On the Selection of All the Pretty Horses

For the first book of Guys Who Read, I have selected All the Pretty Horses by Cormac McCarthy.  I settled on the highly acclaimed novel because it came highly recommended by a few English teachers at Nantucket High, and how that recommendation came about is worth mentioning.

I am a huge Larry McMurtry fan.  As a junior at Nantucket High, Lonesome Dove was assigned, and luckily, the teacher was intimidating enough that I actually read the thousand-plus pages, although I think I was totally hooked after about ten.  After I finished Lonesome Dove, I went on to read The Streets of Laredo, Dead Man’s Walk and Commanche Moon, and have been a lover of anything Lonesome Dove every since.  I was always a reader, even as a youngster, but McMurtry is probably responsible for kicking my reading addiction into high gear.  In the past couple years, I have been working my way through McMurtry’s other works, including selecting The Last Picture Show for the book club I am in with the Nantucket High English Department.

All the Pretty Horses has been part of the Nantucket High curriculum for a number of years, and a number of them agreed that I would like the works of Cormac McCarthy, and in particular, All the Pretty Horses.  Contrary to appearances thus far, I am not a big western guy.  I certainly do not dislike them, but neither do I search out books with cowboys and horses.  I regard Lonesome Dove as a great book that happens to be a western, and not as a great western.  I point this out merely as a way of saying the McCarthy has big shoes to fill having been compared to McMurtry and the presense of horses and other things western is not a surefire way of endearing me to his work.

A major contributing factor to starting Guys Who Read is that in recent years, I have read a number of great books, and upon finishing a great book, I immediately want to discuss it, and most of the time that has not been possible.  I look forward to revisiting some of these great reads with Ryan and Jake and Guys Who Read, but for our first selection, and as we begin blogging for the first time, I think starting out with something that is new to everybody is somehow more appropriate.

I am looking forward to the book and the conversation,

-Matt