The next Reader’s Advisory Roundtable will be on Wednesday,
August 14th at 9:30am and the topic up for discussion will be large print for
book groups! This meeting will also be
the 2025 voting session and I am actively seeking a new moderator for the
roundtable. I’ve been honored to serve
for the last 16 years, but it’s time to pass the torch 😊 Let me know if you are interested.
Today, RART met to discuss Westerns. Title descriptions
pulled from Amazon and Rotten Tomatoes.
In attendance:
Holley, O’Neal
Nicole, Tarrant
Lora, Vestavia
Tamara, Irondale
Cara, Center Point
Connie, Wylam
Bridget, Homewood
Gelenda
Fontaine
Done & Dusted by Lyla Sage
For the first time in her life, Clementine “Emmy” Ryder has
no idea what she’s doing. She’s accomplished everything on her to-do list. She
left her small hometown of Meadowlark, Wyoming; went to college; and made a
career for herself by doing her favorite thing: riding horses. But after an
accident makes it impossible for her to get back into the saddle, she has no
choice but to return to the hometown she always wanted to escape.
Luke Brooks is Meadowlark’s most notorious bad boy, bar owner, and bachelor. He’s
also the unofficial fifth member of the Ryder family. As Emmy’s older brother’s
best friend, Luke spent most of his childhood antagonizing her. It’s been years
since he’s seen her, but when she walks into his bar and back into his life, he
can’t take his eyes off her. Despite his better judgment, he wants to do a
whole lot more than just look at her.
Emmy’s got too much on her mind to think about romance. And Luke knows he
should stay away from his best friend’s younger sister. But what if Luke is just
what Emmy needs to get her spark back? Or will they both go up in flames?
Swift & Saddled by Lyla Sage
The last thing Ada Hart needs is a man to take care of her.
Not anymore. After failing out of her interior design program and the disaster
that was her short-lived marriage, Ada clawed her way up from her rock bottom.
Now, the only person she trusts is herself, and that has gotten her further
than ever before. She has her own business, and one of the largest ranches in
Wyoming just hired her for the most important project of her career.
When Ada arrives in Meadowlark, she finds herself in a dive bar where she can’t
seem to shake the eyes of a handsome cowboy. When she leads him to the back of
the bar, he leaves her with a kiss that most people can only fantasize about.
She almost regrets that she’ll never see him again . . . except
it turns out he’s her new boss.
Weston Ryder is a happy guy. Even happier now that the mystery woman from the
bar is the interior designer for his dream project on his family’s ranch. He
feels like he hit the jackpot. It’s too bad she wants absolutely nothing to do
with him outside of work. Ada is convinced the pull she feels toward Wes will
go away, but Wes can’t stop thinking about her. Even though walls are coming
down around Rebel Blue, Ada’s walls are firmly in place.
Can they make it through this project without giving in? Or will they both put
their dreams on the line for a chance at love?
A frontier farm woman (Hilary Swank) saves the life of a
claim-jumper (Tommy Lee Jones) and persuades him to help her escort three
insane women to a safe haven in Iowa.
Outlawed by Anna North
The day of her wedding, 17 year old Ada's life looks good;
she loves her husband, and she loves working as an apprentice to her mother, a
respected midwife. But after a year of marriage and no pregnancy, in a town
where barren women are routinely hanged as witches, her survival depends on
leaving behind everything she knows.
She joins up with the notorious Hole in the Wall Gang, a band of outlaws led by
a preacher-turned-robber known to all as the Kid. Charismatic, grandiose, and
mercurial, the Kid is determined to create a safe haven for outcast women. But
to make this dream a reality, the Gang hatches a treacherous plan that may get
them all killed. And Ada must decide whether she's willing to risk her life for
the possibility of a new kind of future for them all.
Featuring an irresistibly no-nonsense, courageous, and determined
heroine, Outlawed dusts off the myth of the old West and reignites
the glimmering promise of the frontier with an entirely new set of feminist
stakes. Anna North has crafted a pulse-racing, page-turning saga about the
search for hope in the wake of death, and for truth in a climate of
small-mindedness and fear.
