100 books like Doc Holliday

By Gary L. Roberts,

Here are 100 books that Doc Holliday fans have personally recommended if you like Doc Holliday. Shepherd is a community of 12,000+ authors and super readers sharing their favorite books with the world.

When you buy books, we may earn a commission that helps keep our lights on (or join the rebellion as a member).

Book cover of Wyatt Earp: The Life Behind the Legend

Mark Warren Author Of The Long Road to Legend: Wyatt Earp, an American Odyssey Book One

From my list on Wyatt Earp by the top researchers in the field.

Why am I passionate about this?

I am a teacher of primitive survival skills. As a young boy, I was fascinated with the concept of courage. At seven, I read the pseudo-biography of Wyatt Earp, a wonderfully written account of a courageous man. This book began my lifelong interest in Mr. Earp. Eventually, I met many of the giants in Western history research and accompanied them into the field. After 65 years of collecting the facts, I wanted to use my novelistic skills to portray the life and times of Wyatt Earp as best as the record shows.

Mark's book list on Wyatt Earp by the top researchers in the field

Mark Warren Why did Mark love this book?

The public was introduced to Wyatt Earp’s story by Walter Noble Burns and Stuart Lake around 1930, but the novelistic liberties taken by these two writers produced two books of fantasy. Other writers who reacted to this fiction swung to the other end of the spectrum and wrote damning indictments against Wyatt Earp. Tefertiller gives us the facts and leaves it to the reader to parse Wyatt Earp, the man.

I have visited many Sonoran Desert sites with Mr. Tefertiller, places where events in the Earp saga took place. There, we engaged in conversations and batted around ideas. I judge him to be a most reliable and dedicated researcher/writer.

By Casey Tefertiller,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Wyatt Earp as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

"Quite impressive. I doubt if there has been or will be a more deeply researched and convincing account." --Evan Connell, author Son of the Morning Star: Custer and the Little Bighorn "The book to end all Earp books--the most complete, and most meticulously researched." --Jack Burrows, author John Ringo: The Gunfighter Who Never Was "The most thoughtful, well-researched, and comprehensive account that has been written about the development and career of an Old-West lawman." --The Tombstone Tumbleweed "A great adventure story, and solid history." --Kirkus Reviews "A major contribution to the history of the American West. It provides the first…


Book cover of Ride the Devil's Herd: Wyatt Earp's Epic Battle Against the West's Biggest Outlaw Gang

Mark Warren Author Of The Long Road to Legend: Wyatt Earp, an American Odyssey Book One

From my list on Wyatt Earp by the top researchers in the field.

Why am I passionate about this?

I am a teacher of primitive survival skills. As a young boy, I was fascinated with the concept of courage. At seven, I read the pseudo-biography of Wyatt Earp, a wonderfully written account of a courageous man. This book began my lifelong interest in Mr. Earp. Eventually, I met many of the giants in Western history research and accompanied them into the field. After 65 years of collecting the facts, I wanted to use my novelistic skills to portray the life and times of Wyatt Earp as best as the record shows.

Mark's book list on Wyatt Earp by the top researchers in the field

Mark Warren Why did Mark love this book?

Boessenecker has achieved a fine reputation for honesty and thoroughness in his research. He has also learned how to structure his books to carry a reader forward like a novel.

His book puts into scope how major an event it was for Wyatt Earp to go up against the organized crime gang (known as the “cow-boys”) that had corrupted Southern Arizona. Many of these outlaws had drifted west from New Mexico after taking part in the bloodbath called the Lincoln County War.

Ride the Devil’s Herd is more than a history book. It’s a great ride in itself.

By John Boessenecker,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Ride the Devil's Herd as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Winner of the Best Book Award by the Wild West History Association

A ripsnortin' ramble across the bloodstained Arizona desert with Wyatt Earp and company… A pleasure for thoughtful fans of Old West history, revisionist without being iconoclastic. —Kirkus Reviews

Wyatt Earp is regarded as the most famous lawman of the Old West, best known for his role in the Gunfight at the O.K. Corral in Tombstone, Arizona. But the story of his two-year war with a band of outlaws known as the Cowboys has never been told in full.

