r/readwithme • • 3d ago

Question❔ Who loves a good western? 🤠 any good recommendations is welcome 🤓💚

59 Upvotes

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5

u/Voodooo_Child_ 3d ago

I just finished All the Pretty Horses and it absolutely blew me away. Definitely, one of my new favorites.

2

u/rolandofgilead41089 3d ago

I think I enjoyed The Crossing even more than ATPH; there are passages from that novel that are engrained in me now.

4

u/CalicoCuts 3d ago

True Grit by Portis is amazing.

The Virginian by Wister

Edit: the books in your post are the BEST!

2

u/IcebergSlim188 3d ago

I have True Grit next to my bed, ready to start, I’ve heard good things 🤠 I’ll check out The Virginian 👌 Thanks

2

u/sorne23 3d ago

True Grit is basically a perfect book as far as I’m concerned. You’re in for a treat!

2

u/MattTin56 3d ago

True Grit was an excellent book.

4

u/FlyingCarpetMonster 3d ago

I am just finishing up Butcher's Crossing and it's an interesting kind of Western. An Emersonian Western, if you will.

Also love Warlock by Oakley Hall.

5

u/binley01 3d ago

The ox-bow incident. I highly suggest getting the library of America westerns collection. It has ox-bow + Shane, warlock, and the searchers.

2

u/revenant_vallo 3d ago

I came here to suggest Ox-Bow Incident. The movie is also fantastic.

1

u/binley01 3d ago

One of my favourite Westerns ever.

3

u/SnubLifeCrisis 3d ago

The Cowboy and The Cossack, Monte Walsh, and Blood Meridian.

1

u/IcebergSlim188 3d ago

I got bloody Meridian..but my Mrs ‘borrowed’ it and I haven’t seen it since 😂

1

u/rogerisreading 3d ago

I was going to recommend The Cowboy and the Cossack, but you beat me to it. An overlooked masterpiece.

And oldie but pretty damned good: Riders of the Purple Sage.

1

u/SnubLifeCrisis 3d ago

I haven’t read the Riders of the Purple
Sage but it’s on my tbr.

3

u/Kingdavid3g 3d ago

Did you finish the series with Comanche Moon? The Indifferent Stars Above is sort of a western.

2

u/IcebergSlim188 3d ago

I haven’t started these ones yet..I’m looking forward it 🤠💚

3

u/Kingdavid3g 3d ago

Oh wow! Start with Lonesome Dove. I honestly had no interest in reading a western. It ended up being my favorite book of all time.

2

u/inyolonepine 3d ago

Joe Lansdale has written some banger of westerns (the man has also written some bangers in every genre under the sun). Check out Paradise Sky or The Thicket.

1

u/Several_Direction633 3d ago

The Thicket was a much better read than the movie.

2

u/Truckeejenkins 3d ago

I’ve never seen it listed, but Billy Gashade is a great book. It’s not a textbook western, but it has a lot of the same elements.

2

u/HereIAmGH 3d ago

Two others I really loved are: Angle of repose - not so much cowboys as the becoming of the west Little big man by Thomas Berger - 100% western. Larry McMurtry loved it. I loved it too. It’s such a great tale with an awesome narrator

2

u/andmoore27 3d ago

Angle of Repose is amazing.

1

u/HereIAmGH 3d ago

It’s truly is! Read any other by Stegner?

2

u/ornery-fizz 3d ago

Louis LAmour the OG

2

u/trustcircleofjerks 3d ago

Zane Grey would like to dispute that title.

Edit: OP, you should add Riders of the Purple Sage to your list.

2

u/puckthepatriarchy- 3d ago

Western adjacent? A River Runs Through It by Norman MacLean. It’s a semi-autobiographical exploration of family, fly fishing and western Montana life set at the beginning of the twentieth century in rural Montana-it’s not a gunfights and horse thieves western but does a breathtaking job of creating a vision of living in place that was probably gunfights and horse thieves a few years prior.

