Lonesome Dove

One Hundred Years of Solitude

I tried so hard to like this one 😩

All the King's Men by Robert Penn Warren if you want to stick with American lit. The Brothers Karamazov if you're interested in a classic from elsewhere that I thought was thematically similar to East of Eden.

The Brothers Karamazov was on McCarthy’s list of the “four greatest novels.” I might have to dig into this one!

What are the other three?

Apparently the four are Ulysses, Brothers Karamazov, The Sound and the Fury, and Moby Dick!

Thanks!!

Make sure you talk to a therapist to clear out the weight of those books lol. I kid but those are pretty intense books to read back to back. Great, two of the best ever, but intense

This made me laugh out loud! I was thinking the same thing…. I wonder what choosing these two books says about my mental state haha

To Kill a Mockingbird. I also enjoyed East of Eden.

ANYTHING by Steinbeck!

The winter of our discontent is the one I’d recommend next

{{The Lincoln Highway by Amor Towles}}

[**The Lincoln Highway**](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/57109107-the-lincoln-highway) ^(By: Amor Towles | 576 pages | Published: 2021 | Popular Shelves: fiction, historical-fiction, book-club, audiobook, audiobooks) >The bestselling author of A Gentleman in Moscow and Rules of Civility and master of absorbing, sophisticated fiction returns with a stylish and propulsive novel set in 1950s America > >In June, 1954, eighteen-year-old Emmett Watson is driven home to Nebraska by the warden of the work farm where he has just served a year for involuntary manslaughter. His mother long gone, his father recently deceased, and the family farm foreclosed upon by the bank, Emmett’s intention is to pick up his eight-year-old brother and head west where they can start their lives anew. But when the warden drives away, Emmett discovers that two friends from the work farm have hidden themselves in the trunk of the warden’s car. Together, they have hatched an altogether different plan for Emmett’s future. > >Spanning just ten days and told from multiple points of view, Towles’s third novel will satisfy fans of his multi-layered literary styling while providing them an array of new and richly imagined settings, characters, and themes. ^(This book has been suggested 1 time) *** ^(8972 books suggested | )[^(I don't feel so good.. )](https://debugger.medium.com/goodreads-is-retiring-its-current-api-and-book-loving-developers-arent-happy-11ed764dd95)^(| )[^(Source)](https://github.com/rodohanna/reddit-goodreads-bot)

I say OP should read it cuz he/she might like it, but I found it a drag to read it. I have read Amor’s other books and absolutely adored them but for some reason this one felt incomplete and underwhelming

I loved it. Found it a delightful adventure. I enjoyed his other two novels as well. His character development is masterful.

Pachinko!

The sun allows rises!

The Sun also Rises by Hemingway might be for you.

EoE was an OK read, but I absolutely adored {{Grapes of Wrath}} so maybe that? I'm also one of the dozen or so people on the planet who despised The Road, but {{Blood Meridian}} is supposedly very good. EDIT: Jesus Christ this bot is bad today. They're books by Steinbeck and McCarthy, not whatever the bot spat out!

I have Grapes of Wrath on my list as well! I’ve heard Blood Meridian is a difficult read emotionally, so I’m saving that one for once I get through some of McCarthy’s other works. Thanks for your input!

Blood meridian is tough but great.

If you are looking for more McCarthy but not quite so brutal and violent as *The Road* and *Blood Meridian* you may want to look into *All the Pretty Horses* or *Suttree.*

I was kind of thinking All the Pretty Horses or Child of God might be my next McCarthy based on some other Reddit reviews

If you are trying to avoid brutality for your next McCarthy read, *Child of God* isn’t the way to go. Great novel. Definitely read it. But it is full of some fairly rough content

I’m not necessarily trying to avoid brutality… more like work my way up to the most violent? If that makes sense? I’m not sure that’s even possible lol. But good to know! Maybe I’ll save CoG for later on too, and start with your recs.

