I didn't read it twice, but I loved it enough to recommend it to my wife, who also loved it, and then we recommended it to our college age kids, one of whom now loves it and one of whom is still reading it, having started very recently, telling us he's really enjoying it.

A blog post I happened to run across begins:

""" I have a problem: I’ve already read Lonesome Dove.

And Lonesome Dove is the most totally absorbing wonderfully awesome novel on the planet.

So nothing else really compares.

Hence, my problem. """ https://blog.pshares.org/the-lonesome-dove-problem/

> it ain’t dying I’m talking about. It’s living. I doubt it matters where you die. But it matters where you live.

We named our youngest Augustus after Augustus McCrae. It’s amazing how a novel that really shows the randomness and absurdity of life in the west ended up being such a beautiful and meaningful story. But, maybe that’s kind of how all of life is at any time period.