Lonesome Dove series by Larry McMurtry

[EC2]

I've yet to read Lonesome Dove. I've only read Dead Man's Walk of the titles mentioned but I did really enjoy it and I intend picking up the others as time and reading whim permit. If the others are better than DMW which I gave 5 stars, then I'm in for a treat!

[nona]

you'll enjoy it, I read them in high school and loved them and the movies are good also.

[Celia Hayes]

I dunno - I specialize in HF about the Texas frontier, and I made a heroic effort to read them all ... in spite of Lonesome Dove having the very best opening sentence evah! I was left pretty baffled. Wrote about it, here.
Your mileage may vary, though.

[JMJacobsen]

Originally Posted by Gaslight

I've read all of them except Streets of Laredo. Started that one, but the dismissive way McMurtry killed off July Johnson in the first few pages frankly PO'd me to the point where I refused to read further and I've never picked it up again.

Crikey, he killed off July?!? That settles it...I won't read the rest of them.

[Margaret]

Lonesome Dove was such an outstanding novel, it would be hard to top, and the others in the series really don't measure up. If I hadn't read any of them and I were determined to read the whole series, I think I would save Lonesome Dove for last, in order to be able to judge the others fairly. But for anyone who's not sure whether they'll get around to the whole series, I'd say read Lonesome Dove if you read any of them. Of course, my husband couldn't get into it, although he loved the TV series.

[Gaslight]

Originally Posted by JMJacobsen

Crikey, he killed off July?!? That settles it...I won't read the rest of them.

Tell me about it. It's so tossed off, too! I think it's from Clara's POV that last year July broke his neck and died while working with a horse and she thinks, "July never was good with horses."

Clara was never my favorite character anyway, but it just seemed incredibly callous, even for her.

[Celia Hayes]

To me, McMurtry just seemed pretty callous anyway - July wasn't the first semi-major character so casually tossed off, sometimes they are disposed of between books! I tried my very best, but I couldn't warm to the Lonesome Dove series ...
and I speak as one who killed off a major heroic character midway through the second book about him and his family! (But I had planned it that way from the beginning, and the whole rest of the story arc depended upon his death! I still get heartbroken notes from first-time readers though -describing their quiet weep.)

[burlgirl]

I have very vivid memories of Lonesome Dove.

The book was given to me by a boss that I had a hard time liking, so it set in my TBR pile for about 3-4 years. When I finally got around to reading it I fell hard for the book. Just loved it. I admit that it was the first time I got really got angry with an author and threw a book, though. Without giving away a spoiler, it was when my favorite character died. I ranted and raved for days about it to everyone who would listen. I eventually picked the book up and finished it, but I admit that I've never quite forgiven Larry M for doing that.

As for the movie, I thought it was a terrific adaption, even though I've never really cared for the actor (I'm blanking on his name) who played Gus. I do admit that the part bought him a lot of credit with me, even when I saw him in other things, I'd keep telling myself, "Remember, he played Gus". It was also the first thing I had noticed Tommy Lee Jones in (his movies weren't really my type), and was pretty impressed with him.