters had me often emotionally over-wrought A great reading experience. ( )

A darn good read that has given pleasure to many who would never have thought of themselves as fans of westerns. So popular, that it's spun off sequels, prequels, cinematizations and coffee-table picture books. (Bill Witliff's recent A Book of Photographs from Lonesome Dove is the acme of western mythologizing, with its sepia-toned evocations of nostalgia for a nostalgia for a way of life that never was.) McMurtry is such an engaging author and the reader is so willing to surrender to his non-stop manufacture of incident, that it is a bit jarring when some of the seams show. Here's an example: One of McMurtry's sub-plots involves the small-town lawman July Johnson's quest to find his runaway wife. With a lurch, I recalled that in a 1968 Hollywood western called Bandolero (a piece of crap that cast Dean Martin and Jimmy Stewart as brothers!! and whose two redeeming features were a comic vignette of Stewart posing as a hangman and a Jerry Goldsmith score with the melody played on a jew's harp) there was a secondary character named July Johnson (played by George Kennedy): a lawman on a quest to find his absconded sweetheart (played by Raquel Welch, who, come to think of it, supplied two more redeeming features). Both Julys even have deputies named Roscoe who mosey along after them and come to bad ends. As far as I can tell, McMurtry had nothing to do with the making of Bandolero, yet he imported a big chunk of it into his magnum opus without even bothering to change the names. It makes you wonder where all the rest of book came from. (You know, the hanging of Jake Spoon is lifted straight out of The Virginian, now that I think of it.) ( )

I really didn't expect to like this, not being much of a Western fan, but figured it would be good reading while I recovered from having my wisdom teeth pulled. I was really surprised by how much I enjoyed it! The characters were engaging and believable. ( )

Lonesome Dove is the story of Captain Augustus McCrae and Captain Woodrow F. Call, two former Texas Rangers who run the Hat Creek Cattle Company in South Texas. When their former partner Jake Spoon comes through town on the run from the law, he gives Call the idea of rustling up a bunch of cattle from Mexico and driving them up to Montana -- a practically unsettled frontier compared to the Texas they helped tame as Rangers. The bulk of the book follows the cattle drive from Texas to Montana, and McMurtry is at his best when describing the day-to-day life of the drive. He gives us details of the food, the weather, and the hard and monotonous work broken up by lots of card playing and the occasional unexpected death. Tons of people, both large and small characters, die in this book. Come to think of it, that's another reason I loved it in junior high. I like some tragedy mixed in with my adventure...

Mixed in with the cattle drive are stories of unrequited love in Ogallala, a whore with a heart of gold, a runaway wife, a bumbling deputy, a sheriff unprepared for his duty, and a young man growing up on the cattle drive. McMurtry weaves the stories in and out of each other nicely, changing perspectives and letting the reader into every character's head without losing the central thread of the story or the movement of the drive.

The last 150 pages or so drag a bit at times, particularly after the most entertaining and likable of all the characters meets his end, but overall this book is a really fun read that is worth revisiting.

[full review here: http://spacebeer.blogspot.com/2008/06...] ( )