Book cover of The Crossing

Book description

In The Crossing, Cormac McCarthy fulfills the promise of All the Pretty Horses and at the same time give us a work that is darker and more visionary, a novel with the unstoppable momentum of a classic western and the elegaic power of a lost American myth.

In the late…

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Why read it?

2 authors picked The Crossing as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

This is a gritty depiction of a young boy whose decisions are far from a child’s resolve. The portrait McCarthy gives the reader left me with trail dust in my throat it was so gritty. I was uprooted from my easy, protected life and transformed into the world of 16-year-old Billy as he chooses the hard way.

His decisions have consequences, but his resolve is strong.

Hundreds of pages into this book is a passage about the detonation of an atomic bomb which you could read and enjoy ten times and yet never catch the historical moment playing out before you. The Crossing is full of these layered, quiet chords that make you question what else you’re missing. No one makes me feel the profoundness of loss that our planet is experiencing more than McCarthy. Already we have lost landscapes and species, yes, but also individual creatures with their own wants and hurts and personalities. McCarthy’s deliberate but gorgeous writing makes you pause and dwell on…

From Seth's list on fiction about our place in nature.

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Book cover of A Last Serenade for Billy Bonney

A Last Serenade for Billy Bonney by Mark Warren,

Winner of the 2024 New Mexico - Arizona Book Award.

In this deeply researched novel of America's most celebrated outlaw, Mark Warren sheds light on the human side of Billy the Kid and reveals the intimate stories of the lesser-known players in his legendary life of crime. Warren's fictional composer…

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