I’m a reluctant reader who wants a great Western book to read. I have never read any western books before so anything is fair game! I’m currently reading The Rider of Lost Creek, and I’m enjoying it. What are some essential reads?
Thanks!
by teddyroosevelt1909
17 Comments
Lonesome Dove. Starts slow but it’s a motherfucker.
Ride a Fast Horse by Kevin Warren is great and recent—but def in the Louis L’Amour style.
AB gutherie – Big Sky series
First book won the Pulitzer, second and third books are great too
If you think you would like weird west, try R. S. Belcher’s Golgotha series, starting with Six-Gun Tarot.
All the Pretty Horses by Cormac McCarthy or, if you’re looking for something more recent, Tom’s Crossing by Mark Z. Danielewski.
Consider Craig Johnson’s series, “A Cold Dish”
The Sisters Brothers.
The Sisters Brothers by Patrick DeWitt
True Grit by Charles Portis
try lonesome dove if you want something epic! i read it last semester for my lit class and it’s got everything – amazing characters, beautiful landscapes, and so much action that kept me hooked.
Anything by Elmer Kelton. His Ranger series consists of 9 books and covers about fifty years, the 1830s to 1880s.
Stand Proud is a great book that covers a guy’s life from when he was a young man during the Civil War to him being a rancher around the turn of the century.
Kelton has books that take place from the early 1800s all the way to the 1980s when they were written. He was the son & grandson of working cowboys and he worked for years as a stock reporter for the San Angelo, Texas newspaper.
In case you can’t tell, he’s probably my favorite author of all time.
Calamity by Libbie Hawker is a fictional (but well-researched) bio of Calamity Jane and I loved it.
Elmore Leonard wrote westerns before crime fiction, 3:10 to Yuma, Hombre, Valdez is coming, Last Stand at Saber River, all good
The Thousand Crimes of Ming Tsu by Tom Lin. A different take on the western and fantastic.
don’t overthink it: Lonesome Dove
I don’t like Westerns. I loved Lonesome Dove!
The Virginian by Owen Wister is the original western novel
Little Big Man. What a wonderful western.