All My Friends Are Going to Be Strangers

By Larry McMurtry,

Book cover of All My Friends Are Going to Be Strangers

Book description

Hailed as one of "the best novels ever set in America's fourth largest city" (Douglas Brinkley, New York Times Book Review), All My Friends Are Going to Be Strangers is a powerful demonstration of Larry McMurtry's "comic genius, his ability to render a sense of landscape, and interior intellection tension"…

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Why read it?

2 authors picked All My Friends Are Going to Be Strangers as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

This American classic by Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist, Larry McMurtry, is read by university students worldwide. It’s set in its own time of indulgent decadence where little value is placed on the lives of individuals met by Danny Deck, the sad-sack protagonist, who denigrates his published work to the point of tearing up a copy of the novel he carries with him before drowning his own sorry self in the river of the Rio Grande. Yet, Danny is as much at fault for the sloppy treatment of the company he keeps as his company is for being disingenuous.   

What McMurtry calls…

Everybody knows about Larry McMurtry’s epic western, Lonesome Dove, but far fewer realize that McMurtry was at Stanford with Ken Kesey and Robert Stone in the early 1960s -- and he always had fascinating connections to the sixties counterculture.

All My Friends are Going to Be Strangers is one of McMurtry’s most endearing works: the portrait of a young, beat-influenced writer on an epic series of memorable road trips through Texas and the West. He’s exploring, observing, and questioning everything, including his own craft. The climactic scene, where McMurtry’s protagonist wades out into the Rio Grande to drown his…

A Last Serenade for Billy Bonney

By Mark Warren,

Book cover of A Last Serenade for Billy Bonney

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Why am I passionate about this?

Author Composer Archer Teacher Grateful

Mark's 3 favorite reads in 2023

What is my book about?

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 and Santa Fe journalist, John Blessing, is assigned to report on a jailed prisoner who calls himself "Willima H. Bonney," but what begins as a formal interview evolves into an unexpected relationship and a self-examination of Blessing's own cultured, city values.

After the Kid's death, Blessing embarks on a journey to find Billy's comrades and acquaintances - those who loved…

A Last Serenade for Billy Bonney

By Mark Warren,

What is this book about?

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 and Santa Fe journalist, John Blessing, is assigned to report on a jailed prisoner who calls himself "William H. Bonney," but what begins as a formal interview evolves into an unexpected relationship and a self-examination of Blessing's own cultured, city values.

After the Kid's death, Blessing embarks on a journey to find Billy's comrades and acquaintances - those who loved…


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