Best Westerns

Books, that is. Not the hotel chain. A sampling of the best westerns written.
Updated October 2, 2022
Drag items up and down to your preferred order then select the "Save Order" button.
True Grit
Charles Portis
Ebook
#1 New York Times bestseller "An epic and a legend" --Washington Post "Quite simply, an American masterpiece." --Boston Globe "The dialogue in True Grit is exquisite." --David Mamet "Charles Portis had a wonderful...
Lonesome Dove
Larry McMurtry
The Virginian: A Horseman of the Plains
Owen Wister
Ebook
The Virginian is a 1902 debut novel set in the Wild West by the American novelist Owen Wister. Describing the life of a cowboy on a cattle ranch in Wyoming, it helped establish the western novel as a literary genre. The unnamed protagonist in The Virginian, who courts a local schoolteacher and...
No Country for Old Men
Cormac McCarthy
Paper Book
Savage violence and cruel morality reign in the backwater deserts of Cormac McCarthy's No Country for Old Men, a tale of one man's dark opportunity - and the darker consequences that spiral forth. Adapted for the screen by the Coen Brothers (Fargo, True Grit),...
Centennial
James A. Michener
Ebook
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...
Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee
Dee Brown
Ebook
The "fascinating" #1 New York Times bestseller that awakened the world to the destruction of American Indians in the nineteenth-century West ( The Wall Street Journal). First published in 1970, Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee generated shockwaves with its frank...
Blood Meridian
Cormac McCarthy
Ebook
One of The Atlantic's "Great American Novels of the Past 100 Years," now with a new foreword by Marlon James Widely considered one of the finest novels by a living writer, Blood Meridian is an epic tale of the violence and corruption that attended America's westward...
Riders of the Purple Sage
Zane Grey
Ebook
In 1871 Utah, young Jane Withersteen is courted by Elder Tull, the leader of her polygamous Mormon church. When Jane refuses, the local Mormons persecute her. Meanwhile, Jane's friend, Bern Venters, is captured by Tull's posse and faces a harsh sentence. Jane defends him, causing even more friction...
The Gunslinger
Stephen King
Audiobook
Now a major motion picture starring Matthew McConaughey and Idris Elba "An impressive work of mythic magnitude that may turn out to be Stephen King's greatest literary achievement" (The Atlanta Journal-Constitution), The Gunslinger is the first volume in the epic Dark Tower...
Butcher's Crossing
John Williams
Ebook
Now a major motion picture starring Nicolas Cage and directed by Gabe Polsky. In his National Book Award-winning novel Augustus, John Williams uncovered the secrets of ancient Rome. With Butcher's Crossing, his fiercely intelligent, beautifully written western,...

Library staff! You can create and contribute to lists. Contact your catalog administrator or log in here.