Drawing on groundbreaking research into territorial and federal government records,…


Book cover of Wyatt Earp's Vendetta Posse Rider: The Story of Texas Jack Vermillion

Mark Warren Author Of The Long Road to Legend: Wyatt Earp, an American Odyssey Book One

From my list on Wyatt Earp by the top researchers in the field.

Why am I passionate about this?

I am a teacher of primitive survival skills. As a young boy, I was fascinated with the concept of courage. At seven, I read the pseudo-biography of Wyatt Earp, a wonderfully written account of a courageous man. This book began my lifelong interest in Mr. Earp. Eventually, I met many of the giants in Western history research and accompanied them into the field. After 65 years of collecting the facts, I wanted to use my novelistic skills to portray the life and times of Wyatt Earp as best as the record shows.

Mark's book list on Wyatt Earp by the top researchers in the field

Mark Warren Why did Mark love this book?

Researchers/writers today make great use of the Internet, but perhaps no one does it better than Peter Brand.

Living in Australia, he can make only infrequent trips to America, yet he seems to be able to mine records on the Internet to find the nuggets that others have missed. His revelations about the loyal men who attached to Wyatt Earp in his quest to avenge his assassinated brother, Morgan, have expanded our knowledge of the Earp story to a tremendous degree.

Brand is also a personal friend of mine. Each new publication of his throws new light on the shadowy episodes that Earp aficionados want to understand better. It is quite an accomplishment for Peter to gain the status he has achieved among historians.

Who would believe that an Aussie could become one of the vanguards of Western research?

Book cover of A Wyatt Earp Anthology: Long May His Story Be Told

Mark Warren Author Of The Long Road to Legend: Wyatt Earp, an American Odyssey Book One

From my list on Wyatt Earp by the top researchers in the field.

Why am I passionate about this?

I am a teacher of primitive survival skills. As a young boy, I was fascinated with the concept of courage. At seven, I read the pseudo-biography of Wyatt Earp, a wonderfully written account of a courageous man. This book began my lifelong interest in Mr. Earp. Eventually, I met many of the giants in Western history research and accompanied them into the field. After 65 years of collecting the facts, I wanted to use my novelistic skills to portray the life and times of Wyatt Earp as best as the record shows.

Mark's book list on Wyatt Earp by the top researchers in the field

Mark Warren Why did Mark love this book?

Within these pages lie the latest gems of research that expands our knowledge of Wyatt Earp’s life events and character.

Each of these contributions by a variety of authors is considered a revelation in the field of Earpiana. Readers cannot know the whole story of Earp without these long-lost chapters of Western history.

By Roy B. Young, Gary L. Roberts, Casey Tefertiller

Why should I read it?

1 author picked A Wyatt Earp Anthology as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Wyatt Earp is one of the most legendary figures of the nineteenth-century American West, notable for his role in the gunfight at the O.K. Corral in Tombstone, Arizona. He was a product of his time, often walking both sides of the street, sometimes on the side of law and order and sometimes as the law-breaker. Some see him as the "Lion of Tombstone," a hero lawman of the Wild West, whereas others see him as yet another outlaw, a pimp, and failed lawman.

Roy B. Young, Gary L. Roberts, and Casey Tefertiller, all notable experts on Earp and the Wild…


Book cover of Doc

Michelle Rene Author Of Hour Glass

From my list on western historical fiction.

Why am I passionate about this?

Growing up in West Texas, westerns were just as good as bedtime stories to me. I grew up with all the greats… and the not as greats. The quality didn’t always matter because the spirit was the same. Freedom, opportunity, and possible lawlessness. Survival of the quickest draw. An untamed place where anything could happen. Someone once said that the western genre was America’s genre. It was invented here and our frontier spirit inspired the world. When I decided to write Hour Glass, I channeled the independent spirit of those westerns I grew up with. I wrote the first draft in sixteen days out of pure passion for the subject matter. 

Michelle's book list on western historical fiction

Michelle Rene Why did Michelle love this book?

