Best Westerns

The American West, 1860-1890: years of broken promises, disillusionment, war and massacre.Beginning with the Long Walk of the Navajos and ending with the massacre of the Sioux at Wounded Knee, this extraordinary book tells how the American Indians lost their land, lives and liberty to white settlers pushing westward. Woven into an engrossing saga of cruelty, treachery and violence are the fascinating stories of such legendary figures as Sitting Bull, Cochise, Crazy Horse and Geronimo.First published in 1970, Dee Brown's brutal and compelling narrative changed the way people thought about the original inhabitants of America, and focused attention on a national disgrace.

Read the novel that shaped the genre of Western fiction in America. Riders of the Purple Sage by Zane Grey tells the story of a woman's battle to overcome persecution by members of her polygamous Mormon church. This complex novel is a classic tale of romance, adventure, and the Wild West.

Journey to the dusty little Texas town of Lonesome Dove and meet an unforgettable assortment of heroes and outlaws, whores and ladies, Indians and settlers. Richly authentic, beautifully written, always dramatic, Lonesome Dove is a book to make us laugh, weep, dream, and remember.An epic of the frontier, Lonesome Dove is the grandest novel ever written about the last defiant wilderness of America.EndorsementsThe Pulitzer Prize–winning American classic of the American West follows two aging Texas Rangers embarking on one last adventure.

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 of it. Though Eli doesn't share his brother's appetite for whiskey and killing, he's never known anything else. But their prey isn't an easy mark, and on the road from Oregon City to Warm's gold-mining claim outside Sacramento, Eli begins to question what he does for a living — and whom he does it for.With The Sisters Brothers, Patrick deWitt pays homage to the classic Western, transforming it into an unforgettable comic tour de force. Filled with a remarkable cast of characters — losers, cheaters, and ne'er-do-wells from all stripes of life — and told by a complex and compelling narrator, it is a violent, lustful odyssey through the underworld of the 1850s frontier that beautifully captures the humor, melancholy, and grit of the Old West, and two brothers bound by blood, violence, and love.

Willa Cather's My Ántonia is considered one of the most significant American novels of the twentieth century. Set during the great migration west to settle the plains of the North American continent, the narrative follows Antonia Shimerda, a pioneer who comes to Nebraska as a child and grows with the country, inspiring a childhood friend, Jim Burden, to write her life story. The novel is important both for its literary aesthetic and as a portrayal of important aspects of American social ideals and history, particularly the centrality of migration to American culture.

He was etched by the desert’s howling winds, a big, broad-shouldered man who knew the ways of the Apache and the ways of staying alive. She was a woman alone raising a young son on a remote Arizona ranch. And between Hondo Lane and Angie Lowe was the warrior Vittoro, whose people were preparing to rise against the white men. Now the pioneer woman, the gunman, and the Apache warrior are caught in a drama of love, war, and honor.

True Grit tells the story of Mattie Ross, who is just fourteen years of age when a coward going by the name of Tom Chaney shoots her father down in Fort Smith, Arkansas, and robs him of his life, his horse, and $150 in cash.Mattie leaves home to avenge her father’s blood. With the one-eyed Rooster Cogburn, the meanest available U.S. Marshal, by her side, Mattie pursues the homicide into Indian Territory.True Grit is the basis for two movies, the 1969 classic starring John Wayne and the Academy Award–winning 2010 version starring Jeff Bridges and written and directed by the Coen brothers. True Grit is eccentric, cool, straight, and unflinching, like Mattie herself. From a writer of true status, this is an American classic through and through.

