Best Westerns

Books, that is. Not the hotel chain. A sampling of the best westerns written.
Updated October 2, 2022
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True grit
Portis, Charles.
A #1 New York Times bestseller, Charles Portis's True Grit is "an epic and a legend" (Washington Post), a story of danger and adventure in the Old West--the basis for two award-winning films, the first starring John Wayne in his only Oscar-winning role, as...
All the pretty horses
McCarthy, Cormac, 1933-
Now a major motion picture from Columbia Pictures starring Matt Damon, produced by Mike Nichols, and directed by Billy Bob Thornton. The national bestseller and the first volume in Cormac McCarthy's Border Trilogy, All the Pretty Horses is the tale of John Grady Cole, who...
Lonesome Dove
McMurtry, Larry.
A love story and an epic of the frontier, Lonesome Dove is the grandest novel ever written about the last, defiant wilderness of America. Richly authentic, beautifully written, Lonesome Dove is a book to make readers laugh, weep, dream and remember. Now a blockbuster television event.
Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford
Hansen, Ron
"Recalls the literature of Americana by John Steinbeck, Erskine Caldwell, Willa Cather, and Hamlin Garland . . . Hansen has broadened our perception of the West in much the same way as the best historians . . . and proven himself one of our finest stylists of American historical fiction." -...
The quick and the dead
L'Amour, Louis
In 1876 Wyoming, the gun is the only law. Con Vallian knew the best way to stay out of trouble was to mind his own business. Then he stopped for a cup of coffee at a stranger's campfire and found himself guiding the McKaskels, a family of greenhorn Easterners, across the prairie - fighting a pack of...
Virginian a horseman of the plains
Wister, Owen, 1860-1938.
In the thousands of miles of rugged rangeland around Medicine Bow, Wyoming, the only law that rules is the law of the gun. A man has to have an iron jaw and a fast trigger to stay alive. And no one is tougher than the Virginian. A peaceable man by nature, slow to anger and soft-spoken, fair and just...
Sisters brothers
deWitt, Patrick, 1975-
SOON TO BE A MAJOR MOTION PICTURE STARRING JAKE GYLLENHAAL, RIZ AHMED, JOHN C. REILLY, AND JOAQUIN PHOENIX A BOOKER PRIZE FINALIST AND A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR: Publishers Weekly * Amazon * Hudson Booksellers * Washington Post Hermann Kermit Warm is going to die. The...
No country for old men
McCarthy, Cormac, 1933-
Set in our own time along the bloody frontier between Texas and Mexico, this is Cormac McCarthy’s first novel since Cities of the Plain completed his acclaimed, best-selling Border Trilogy. Llewelyn Moss, hunting antelope near the Rio Grande, instead finds men shot...
Centennial
Michener, James A. 1907-1997.
NATIONAL BESTSELLER Written to commemorate the Bicentennial in 1976, James A. Michener's magnificent saga of the West is an enthralling celebration of the frontier. Brimming with the glory of America's past, the story of Colorado--the Centennial State--is manifested through its...
Son
Meyer, Philipp, 1974-
Philipp Meyer, the acclaimed author of American Rust, returns with The Son: an epic of the American West and a multigenerational saga of power, blood, land, and oil that follows the rise of one unforgettable Texas family, from the Comanche raids of the 1800s to the to the oil booms of the 20th...
Bury my heart at Wounded Knee an Indian history of the American West
Brown, Dee, 1908-2002.
Doumented account of the decimation of Native Americans in the last half of the 19th century, told from the Indian viewpoint.
Big sky
Guthrie, A. B., Jr. 1901-1991.
From Pulitzer Prize-winning author A. B. Guthrie, Jr., The Big Sky is a classic portrait of America's vast frontier that inspired the Western genre in fiction. The Best Novel of the American West as chosen by members of the Western Literature Association ...
Ox bow incident
Clark, Walter Van Tilburg, 1909-1971.
Set in 1885, The Ox-Bow Incident is a searing and realistic portrait of frontier life and mob violence in the American West. First published in 1940, it focuses on the lynching of three innocent men and the tragedy that ensues when law and order are abandoned. The result is an emotionally...
Shootist
Swarthout, Glendon, 1918-1992.
This is the all-time classic novel chosen by the Western Writers of America as one of the best western novels ever wrttten. It is also the inspiration for John Wayne's last great starring role--the acclaimed 1976 film, The Shootist This special commemorative edition includes a brand new introduction...
Blood meridian or The evening redness in the West
McCarthy, Cormac, 1933-
25th ANNIVERSARY EDITION * From the bestselling author of The Passenger and the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel The Road: an epic novel of the violence and depravity that attended America's westward expansion, brilliantly subverting the conventions of the Western novel and the...
Little house on the prairie
Wilder, Laura Ingalls
Based on the real-life adventures of Laura Ingalls Wilder, Little House on the Prairie is the third book in the award-winning Little House series, which has captivated generations of readers. This edition features the classic black-and-white artwork from Garth Williams.  Laura Ingalls...
Riders of the purple sage
Grey, Zane, 1872-1939.
This splendid, powerful, classic novel was written in 1911, but for over ninety years it has existed only in a profoundly censored version, one that undermined the truth of the characters and the integrity of Zane Grey's masterpiece. In this restored edition, with text based on Grey's original...
Shane
Schaefer, Jack, 1907-1991.
He rode into our valley in the summer of 89, a slim man, dressed in black. Call me Shane, he said. He never told us more. There was a deadly calm in the valley that summer, a slow, climbing tension that seemed to focus on Shane. There s something about him, Mother said. Something . . ....
Gunslinger
King, Stephen, 1947-
In 1978 Stephen King introduced the world to the last Gunslinger, Roland of Gilead.  Nothing has been the same since. Over twenty years later the quest for the Dark Tower continues to take readers on a wildly epic ride. Through parallel worlds and across time, Roland must brave desolate wastelands...

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