In June, on the three day drive from Missouri to Oregon with our new-to-us Hawk camper we started listening to "Lonesome Dove" by Larry McMurtry. I can't believe I never read this American classic. And it was fun because so much of the action takes place in Nebraska and Wyoming, which we were driving across at the time we were listening.
The audio book we listened to (are listening to, since we have yet to finish this monumentally long book) is read by Lee Horsley. At first I thought I wasn't going to be able to listen to the exaggerated way he portrayed some of the characters, but I have gotten used to it and it's not bothering me any more. Also, I'm so sucked into the plot and the characters that I would listen to almost any rendition of the book. What is amazing about this writing is that a huge and detailed world, and masterful character development, is given to you with only two things: dialog, and internal monologues that various characters have. There is almost no pure narration. It's so well done.
It's something like 38 hours long. We had only finished about 55% by the time we got home from Missouri. We continue to listen, but only when driving the truck/camper. I think we're at 85% finished. It's a remarkable book about the settling of the West, a long cattle drive to Montana, and relations between white settlers and Native Americans. It's fiction with a lot of accurate history thrown in.
Maybe this book was already mentioned upthread somewhere. It's hard to imagine it wasn't. But I thought I would chime in with my recent wonderful experience of it. With 15% left to go!