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REVIEW: Albert of Adelaide

By , on August 10th, 2012

Author: Howard L. Anderson

2012, Twelve

Filed Under: Western, Fantasy

Find it on Goodreads.

C4 Ratings...out of 10
Language..... 5
Entertainment..... 7
Depth..... 2

You may not know this about me, but I have an inexplicable predilection for books with talking animals. Even if they aren’t that great, I’m into them. So with that caveat, here’s my review of this western cast with anthropomorphized marsupials (mostly).

The book opens with the hero, Albert the platypus, having escaped a zoo (in Adelaide), and wandering the desert like a fish (or poisonous duck-beast) out of water. …
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REVIEW: The Sisters Brothers

By , on May 4th, 2011

[This gripping adventure-Western is a C4 Great Read. Find it and other C4 favorites at our Great Reads shelf at Powell's.]

Author: Patrick deWitt

2011, Ecco

Filed under: Literary, Western

Find it at Powell’s

C4 Ratings...out of 10
Language..... 10
Entertainment..... 9
Depth..... 10

The Sisters Brothers is a masterfully written Western that features a pair of ruthless hired gunmen, Charlie and Eli Sisters. They’re on a job, which means they’re tracking down a man to kill him. On the way they find floozies, witches, gangs, gunfights, and the growing suspicion that murdering people is killing them.

If you’re just looking for a good book to read, and you like Westerns or adventures or crime fiction, or anything close, just go read it fresh. The rest of this review is for anyone who needs a bit more convincing. …
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REVIEW: The Big Rock Candy Mountain

By , on May 19th, 2010

This book has been chosen as a Great Read

Author: Wallace Stegner

1938

Filed Under Literary, Historical, Western

C4 Ratings.....out of 10
Language..... 8
Entertainment..... 7
Depth..... 9

A friend of mine loaned me The Big Rock Candy Mountain as the capstone to a conversation about Great American Novels.  Wallace Stegner is an author I’d heard a lot about but never read.  As a novice, I was a little intimidated by the bulk of the book.  My friend assured me it was well worth the 563 page commitment.  And it was.  That and more.

The Big Rock Candy Mountain is an American saga about the trials of the Mason family. Set against the historical sweep of the early 20th century, the closing of the West, the First World War, the Roaring Twenties, and the Great Depression, Bo Mason leads his wife and sons in the reckless pursuit of their fortune, leaving his wife Elsa to salvage a life for all of them in the margins of her husband’s endless ambitions. …
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