He was born in 1866 in Fancy Hill, Arkansas, the descendant of pioneers and moonshiners. Six-foot-three, dark-eyed, and a dead shot with a rifle, Franklin “Rooster” Cogburn was as hard as the rocky mountain ground his family settled. The only authority the Cogburn clan recognized was God and a gun. And though he never packed a badge, Rooster meted out his own brand of justice—taking on a posse of U.S. deputy marshals in a blazing showdown of gunfire and blood. Now a wanted man, with a $500 reward on his head, Rooster would ultimately have to defend himself before a hanging judge. Proud, stubborn, fearless, and ornery to the bitter end. A fascinating portrait of a true American icon, Rooster shows us the making of a legend—fashioned by Arkansas newspaperman Charles Portis with bits and pieces of historical figures, including Deputy Reuben M. Fry, one-eyed Deputy Marshal Cal Whitson, Joseph Peppers (Lucky Ned), Joseph Spurling (Mattie Ross’s grandfather) and bank robber Frank Chaney (scar-faced Tom Chaney). Behind it all stood a man named “Rooster,” with two good eyes and a tale all his own. The True Story Behind True Grit. With never-before-seen photos.

John Ford’s The Searchers defined the spirit of America, influenced a generation of filmmakers, and was named the Greatest Western Movie of All Time by the American Film Institute in 2008.From the moment they left their homestead unguarded on that scorching Texas day, Martin Pauley and Amos Edwards became searchers. First they had to return to the decimated ranch, bury the bodies of their family, and confront the evil cunning of the Comanche who had slaughtered them. Then they set out in pursuit of missing Debbie Edwards. In the years that follow, Amos and Martin survive storms of nature and of men, seeking more than a missing girl, and more than revenge. Both are driven by secrets, guilt, love, and rage. Defying the dangers all around them, two men become a frontier legend, searching for the one moment, and the one last battle, that will finally set them free…

Dave Nash smells trouble the moment he rides into Signal. He’s only been working for Walt Shipley three weeks, but he feels he owes the man his life for giving him a job when no one else would. Now Nash will do anything for Shipley—even if it means staring down the barrel of a gun. He’ll face any danger for his new boss, but he hasn’t reckoned on the most dangerous creature of all: a conniving frontier woman.Connie Dickason is the most seductive woman in Signal, and Shipley has his heart set on marrying her. But a brewing war with a powerful cattleman drives Shipley from town, leaving Connie and Nash to defend the ranch together. The ranch hand soon discovers that the boss’s wife will stop at nothing to get what she wants.Adapted into a 1947 United Artists film starring Joel McCrea and Veronica Lake.A strong-willed woman enlists a hard-bitten gunslinger to fight a ranch war in this classic western drama from an award-winning author. Ramrod is a classic noir western that displays the versatile storytelling powers of award-winning author Luke Short.

An extraordinary multi-generational Texan epic, part coming-of-age story, part unflinching portrait of the bloody price of power, The Son is an utterly transporting novel that maps the legacy of violence in the American West through the lives of the McCulloughs, an ambitious family as resilient and dangerous as the land they claim.Love, honour, children are sacrificed in the name of ambition, as the family becomes one of the richest powers in Texas, a dynasty of unsurpassed wealth and privilege. Yet, like all empires, the McCulloughs must eventually face the consequences of their choices.

Jack Burnes is a loner at odds with modern civilization. A man out of time, he rides a feisty chestnut mare across the New West; a once beautiful land smothered beneath airstrips and superhighways. And he lives by a personal code of ethics that sets him on a collision course with the keepers of law and order. Now he has stepped over the line by breaking one too many of society's rules. The hounds of justice are hot in his trail. But Burnes would rather die than spend even a single night behind bars. And they have to catch him first.

Will Andrews is no academic. He longs for wildness, freedom, hope, and vigor. He leaves Harvard and sets out for the West to discover a new way of living.In a small town called Butcher’s Crossing, he meets a hunter with a story of a lost herd of buffalo in a remote Colorado valley, just waiting to be taken by a team of men brave and crazy enough to find them. Will makes up his mind to be one of those men, but the journey, the killing, harsh conditions, and sheer hard luck will test his mind and body to their limits.