This book is probably the closest title to my own. Doc is centered around everyone’s favorite dandy gunslinger, Doc Holliday. It is a truly entertaining and informative tale of the real Doc’s life before his legendary stand at the O.K. Corral in Tombstone. While Wyatt and Morgan Earp play important roles in the story, Doc Holliday is definitely your Huckleberry. 

If you love it like I do, the author wrote a continuation called Epitaph: An O.K. Corral Story. You won’t be sorry.

By Mary Doria Russell,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Doc as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

The year is 1878, peak of the Texas cattle trade. The place is Dodge City, Kansas, a saloon-filled cow town jammed with liquored-up adolescent cowboys and young Irish hookers. Violence is random and routine, but when the burned body of a mixed-blood boy named Johnnie Sanders is discovered, his death shocks a part-time policeman named Wyatt Earp. And it is a matter of strangely personal importance to Doc Holliday, the frail twenty-six-year-old dentist who has just opened an office at No. 24, Dodge House. Beautifully educated, born to the life of a Southern gentleman, Dr. John Henry Holliday is given…


Book cover of The Buntline Special

Julie Bozza Author Of Writ in Blood

From my list on set in the weird Wild West.

Why am I passionate about this?

I love a good story that crosses genres; seeing where they mesh together, playing with where they differ, and letting the various parts spark into a whole that’s greater still. Though my writing usually takes place in the “real” everyday world, I often introduce supernatural elements. Partly because, while I’m an atheist, I still believe there are more things in the universe and on earth than we yet know. And partly because these elements, whether real or imagined on the part of the character, can act as splendid metaphors – or help to understand a state of mind. 

Julie's book list on set in the weird Wild West

Julie Bozza Why did Julie love this book?

This short novel is heaps of fun! It’s another take on the Tombstone story, told from Doc Holliday’s point of view with great wry wit. This Doc is an engaging and unexpectedly kind character, with little or no hint of his reputed “mean disposition”. Weird elements include steampunk – with Thomas Edison living in Tombstone and bringing not only electric light but cyborg sex workers – as well as an undead Johnny Ringo, and supernatural justice wielded by the Native American shamans. It’s delightful!

By Mike Resnick,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked The Buntline Special as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Welcome to a West like you've never seen before, where electric lights shine down on the streets of Tombstone, while horseless stagecoaches carry passengers to and fro, and where death is no obstacle to The Thing That Was Once Johnny Ringo. Think you know the story of the O.K. Corral? Think again, as five-time Hugo winner Mike Resnick takes on his first steampunk western tale, and the West will never be the same.


Book cover of Cash

Lori Handeland Author Of Beauty and the Bounty Hunter

From my list on romance for lovers of the show The English.

Why am I passionate about this?

As an only child of a working mother, I spent a lot of Saturday afternoons with John Wayne. I graduated to movie nights at the theater with Clint Eastwood. My hero-worshipping crush on tough guys combined with my passion for romance novels and my fascination with the history of the American West made me the perfect candidate to write gritty, romantic westerns. My very first book, written over 30 years ago, was a western.

Lori's book list on romance for lovers of the show The English

Lori Handeland Why did Lori love this book?

Sexy, lazy, drawling, dangerous, womanizing, gambling gunslinger. Who can resist that? Add in a secret baby, a lost love, and the end to an epic western series.  

Sure, I wrote 3 of the books in this 6 book set, but when I read Cash, I bawled. I lived with the Rock Creek Six for long enough that they felt like family and if you read about them, they’ll feel like family to you as well.

Sexy, dangerous, haunted-by-their-pasts family. But family.

By Linda Winstead Jones,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Cash as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

If you liked the Magnificent Seven, you’ll love the Rock Creek Six!

Six elite Confederate soldiers band together after the War Between the States, hiring out their guns to protect lawless towns. Violence is all they know, until they make their way to Rock Creek, Texas.

Rock Creek is the only place gunslinger Daniel Cash dares to call home, even though he’s surrounded by constant and annoying reminders that the others have moved on. His friends have made lives and families for themselves, they’ve finally left the war behind. He never will.