2

u/Strict-Context-8502 3d ago

If you want something a little different, The Sisters Brothers by Patrick deWitt is a fantastic western with dark humor. It's not your typical dusty gunslinger tale, more of a character-driven story about two hitman brothers on a job gone sideways. Really hard to put down once you're in it.

2

u/KelseyW315 3d ago

The Son - Phillip Meyer

2

u/nflorez33 3d ago

I’m just finishing lonesome dove and loved it

2

u/Justinian_of_Rome 3d ago

Warlock by Oakley Hall. It's the only western I've ever read and it was definitely a slow-burn, but man, after it was finished I felt pretty damn epic. The movie is def worth watching after you finish the book,, too.

The whole reason I got interested in reading it is because apparently this one of the first "anti-westerns" or "revisionist westerns" and the dude that wrote Gravity's Rainbow was obsessed with it and started a "micro-cult" about it in college.

2

u/telvanni-bug-musk 3d ago

Warlock - Oakley Hall

The Authentic Death of Hendry Jones - Charles Neider

y’welcome

2

u/badlyimagined 3d ago

The Heart in Winter by Kevin Barry. Fits perfectly with that pile.

2

u/Lopsided_Pain4744 2d ago

Either do the border trilogy first (life changing) or Lonesome Dove. Then comes Butchers Crossing.

2

u/RelevantAd5040 2d ago

Cormac McCarthy’s ‘Blood Meridian’ perhaps?

2

u/theflyingrobinson 2d ago

The Heart in Winter by Kevin Barry.

1

u/trustcircleofjerks 3d ago

Shane is really good, both in book and movie form.

1

u/SkidTracerX 3d ago

I really enjoyed The Crossing

1

u/SixStringSapien 3d ago

True Grit

Also, if you like true stories, both Ridgeline and The Revenant by Michael Punke are excellent.

1

u/tangcameo 3d ago

Canadian author Guy Vanderhaeghe wrote three westerns. The Englishman’s Boy. The Last Crossing. A Good Man.

1

u/Intelligent_Fix915 3d ago

Butchers crossing slaps great taste

Look into Elmore Leonard he is more known for crime novels but has written some great westerns: forty lashes less one, valdez is coming, the short story that got adapted into 3:10 to Yuma

1

u/Raindawg1313 3d ago

Lonesome Dove, full stop. Also, Blood Meridian.

1

u/els4panthers 3d ago

Little big man

1

u/BlooGloop 3d ago

Currently reading “Lone Women”. Westerns are one of my fav genres

1

u/Fabulous_Permit5276 3d ago

The Oxbow Incident

1

u/Martinaw7 3d ago

Everything Louis L'Amour ever wrote, which is ALOT.

1

u/andmoore27 3d ago

In the Rogue Blood by James Carlos Blake.

1

u/PooperShooter612 3d ago

Warlock by Oakley Hall

1

u/Seth_Is_Here 3d ago

Last Days of Wolf Garnett by Clifton Adams.

1

u/FarControl830 3d ago

Not reading for deep thought but the First Mountain Man series by William W Johnston are great for quick satisfying reads. Preacher is probably my favorite western character. Lonesome Dove os just a great novel though

1

u/Turd_N 3d ago

Deadwood by Pete Dexter!

1

u/Several_Direction633 3d ago

The entire Appaloosa series by Robert B Parker.

1

u/Prtyfoul 2d ago

Lonesome Dove

1

u/Piggymain 2d ago

How is the sisters brothers? I also love westerns and I'm thinking about reading it

1

u/Inner_Relationship28 2d ago

Blood meridian is the best western

1

u/Intelligent_Bat949 2d ago

I just started God's Country by Percival Everett. It's a Western satire, think The Outlaw Josey Wales meets Blazing Saddles. It would be a departure from what you've been reading without straying all that far.

1

u/ContributingHelper 2d ago

I'm not a Western reader, but seeing your selection, I'd like to hear what you enjoy about them.