In the 1950s, West Texas suffered the longest drought in the memory of most men then living. By that time, Charlie Flagg, the central character of this novel, was one of a dying breed of men who wrested their living from the harsh land of West Texas. The struggle made them fiercely independent, a trait personified in Charlie's persistence throughout the seven dry years, his refusal to accept defeat, his opposition to federal aid programs and their inevitable bureaucratic regulations, and his determination to stay on the land he loves and respects even as he suffers with that land.Charlie is by no means the typical cowboy hero. Self-sufficient and courageous, with a strong sense of right and wrong, he is also old and overweight—a thoroughly believable human being who has trouble communicating with the wife who loyally struggles to keep life in its pattern, with the son who has no feel for the land but yearns for the rodeo circuit, and with the Mexican family who has worked for him for years and whose help he can no longer afford.Although Charlie never loses his dignity and never quits, he does not win out in the end. When the drought breaks, it has lasted too long and he is too old. There is no surprise ending to this story, no magical solution to the harsh realities of life in West Texas. The power of the novel lies not in what happens next but in the unfolding depth of a strong character and the clear picture of a time and a place.

The year is 1823, and the trappers of the Rocky Mountain Fur Company live a brutal frontier life. Trapping beaver, they contend daily with the threat of Indian tribes turned warlike over the white men's encroachment on their land, and other prairie foes—like the unforgiving landscape and its creatures. Hugh Glass is among the Company's finest men, an experienced frontiersman and an expert tracker. But when a scouting mission puts him face-to-face with a grizzly bear, he is viciously mauled and not expected to survive.The Company's captain dispatches two of his men to stay behind and tend to Glass before he dies, and to give him the respect of a proper burial. When the two men abandon him instead, taking his only means of protecting himself—including his precious gun and hatchet—with them, Glass is driven to survive by one desire: revenge.With shocking grit and determination, Glass sets out crawling inch by inch across more than three thousand miles of uncharted American frontier, negotiating predators both human and nonhuman, the threat of starvation, and the agony of his horrific wounds. In Michael Punke's hauntingly spare and gripping prose, The Revenant is a remarkable tale of obsession, the human will stretched to its limits, and the lengths that one man will go to for retribution.

The setting is the Texas-Mexico border. The time is our own, when rustlers have given way to drug-runners and small towns have become free-fire zones. A good old boy named Llewelyn Moss finds a pickup truck surrounded by dead men. A load of heroin and two million dollars in cash are still in the back. When Moss takes the money, he sets off a chain reaction that not even the law can contain. Encompassing themes as ancient as the Bible and as bloodily contemporary as this morning’s headlines, No Country for Old Men is a triumph.

1949. At sixteen, John Grady Cole is the last bewildered survivor of long generations of Texas ranchers. Finding himself cut off from the only life he has ever wanted, he sets out for Mexico with his friend Lacey Rawlins. Befriending a third boy on the way, they find a country beyond their imagining: barren and beautiful, rugged yet cruelly civilized; a place where dreams are paid for in blood.A grand love story, Cormac McCarthy's novel is about the passing of childhood, of innocence and a vanished American age. Steeped in the wisdom that comes only from loss, it is a magnificent parable of responsibility, revenge and survival.Adapted into a film starring Matt Damon and Penelope Cruz. All the Pretty Horses is followed in the Border Trilogy by The Crossing and Cities of the Plain.Endorsements'His prose takes on an almost biblical quality, hallucinatory in its effect and evangelical in its power' — Stephen King, author of The Shining and the Dark Tower series'All the Pretty Horses is indisputably a masterpiece' — Financial Times'One of the greatest American novels of this or any time' — Guardian'[A] totalizing reality, where meditation and resistance are two components of one reality, a destiny of wandering the borderlands of the U.S. and Mexico in the postwar twentieth century' — Rachel Kushner, author of The Mars Room'McCarthy worked close to some religious impulse, his books were terrifying and absolute' — Anne Enright, author of The Green Road and The Wren, The Wren'[I]n presenting the darker human impulses in his rich prose, [McCarthy] showed readers the necessity of facing up to existence' — Annie Proulx, author of Brokeback Mountain