The Bullet Swallower by Elizabeth Gonzalez James
In 1895, Antonio Sonoro is the latest in a long line of
ruthless men. He’s good with his gun and drawn to trouble but he’s also out of
money and out of options. A drought has ravaged the town of Dorado, Mexico,
where he lives with his wife and children, and so when he hears about a train
laden with gold and other treasures, he sets off for Houston to rob it—with his
younger brother Hugo in tow. But when the heist goes awry and Hugo is killed by
the Texas Rangers, Antonio finds himself launched into a quest for revenge that
endangers not only his life and his family, but his eternal soul.
In 1964, Jaime Sonoro is Mexico’s most renowned actor and singer. But his
comfortable life is disrupted when he discovers a book that purports to tell
the entire history of his family beginning with Cain and Abel. In its ancient
pages, Jaime learns about the multitude of horrific crimes committed by his
ancestors. And when the same mysterious figure from Antonio’s timeline shows up
in Mexico City, Jaime realizes that he may be the one who has to pay for his
ancestors’ crimes, unless he can discover the true story of his grandfather
Antonio, the legendary bandido El Tragabalas, The Bullet Swallower.
A family saga that’s epic in scope and loosely based on the author’s own
great-grandfather, The Bullet Swallower is “rich in lyrical language,
gripping action, and enchanting magical realism” (Esquire). It tackles border
politics, intergenerational trauma, and the legacies of racism and colonialism
in a lush setting with stunning prose that asks who pays for the sins of our
ancestors and whether it is possible to be better than our forebearers.
Last of the Breed by Louis L’Amour
Here is the kind of authentically detailed epic novel that
has become Louis L’Amour’s hallmark. It is the compelling story of U.S. Air
Force Major Joe Mack, a man born out of time. When his experimental aircraft is
forced down in Russia and he escapes a Soviet prison camp, he must call upon
the ancient skills of his Indian forebears to survive the vast Siberian
wilderness. Only one route lies open to Mack: the path of his ancestors,
overland to the Bering Strait and across the sea to America. But in pursuit is
a legendary tracker, the Yakut native Alekhin, who knows every square foot of
the icy frontier—and who knows that to trap his quarry he must think like a
Sioux.
The Son by Philipp Meyer
Part epic of Texas, part classic coming-of-age story, part
unflinching examination of the bloody price of power, The Son is a gripping and
utterly transporting novel that maps the legacy of violence in the American
west with rare emotional acuity, even as it presents an intimate portrait of
one family across two centuries.
The Sisters Brothers by Patrick deWitt
Hermann Kermit Warm is going to die. The enigmatic and
powerful man known only as the Commodore has ordered it, and his henchmen, Eli
and Charlie Sisters, will make sure of it. Though Eli doesn’t share his
brother’s appetite for whiskey and killing, he’s never known anything else. But
their prey isn’t an easy mark, and on the road from Oregon City to Warm’s
gold-mining claim outside Sacramento, Eli begins to question what he does for a
living-and whom he does it for.
With The Sisters Brothers, Patrick deWitt pays homage to the classic Western, transforming it into an unforgettable comic tour de force. Filled with a remarkable cast of characters-losers, cheaters, and ne’er-do-wells from all stripes of life-and told by a complex and compelling narrator, it is a violent, lustful odyssey through the underworld of the 1850s frontier that beautifully captures the humor, melancholy, and grit of the Old West and two brothers bound by blood, violence, and love.
Authors mentioned:
William Johnstone (a participant asked about similar authors: Robert Vaughan, James Reasoner, Charles West, Michael McGarrity, Ralph Compton, Johnny Boggs, Max Brand)
A participant asked about woman-forward westerns, and I
finally remembered Dana Fuller Ross! I read many of her books years ago and my memory of them is that they should fit the bill.
IMDB lists 42 films and tv shows adapted from Louis L’Amour’s
work! https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0478263/
Here is what’s available in the JCLC:
Crossfire Trail
The Sacketts miniseries
Hondo
Louis L'Amour Western Collection
The Quick and the Dead
The Shadow Riders
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