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
Paper Book
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
Cormac McCarthy
Paper Book
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
Larry McMurtry
Paper Book
The Pulitzer Prize­-winning classic of the American West that follows two aging Texas Rangers embarking on one last adventure. An epic of the frontier and rich with complex characters, Lonesome Dove is the grandest novel ever written about the last defiant wilderness. ...
The Quick and the Dead
Louis L'Amour
Paper Book
When Duncan McKaskel decided to move his family west, he knew he would face dangers, and he was prepared for them. He knew about the exhausting terrain, and he was expecting the punishing elements. What he worried about was having to use violence against other men-men who would follow him and try to...
The Virginian: A Horseman of the Plains
Owen Wister
Paper Book
No Marketing Blurb
The Sisters Brothers
Patrick deWitt
Paper Book
NOW A MAJOR MOTION PICTURE STARRING JAKE GYLLENHAAL, JOHN C. REILLY AND JOAQUIN PHOENIX A BOOKER PRIZE FINALIST Hermann Kermit Warm is going to die. The enigmatic and powerful man known only as the Commodore has ordered it, and his henchmen, Eli and Charlie Sisters, will make sure...
No Country for Old Men
Cormac McCarthy
Paper Book
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
James A. Michener
Paper Book
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...
The Son
Philipp Meyer
Paper Book
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
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...
The Big Sky
A.B. Jr Guthrie
Paper Book
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 ...
The Shootist
Glendon Swarthout
Audiobook
Blood Meridian
Cormac McCarthy
Paper Book
The "masterpiece" (Michael Herr) of the New York Times bestselling, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Road, No Country for Old Men, The Passenger, and Stella Maris   "Cormac McCarthy is the worthy disciple both of Melville and Faulkner. I venture that...
Little House on the Prairie
Laura Ingalls Wilder
Paper Book
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
Zane Grey
Paper Book
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
Jack Schaefer
Paper Book
Shane was made into an award-winning film that--like the novel--became a standard by which later westerns were judged. Readers who have already felt the novel's power or are approaching it for the first time, will find this edition indispensable for coming to terms with its fascinating...
The Gunslinger
Stephen King
Paper Book
"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 Series. A #1 national bestseller, The Gunslinger...
Butcher's Crossing
John Williams
Ebook

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