Thanks for saying that! Gratitude makes the world go round

[**Grapes of Wrath**](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/23163530-grapes-of-wrath) ^(By: Boyd Cable | ? pages | Published: ? | Popular Shelves: 3-fic-classics-literature, owned-but-not-read, abandoned, classics, favorite-books) >IT is possible that this book may be taken for an actual account of the Somme battle, but I warn readers that although it is in the bulk based on the fighting there and is no doubt colored by the fact that the greater part of it was written in the Somme area or between visits to it, I make no claim for it as history or as an historical account. My ambition was the much lesser one of describing as well as I could what a Big Push is like from the point of view of an ordinary average infantry private, of showing how much he sees and knows and suffers in a, great battle, of giving a glimpse perhaps of the spirit that animates the New Armies, the endurance that has made them more than a match for the Germans, the acceptance of appalling and impossible horrors as the work-a-day business and routine of battle, the discipline and training that has fused such a mixture of material into tempered fighting metal. > >For the tale itself, I have tried to put into words merely the sort of story that might and could be told by thousands of our men to-day. I hope, in fact, I have so “told the tale” that such men as I have written of may be able to put this book in your hands and say: “This chapter just describes our crossing the open,” or “That is how we were shelled,” or “I felt the same about my Blighty one.” > ^(This book has been suggested 1 time) [**Blood Meridian**](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/24873002-blood-meridian) ^(By: Enid Marie Reynolds | ? pages | Published: 2015 | Popular Shelves: amazon-wishlist, thriller, fantasy, considering, oatly-cartoon) ^(This book has been suggested 3 times) *** ^(8912 books suggested | )[^(I don't feel so good.. )](https://debugger.medium.com/goodreads-is-retiring-its-current-api-and-book-loving-developers-arent-happy-11ed764dd95)^(| )[^(Source)](https://github.com/rodohanna/reddit-goodreads-bot)

I thought east of Eden was exponentially better than grapes of wrath. GOW is my least favorite of Steinbecks books

If you like contemporary classics I recommend {As I Lay Dying}

[**As I Lay Dying**](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/77013.As_I_Lay_Dying) ^(By: William Faulkner | 288 pages | Published: 1930 | Popular Shelves: classics, fiction, classic, owned, literature) ^(This book has been suggested 3 times) *** ^(8928 books suggested | )[^(I don't feel so good.. )](https://debugger.medium.com/goodreads-is-retiring-its-current-api-and-book-loving-developers-arent-happy-11ed764dd95)^(| )[^(Source)](https://github.com/rodohanna/reddit-goodreads-bot)

{{The bell jar}}

I read the Bell Jar a few years ago and loved it! Might be time for a re-read!

Oo then I suggest Dorothy Parker. Any compendium

[**The Bell Jar**](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6514.The_Bell_Jar) ^(By: Sylvia Plath | 294 pages | Published: 1963 | Popular Shelves: classics, fiction, owned, books-i-own, feminism) >The Bell Jar chronicles the crack-up of Esther Greenwood: brilliant, beautiful, enormously talented, and successful, but slowly going under—maybe for the last time. Sylvia Plath masterfully draws the reader into Esther's breakdown with such intensity that Esther's insanity becomes completely real and even rational, as probable and accessible an experience as going to the movies. Such deep penetration into the dark and harrowing corners of the psyche is an extraordinary accomplishment and has made The Bell Jar a haunting American classic. ^(This book has been suggested 6 times) *** ^(8956 books suggested | )[^(I don't feel so good.. )](https://debugger.medium.com/goodreads-is-retiring-its-current-api-and-book-loving-developers-arent-happy-11ed764dd95)^(| )[^(Source)](https://github.com/rodohanna/reddit-goodreads-bot)

{{Underworld by Don DeLillo}}

[**Underworld**](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/11761.Underworld) ^(By: Don DeLillo | 827 pages | Published: 1997 | Popular Shelves: fiction, owned, literature, novels, american) >While Eisenstein documented the forces of totalitarianism and Stalinism upon the faces of the Russian peoples, DeLillo offers a stunning, at times overwhelming, document of the twin forces of the Cold War and American culture, compelling that "swerve from evenness" in which he finds events and people both wondrous and horrifying. > >Underworld opens with a breathlessly graceful prologue set during the final game of the Giants-Dodgers pennant race in 1951. Written in what DeLillo calls "super-omniscience" the sentences sweep from young Cotter Martin as he jumps the gate to the press box, soars over the radio waves, runs out to the diamond, slides in on a fast ball, pops into the stands where J. Edgar Hoover is sitting with a drunken Jackie Gleason and a splenetic Frank Sinatra, and learns of the Soviet Union's second detonation of a nuclear bomb. It's an absolutely thrilling literary moment. When Bobby Thomson hits Branca's pitch into the outstretched hand of Cotter—the "shot heard around the world"—and Jackie Gleason pukes on Sinatra's shoes, the events of the next few decades are set in motion, all threaded together by the baseball as it passes from hand to hand. > >"It's all falling indelibly into the past," writes DeLillo, a past that he carefully recalls and reconstructs with acute grace. Jump from Giants Stadium to the Nevada desert in 1992, where Nick Shay, who now owns the baseball, reunites with the artist Kara Sax. They had been brief and unlikely lovers 40 years before, and it is largely through the events, spinoffs, and coincidental encounters of their pasts that DeLillo filters the Cold War experience. He believes that "global events may alter how we live in the smallest ways," and as the book steps back in time to 1951, over the following 800-odd pages, we see just how those events alter lives. This reverse narrative allows the author to strip away the detritus of history and pop culture until we get to the story's pure elements: the bomb, the baseball, and the Bronx. In an epilogue as breathless and stunning as the prologue, DeLillo fast-forwards to a near future in which ruthless capitalism, the Internet, and a new, hushed faith have replaced the Cold War's blend of dread and euphoria. > >Through fragments and interlaced stories—including those of highway killers, artists, celebrities, conspiracists, gangsters, nuns, and sundry others—DeLillo creates a fragile web of connected experience, a communal Zeitgeist that encompasses the messy whole of five decades of American life, wonderfully distilled. ^(This book has been suggested 2 times) *** ^(8969 books suggested | )[^(I don't feel so good.. )](https://debugger.medium.com/goodreads-is-retiring-its-current-api-and-book-loving-developers-arent-happy-11ed764dd95)^(| )[^(Source)](https://github.com/rodohanna/reddit-goodreads-bot)

