The Genre Explorers discussion

With genre nominations closed, it's time to nominate some books for next month's groupreads :)

Genre: Western
Number of groupreads: 2

You can nominate two books, one written before the 1960s and one written in or after the 1960s.

Hopefully that will give the best possible overview of the genre. If you'd rather vote for someone else's nomination(s), you can also do that.


NOMINATIONS WILL CLOSE ON DEC. 18


Pre-1960s nominations:
- Aleta: The Virginian: A Horseman of the Plains by Owen Wister (1902, 352 pp)
- Shomeret: The Misadventures of Silk and Shakespeare by Win Blevins (1955, 186 pp)

Post-1960s nominations:
- Terri: Angle of Repose by Wallace Stegner (1971, 569 pp)
- Aleta: Doc by Mary Doria Russell (2011, 394 pp)
- MsG: Independence! by Dana Fuller Ross (1979, 432 pp)
- Shomeret: Trail of the Spanish Bit by Don Coldsmith (1980, 224 pp)
- Chuck: God's Thunderbolt: The Vigilantes of Montana by Carol Buchanan (2008, 418 pp)

INSPIRATION AND INFORMATION:

Some GR lists for inspiration:

Best Westerns
Literary Westerns
Best Contemporary Western Novels

Remember that books on such lists can't always be "trusted" - for instance, The Grapes of Wrath doesn't really belong there. It can be helpful to check the genres that show on the book's homepage (even if it's not always correct).

What Wikipedia says about the genre:

- Set in the American Old West Frontier
- Usually takes place around late 18th century to late 19th century

I will see about writing something from the Penguin Dictionary of Literary Terms and Theory as well, as it's probably slightly more to be trusted than wiki ;)

I'd like to nominate Angle of Repose.

Yay the first nomination! :) You can also nominate one pre-1960s if you want to Terri.

When a few more nominations have come in, or it's just closer to the deadline, I might nominate one or two myself, if that's okay? :)

That would be great, Aleta! I only nominated 1 book because that's probably all I can commit to for January. :)

Sure, just wanted to let you know you had the option :)

I really wanted to do more than 2 groupreads, to get a better feel for the genres, but with so few members, it would be too much since I should probably read all the groupreads ;) Once there are enough members though, I hope to have more.

Only two days to go!

I'll nominate these two books:

Pre-1960s: The Virginian: A Horseman of the Plains by Owen Wister (1902, 352 pp)

Post-1960s: Doc by Mary Doria Russell (2011, 394 pp)

Both are in the top 100 of the Literary Western and Best Westerns lists here on GR.

I'd nominate a book, but I know nothing about westerns, and those suggestions look good. :)

Really going to try to participate next month!

You can always vote for a book already nominated, if you want to of course :)

I'm glad to hear that!

I nominate post 1960, copyright 1978.

Independence! by Dana Fuller Ross

That one sounds fun :)

I tried finding it one the inter-library loan site for my country and for some reason I can get number 5 and 6 of that series but not the first lol! So if it ends up being one of the groupreads, I'll just read no 5 or 6, could be fun to compare the first in a series to a later one :)

Aleta wrote: "That one sounds fun :)

I tried finding it one the inter-library loan site for my country and for some reason I can get number 5 and 6 of that series but not the first lol! So if it ends up being ..."

Oh no no no...you must not read series out of order!
I will pick something else no problem.

I have a post 1960's nomination.

Trail of the Spanish Bit by Don Coldsmith
This is the first book in The Spanish Bit Saga, a series of Westerns that takes the viewpoint of Native Americans.

That's very sweet of you, but it's completely alright with me :) Living in Denmark means sometimes not being able to get a certain book unless I pay an insane amount of money to buy it and ship it here. I don't want anyone to feel like they can't nominate certain books because of that and sometimes it means reading a series out of order or not being able to read all its books. Yours isn't/won't be the last book nomination I can't get my hands on, so just nominate whatever you feel like! :) Besides, there will be two groupreads, so I won't miss out! Thank you for being so considerate :)

Due to this I'm actually thinking I might look around for a co-mod next month, so if a book that I can't read for one reason or another is picked, there'll still be one mod who can.

Shomeret, an interesting nomination! I've always loved stories about Native Americans and their culture. Kind of annoyed with my library for having such a lousy selection of westerns, they seem to have hardly any of the more fun ones, which is a shame. "Serious" literature seems to be prioritized.
The post-1960s list looks very varied now, both some more serious and some more fun reads :)

Also, thought I'd say "Hi! and welcome to the group" since I didn't see you in the introductions thread :) Hope you'll have fun with exploring genres.



Perhaps I should get myself an e-reader, many of the books that are too expensive to ship seem to cost so little money as e-books!

Haha! I found both books for free on the internet!! Something called openlibrary, I joined now and it says both can be borrowed, but I don't know how/if it works, especially not being an American as this seems to be US based. Hopefully it will work though :)

I have a nomination for post-1960 western. It won the 2009 Spur Award for Best First Novel by the Western Writers of America.

God's Thunderbolt: The Vigilantes of Montana

Aha, I finally found a pre-1960's nomination that sounds like fun. It's The Misadventures of Silk and Shakespeare by Win Blevins. Read the only review on the GR page.

God's Thunderbolt looks really good.

And that's great, another pre-1960s book!



Today is the last day of nominations.

Chuck wrote: "I have a nomination for post-1960 western. It won the 2009 Spur Award for Best First Novel by the Western Writers of America.

God's Thunderbolt: The Vigilantes of Montana

[bookcov..."

This sounds so good.

MsG wrote: "Chuck wrote: "I have a nomination for post-1960 western. It won the 2009 Spur Award for Best First Novel by the Western Writers of America.

[book:God's Thunderbolt: The Vigilantes of Montana|3741..."

I decided to take a look at this book on Amazon and discovered that I downloaded it two years ago. So I can definitely join the group read if it's selected.

Though I also think there should be a thread for people who decide to read Westerns other than the group read since we're exploring the genre.

NOMINATIONS ARE NOW CLOSED. POLLS WILL BE UP LATER TODAY.



@Shomeret, that's always been the plan :) That, and a thread for recommending books you've already read in that genre. I also have a monthly challenge all planned out which focuses on the genre while still allowing for other ones (in addition to the yearly one which focuses on reading as many subgenres and genres as possible). You can also do buddyreads and when we're enough people I plan to have 'Treasurehunters' where you get paired with someone and find a book you both want to read that month that fits the genre-of-the-month :) So plenty of ways to explore a genre!

THE POLLS ARE UP AND WILL CLOSE ON DEC. 28TH!


Hope I did it right, it's not as easy as I'd thought :)

THE POLLS CLOSE TOMORROW SO VOTE NOW IF YOU HAVEN'T ALREADY :)

The last time I checked, the post-1960s selection was a tie between two books, so your vote might be the deciding factor ;)