Western books

[Bushcraftsman]

Does anybody know of any really good fiction books about cowboys/western etc with a gripping story. any age read really I dont mind.

Cheers

 

[bb07]

Check out Louis L'Amour http://www.amazon.co.uk/s/ref=nb_sb...oks&field-keywords=louis+lamour&sprefix=louis

 

[mentalnurse]

my father in law reads them will echo the above post he gets his for his kindle.

 

[blacktimberwolf]

Pale Rider - Alan Dean Foster.
High Plains Drifter - Ernest Tidyman.
True Grit- Charles Portis
Appaloosa - Robert B. Parker
Shane - Jack Schaefer.
Gone To Texas and The Vengeance Trail of Josey Wales. - Forrest Carter.

 

[Large Sack]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edge_the_Loner

Try these. Modern writing with an adult outlook rather than the 'Boys Own' style of many others. Violent and gritty, but aint going to win a Pulitzer!

Sack

 

[Bushcraftsman]

thanks a lot really like the look of the Louis L'amour ones

 

[Bushcraftsman]

and that edge the loner sounds good! 61 books in total! that'll keep me busy!

 

[santaman2000]

+1 on the Louie L'Amour books. Many of them were made into movies in the 60s and 70s (and some as late as the 80s and 90s) In particular the Sackett series which traces the fictional Sackett family from it's immigration to America from the Fens of Cambridgeshire in East Anglia; and afterward the families stories across the West. The first book in the series is "Sackett's Land." Her's a list of the books in the series and the main character of each book/story:

* Sackett's Land – Barnabas Sackett
* To The Far Blue Mountains-Barnabas Sackett
* The Warrior's Path-Kin Ring Sackett
* Jubal-Jublain Sackett
* Ride the River-Echo Sackett
* The Daybreakers-Tyrel Sackett
* Sackett-Tell Sackett
* Mojave Crossing-Tell Sackett
* The Sackett Brand-Tell Sackett
* The Lonely Men-Tell Sackett
* Lonely on the Mountain-Tell Sackett
* Lando-Lando Sackett
* The Skyliners-Flagan Sackett
* Galloway-Flagan Sackett
* Mustang Man-Nolan Sackett
* Ride the Dark Trail-Logan Sackett
* Treasure Mountain-Tell Sackett
* Bendigo Shafter-Ethan Sackett

Short stories

* The Courting of Griselda-Tell Sackett
* Booty for a Badman-Tell Sackett

He also did a number of non-Western books and short stories (detective stories, war stories, adventure stories) Perhaps one of the best is his autobiography, Education Of A Wandering Man, written shortly before his death in 1988.

 

[TeeDee]

IIRC There is a stack of pioneer/mountain man/bushcrafty fiction available for download over at BCUSA.

 

[darrenleroy]

Try these two; they're both literary novels set in the west as opposed to Western genre novels so you can guarantee the quality of the writing.

1. Lonesome Dove - Larry McMurtry. Epic tale of cattle droving up from Texas to Montana. Won the Pullitzer Prize
2. Blood Meridian - Cormac McCarthy. Dark, bloody tale of outlaws cleansing the land of Indians.

Both books blew me away, for very different reasons. I wouldn't read the second one alone in the woods.

 

[sandbender]

"...Blood Meridian - Cormac McCarthy. Dark, bloody tale of outlaws cleansing the land of Indians..."

Blood Meridian is quite a brutal book, for a less traumatic read you could look at 'The Border Trilogy' by the same author. Although each book can be read on its own without reference the the others it makes sense to begin with the first 'All the Pretty Horses'. A young man, in his mid teens, learns that the family ranch is to be sold, so he and a friend decide to ride off to Mexico, there is some 'bushcraft' in the book, insomuch that the mechanics of making such journey require the building of fires and getting of food. A damn good read.

 

[santaman2000]

Try these two; they're both literary novels set in the west as opposed to Western genre novels so you can guarantee the quality of the writing.

1. Lonesome Dove - Larry McMurtry. Epic tale of cattle droving up from Texas to Montana. Won the Pullitzer Prize...

Haven't read the book but the movie is great.

 

[sandbender]

Haven't read the book but the movie is great.

If there was an Oscar for TV movies/Series then Robert Duvall deserved one for that role.

[video=youtube;bx_jm-GuS0w]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bx_jm-GuS0w[/video]

 

[darrenleroy]

If there was an Oscar for TV movies/Series then Robert Duvall deserved one for that role.

[video=youtube;bx_jm-GuS0w]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bx_jm-GuS0w[/video]

The scene in the book is quite different to how I imagined it as shown in this clip. Seemed way more serious in the novel.

 

[darrenleroy]

Blood Meridian is quite a brutal book, for a less traumatic read you could look at 'The Border Trilogy' by the same author. Although each book can be read on its own without reference the the others it makes sense to begin with the first 'All the Pretty Horses'. A young man, in his mid teens, learns that the family ranch is to be sold, so he and a friend decide to ride off to Mexico, there is some 'bushcraft' in the book, insomuch that the mechanics of making such journey require the building of fires and getting of food. A damn good read.

I think I'll take this trilogy on holiday with me. Thanks for the notification. I just finished No Country For Old Men, which, in its way could be classed as a western novel. The film adaptation was damn near perfect, which is a rarity.

 

[red devil]

I was going to recommend Cormac McCarthy's Border Trilogy but someone beat me to it - great stories told in stunning, stripped-bare prose.
As for No Country For Old Men, the movie contains one of my all-time favourite quotes when the sheriff, played by Tommy Lee Jones, and his deputy are surveying the scene of the desert massacre, and the deputy says: "Sure is a mess, ain't it sheriff?" and Tommy Lee says, all deadpan: "Well, if it ain't, it'll sure do 'til the real mess gets here."
Classic line!