In the summer of 1877, Bridget is orphaned when her unreliable father succumbs to a snakebite as they're crossing the Kansas prairie. Arriving in Dodge City as a penniless orphan, she's quickly recruited for work at the Buffalo Queen brothel and befriends her bookish mentor Constance, securing her home and employment as the favourite of Sheriff's Deputy Jim Bonnie. As winter creeps in from the plains, female gunfighter Spartan Lee rides into town, and Bridget falls in love with her the moment their paths cross.Their affair threatens the balance of power at the Queen, but is interrupted when an old flame returns to the brothel, setting off a series of double-crosses that result in the destruction of the Buffalo Queen and a searing heartbreak for Bridget. Their lives in ruins, Bridget, Constance and Lila resolve to take revenge on those who wronged them — but will they succeed in their mission? In a misogynistic world of outlaws and gunfights, nothing is certain.A sharply realised, caustically witty and often moving revisionist depiction of frontier life that explores, through its feminist heroine, queer love, female friendships, and the idea of a 'found' family. It is a page-turning female revenge thriller.

Michael Crichton returns to the world of palaeontology in this recently discovered novel.The year is 1876. Warring Indian tribes still populate America's western territories, even as lawless gold-rush towns begin to mark the landscape. Against this backdrop two palaeontologists pillage the Wild West for dinosaur fossils while deceiving and sabotaging each other in a rivalry that will come to be known as the Bone Wars.Into this treacherous territory plunges William Johnson, a Yale student with more privilege than sense. Determined to win a bet against his archrival, William has joined world-renowned palaeontologist Othniel Charles Marsh on his latest expedition. But Marsh becomes convinced that William is spying for his nemesis, Edwin Drinker Cope, and abandons him in Cheyenne, Wyoming, a locus of crime and vice.Soon William joins forces with Cope and stumbles upon a discovery of historic proportions. The struggle to protect this extraordinary treasure, however, will test William's newfound resilience and pit him against some of the West's most dangerous and notorious characters.A thrilling adventure set in the Wild West during the golden age of fossil hunting.EndorsementsMichael Crichton — number one New York Times best-selling author of Jurassic Park.

When President Theodore Roosevelt comes to Deadwood, the Greatest Western Writers of the 21st Century unite three of their most legendary heroes – Hunter Buchanon, Frank “The Last Gunfighter” Morgan, and his son, Conrad “The Loner” Morgan – from three of their most popular series for one monumental new series spin-off!Johnstone country.Where men live by their wits—or die by their ignorance.The President has come to Deadwood—and his enemies have come out of the woodwork—in an action-packed tale of vengeance and justice from William W. Johnstone and J.A. Johnstone.A hail of bullets to the chiefDeadwood, South Dakota. Miners flock there seeking fortunes, while cardsharps, bandits, and businessmen seek to deprive those who strike gold by means fair and foul. Legendary former lawman Seth Bullock plans to keep the peace by any means necessary—especially when his good friend, President Theodore Roosevelt, is expected in town to celebrate the anniversary of Deadwood’s founding.Delayed in Washington, the President has sent his wife and children to the boomtown ahead of his arrival. But Ambrose Neill, a former New York City policeman jailed by Roosevelt for corruption, has kidnapped the President’s daughter. Backed by a gang of trigger-happy outlaws and supported by a ruthless senator, Neill plans to politically control the Commander-in-Chief before slaughtering him.But what Neill and his cohorts don’t realize is that Roosevelt has gathered a deadly posse of rough riders including Bullock—and the legendary father-son gunfighters Frank and Conrad Morgan—who are more likely to bring the gang to justice dead than alive...Live Free. Read Hard.

