Let me tell you, folks, he was a tremendous novelist, I mean the very best. Nobody could write like him, nobody. I liked him a lot, I really did. He had a way with words, a tremendous talent. But it's really sad, folks, really sad, what happened to him. The way he passed, it's just terrible. It's a tragedy, folks, a real tragedy. We lost a great one, a truly great one. And it's just so sad, so very sad
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I struggle to read novels - it’s hard for me to stay focused and I have minor dyslexia. All the Pretty Horses and the Road are two of my favorite books (I’m sure I’d love his others if/when I get to them, love No Country as a movie) because I can read it like it’s poetry. I don’t have to worry about every detail, Cormac seemed to write in a way that let me read the words like a harmony. I’ve even read from All the Pretty Horses at a spoken word pop-up. RIP to a magical (and yet extremely grounded) author
You're absolutely right. He and Pynchon gave me anxiety at first and quickly became some of my favorites. I could dive in or just glide at any moment in the story and it will be equally enjoyable
I'm part of a book club (well there's three of us) and we not infrequently have queer books of one sort or another. Here's a few that I've enjoyed that fit the bill
City in the middle of the Night by Charlie Jane Anders - it's a sci fi set on a planet that's tidally locked so only a thin band of twilight around the middle is habitable by humans. It's not primarily about such things but lesbianism is a strong undercurrent
Loveless by Alice Oseman - it's about someone going to university and figuring out that she's asexual rather than broken. I never would have thought I'd enjoy such a book but it's honestly great and funny. It feels kinda like a romantic comedy without the romance
Gideon The Ninth by Tamsyn Muir - this was sold to me with the line "lesbians and necromancers in space"! It's one part sci fi, one comedy, one part body horror, and the many character is lesbian and, while it's not a romance, her sexuality is relevant because she makes some really poor choices because of it! It's a quadrilogy but the final one hasn't been released yet (was going to be a trilogy but the author wrote an extra one)
Upright Women Wanted by Sarah Gailey - a rather short post-apocalyptic western about librarians smuggling queer people and anarchist literature
Criminal Gold by Ann Aptaker - A noir set in 1939 New York that's dark, gritty and (at times) brutal about a lesbian* (which was illegal back then) who is an art smuggler. Warning there is a rather too graphic SA scene very early on, but it doesn't actually cross that line again (though it comes close). The first in a series, I've read the first three and enjoyed them all.
DC Pride by various authors - a comic released each year by DC Comics to celebrate Pride month, about variously queer characters (and in one case, Kevin Conroy, the gay voice actor for Batman/Bruce Wayne in Batman The Animated Series)
* I swear we are not focused on lesbians, it's just happened that way!
Amazing suggestions. I have heard the "lesbians and necromancers in space" suggestion as well and I can't wait to read it, heh. I'd just seen a DC Pride book recently, but I didn't know it was a series they were doing, that's so awesome. My to read list has grown...need to figure out how to make shelves so i can split these out for my themed read.
There's at least three DC Pride books, and I expect they're do one every year (I've not read this years yet, actually... it might not be out yet of course). Marvel do something similar as well I think, but I've not read them
Wow, for some reason I always thought of him as some hotshot younger author who emerged in the 2000s - had no idea he was that old or that his career had gone on that long
Blood Meridian is a masterpiece and my favorite book of all time. "His feet are light and nimble. He never sleeps. He says that he will never die. He dances in light and in shadow and he is a great favorite. He never sleeps, the judge. He is dancing, dancing. He says that he will never die."
Blood Meridian is The American Novel as far as I’m concerned. As you said, A masterpiece. I reread it at least once a year. Have you listened to Ben Nichols album The Last Pale Light in The West by chance?
The last good historical disaster I read was Dead Wake: The Last Crossing of the Lusitania by Erik Larson. One of the best I've read was Into Thin Air by Jon Krakauer. And it was a historical disaster for the Polynesians, a really great audiobook narrated by the author Sarah Vowell: Unfamiliar Fishes
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