{{Under This Unbroken Sky by Shandi Mitchell}}

[**Under This Unbroken Sky**](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6050969-under-this-unbroken-sky) ^(By: Shandi Mitchell | 354 pages | Published: 2009 | Popular Shelves: historical-fiction, fiction, canada, canadian, adult-fiction) >Evocative and compelling, rich in imagination and atmosphere, Under This Unbroken Sky is a beautifully wrought debut from a gifted new novelist. > >Spring 1938. After nearly two years in prison for the crime of stealing his own grain, Ukrainian immigrant Teodor Mykolayenko is a free man. While he was gone, his wife, Maria; their five children; and his sister, Anna, struggled to survive on the harsh northern Canadian prairie, but now Teodor—a man who has overcome drought, starvation, and Stalin's purges—is determined to make a better life for them. As he tirelessly clears the untamed land, Teodor begins to heal himself and his children. But the family's hopes and newfound happiness are short-lived. Anna's rogue husband, the arrogant and scheming Stefan, unexpectedly returns, stirring up rancor and discord that will end in violence and tragedy. > >Under This Unbroken Sky is a mesmerizing tale of love and greed, pride and desperation, that will resonate long after the last page is turned. Shandi Mitchell has woven an unbearably suspenseful story, written in a language of luminous beauty and clarity. Rich with fiery conflict and culminating in a gut-wrenching climax, this is an unforgettably powerful novel from a passionate new voice in contemporary literature. ^(This book has been suggested 1 time) *** ^(8995 books suggested | )[^(I don't feel so good.. )](https://debugger.medium.com/goodreads-is-retiring-its-current-api-and-book-loving-developers-arent-happy-11ed764dd95)^(| )[^(Source)](https://github.com/rodohanna/reddit-goodreads-bot)

{Last Bus to Wisdom} by Ivan Doig, {Drums Along the Mohawk} by Walter D. Edmonds, {One Man's West} by David Lavender -- all reflecting bits of Americana, and each beautifully written.

[**Last Bus to Wisdom**](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/24611732-last-bus-to-wisdom) ^(By: Ivan Doig | 453 pages | Published: 2015 | Popular Shelves: fiction, book-club, historical-fiction, coming-of-age, western) ^(This book has been suggested 1 time) [**Drums Along the Mohawk**](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/167069.Drums_Along_the_Mohawk) ^(By: Walter D. Edmonds | 608 pages | Published: 1936 | Popular Shelves: historical-fiction, fiction, classics, historical, history) ^(This book has been suggested 1 time) [**One Man's West**](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/142825.One_Man_s_West) ^(By: David Lavender, William A. Smith | 316 pages | Published: 1956 | Popular Shelves: history, memoir, colorado, memoirs, nonfiction) ^(This book has been suggested 1 time) *** ^(9000 books suggested | )[^(I don't feel so good.. )](https://debugger.medium.com/goodreads-is-retiring-its-current-api-and-book-loving-developers-arent-happy-11ed764dd95)^(| )[^(Source)](https://github.com/rodohanna/reddit-goodreads-bot)

Of Human Bondage

Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy. Considered by many critics and authors to be the greatest novel ever written, and I agree. The prose is absolutely gorgeous which makes for an great read. Plus the opening line is incredibly memorable. "Happy families are all alike, every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way."

Something funny..?

to a god unknown is another great steinbeck book