This classic Western is a profoundly moving story of the influence of a singular character on one boy’s life. The Starrett family’s life forever changes when a man named Shane rides out of the great glowing West and up to their farm. Young Bob Starrett is entranced by this stoic stranger who brings a new energy to his family. Shane stays on as a farmhand, but his past remains a mystery. Many folks in their small Wyoming valley are suspicious of Shane and make it known that he is not welcome. But dangerous as Shane may seem, he is a staunch friend to the Starretts—and when a powerful neighboring rancher tries to drive them out of their homestead, Shane becomes entangled in the deadly feud.I had lain in my bed thinking of our visitor out in the bunk in the barn. It scarce seemed possible that he was the same man I had first seen, stern and chilling in his dark solitude, riding up our road. Something in father, something not of words or of actions but of the essential substance of the human spirit, had reached out and spoken to him and he had replied to it and had unlocked a part of himself to us. He was far off and unapproachable at times even when he was right there with you.Endorsements"If you read only one Western in your life, this is the one." — Roland Smith, author of the Peak Marcello adventure novels

Texas Ranger Rory Yates has proven his strength on the field time and again, but now he faces the toughest case of his career.He is on the trail of two missing women, both Native American. As he digs deeper, he discovers that for the past four years a Native American woman has gone missing on the summer solstice. There is never sign of a struggle; the captor leaves no trace, except for a very strange calling card. The Texas Ranger must do everything he can to track them down, and he only hopes he finds them alive.A cold case is about to turn hotter than the sun. How many will be lost before the truth is found?Endorsements"It's no mystery why James Patterson is the world's most popular thriller writer ... Simply nobody does it better." — Jeffery Deaver"No one gets this big without amazing natural storytelling talent — which is what Jim has, in spades." — Lee Child"Patterson boils a scene down to the single, telling detail, the element that defines a character or moves a plot along. It's what fires off the movie projector in the reader's mind." — Michael Connelly"James Patterson is the Boss. End of." — Ian Rankin"The master storyteller of our times." — Hillary Rodham Clinton"One of the greatest storytellers of all time." — Patricia Cornwell"Patterson knows where our deepest fears are buried ... there's no stopping his imagination." — New York Times Book Review"Patterson is in a class by himself." — Guardian

Tooth and Claw follows Walt and Henry up to Alaska as they look for work after both returned from serving in Vietnam. While working for an oil company in the bitter cold of winter, they soon encounter a ferocious polar bear who seems hell-bent on their destruction. But it’s not long until they realize the danger does not lurk outside in the frozen Alaskan tundra, but with their co-workers who are after priceless treasure and will stop at nothing to get it.In the tradition of Wait for Signs and The Highwayman, Craig Johnson is back with a short novel set in the Alaska tundra where a young Walt Longmire and Henry Standing Bear face off with powerful enemies who will do anything to get what they want. Fans of Longmire will thrill to this pulse-pounding and bone-chilling novel of extreme adventure that adds another indelible chapter to the great story of Walt Longmire.

Mysterious footprints in the forest. A shot in the dark. A dead man in a forest clearing. Tye Caine tries to help out a neighbor but is sucked into a mystery from the past. At the same time, he tries to find out who has been hiding on his property. Visions of dead people still haunt his dreams, and he doesn't know why. It seems like he's moving close to an answer, but does he really want to know?

This brilliant and compelling novel, set in the early days of the Canadian West, is the first of three linked historical novels by Guy Vanderhaeghe, one of Canada's preeminent storytellers.The Englishman's Boy brilliantly connects Hollywood in the 1920s with one of the bloodiest, most brutal events of the nineteenth-century Canadian West — the Cypress Hills Massacre. Vanderhaeghe's rendering of the stark, dramatic beauty of the western landscape and of Hollywood in its most extravagant era — with its visionaries, celebrities, and dreamers — provides vivid background for scenes of action, adventure, and intrigue. Richly textured, evocative of time and place, this is an unforgettable novel about power, greed, and the pull of dreams that has at its centre the haunting story of a young drifter — "the Englishman's boy."

Blood Meridian is an epic novel of the violence and depravity that attended America's westward expansion, brilliantly subverting the conventions of the Western novel and the mythology of the Wild West. Based on historical events that took place on the Texas-Mexico border in the 1850s, it traces the fortunes of the Kid, a fourteen-year-old Tennesseean who stumbles into a nightmarish world where Indians are being murdered and the market for their scalps is thriving.