excellent abridged version of McCarthy's work

books:


	• The Cormac McCarthy Value Collection: All the Pretty Horses, The Crossing, Cities of the Plain Cormac Mccarthy Random House Audio, 2005 view larger image
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excellent abridged version of McCarthy's work

Cormac McCarthy is undoubtedly one of the best American writers alive today. This is precisely why I purchased one of his works for my first venture into the "books on tape" world. I feared that hearing his works read to me my a Hollywood actor would diminish its impact, but I am happy to report that Brad Pitt does a good job of keeping the spirit and humor of his writing up to par. There are, however, times when he seems bored with the task as his voice takes on a particularly lullaby-like quality, so be sure to keep a cup of coffee handy if listening while driving!

I have read all of these novels before so I was familiar with the stories. The abridgement did cut out some of my favorite passages (especially in the Crossing) where McCarthy embarks on a style parade worthy of Fitzgerald's or Faulkner's attention.

My wife and I listened to the stories while traveling through the Southwest, and it was a delight to experience the landscape through the eyes of the stories. If you are planning a cross country drive or a long drive through the New Mexico-Arizona-West Texas area, I cannot recommend enough these books on tape as travel companions!

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ALL THE PRETTY HORSES
The first volume of the Border Trilogy?tells of young John Grady Cole, the last of a long line of Texas ranchers. Across the border Mexico beckons?beautiful and desolate, rugged and cruelly civilized. With two companions, he sets off on an idyllic, sometimes comic adventure, to a place where dreams are paid for in blood.

THE CROSSING
In the late 1930?s, sixteen-year-old Billy Parham captures a she-wolf that has been marauding his family?s ranch. But instead of killing it, he decides to take it back to the mountains of Mexico. With that crossing, he beings an arduous and often dreamlike journey into a country where men meet like ghosts and violence strikes as suddenly as heat-lightening?a world where there is no order "save that which death has put there."

CITIES OF THE PLAIN
It is 1952 and John Grady Cole and Billy Parham are working as ranch hands in New Mexico, not far from the proving grounds of Alamogordo and the cities of El Paso and Juarez. Their life is made up of trail drives and horse auctions and stories told by campfire light. They value that life all the more because they know it is about to change forever.

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