Nadine Ellington, a girl from his past, comes…


Book cover of Shane

John Klawitter Author Of Death Drop

From my list on living normal lives murder deception and love.

Why am I passionate about this?

Looking back, I was surprised at the things I'd done and the distance I'd traveled from my lower-middle-class upbringing in an industrial town. Destined for a life on the hot beds at the steel mill, I worked my way through college, found a job as a cub copywriter, learned documentary filmmaking, won an EMMY Award, moved to Hollywood, and started my 'sho biz' career. 

John's book list on living normal lives murder deception and love

John Klawitter Why did John love this book?

Yes, the movie is a classic, but when I feel I could use a refresher course in how a story can be fresh and original when seen through the eyes of a child, Shaefer’s original story of honor and bravery in menacing times is first on my mind.

After the Civil War, settlers moving west often found their lives endangered by the conflicting interests of the farmers and the cattlemen. Shane is a great depiction of a dangerous but honorable man caught between such interests.

By Jack Schaefer,

Why should I read it?

2 authors picked Shane as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it. This book is for kids age 12, 13, 14, and 15.

What is this book about?

'If you read only one western in your life, this is the one' Roland Smith, author of Peak

He rode into our valley in the summer of 1889, a slim man, dressed in black. 'Call me Shane,' he said. He never told us more. There was a deadly calm in the valley that summer, a slow, climbing tension that seemed to focus on Shane.

Seen through the eyes of a young boy, Bob Starrett, SHANE is the classic story of a lone stranger. At first sight, the boy realises there is something unusual about the approaching man, but as Bob…


Book cover of The Waste Lands

T.S. Beier Author Of What Branches Grow

From my list on quests through a post-apocalyptic wasteland.

Why am I passionate about this?

I’ve clocked so many hours on Fallout 3 and New Vegas (and, less so, on Fallout 4) that it’s disgusting, but my real love of wastelands began with T.S. Eliot. His poem (The Waste Land), with its evocative imagery, fascinated me in university. While not about a literal wasteland, it inspired me to seek out stories of that vein. I even have a tattoo with a line from it! What Branches Grow was the focus of my grad certificate in creative writing and has won two awards. I am a book reviewer, writer at PostApocalypticMedia.com, and the author of the Burnt Ship space opera trilogy. 

T.S.'s book list on quests through a post-apocalyptic wasteland

T.S. Beier Why did T.S. love this book?

Another ultimate post-apocalyptic quest novel is The Stand, one of King’s most read (and longest) books, but I was more heavily influenced by (and love more) The Waste Lands (book 3 of The Dark Tower series). This is because the latter focuses less on the how of the collapse than the aftermath. King’s casual prose and quick, realistic dialogue have always been an inspiration in my writing. The found family connection between Roland, Eddie, Susanna, and Jake is at the heart of The Waste Lands. It is palpable and endearing, and something I strove to emulate with Delia, Gennero, Perth, and Mort in my own novel. There is an allusion to The Waste Lands in my book that big fans of The Dark Tower will catch.  

By Stephen King,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked The Waste Lands as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

The third volume in the #1 nationally bestselling Dark Tower Series, involving the enigmatic Roland (the last gunfighter) and his ongoing quest for the Dark Tower, is “Stephen King at his best” (School Library Journal).

Several months have passed since The Drawing of the Three, and in The Waste Lands, Roland’s two new tet-mates have become trained gunslingers. Eddie Dean has given up heroin, and Odetta’s two selves have joined, becoming the stronger and more balanced personality of Susannah Dean. But Roland altered ka by saving the life of Jake Chambers, a boy who—in Roland’s world—has already died. Now Roland…


Book cover of Interesting Times

Jinn Nelson Author Of Traveler

From my list on underrated humorous fantasy with happy endings.

Why am I passionate about this?

As a fantasy writer, I love to play with possibilities and invent new words for our experiences. I find that humorous fantasy is especially powerful in this regard because it pairs possibilities with absurdity, coming at reality sideways or backwards, putting everyday life into a new and more interesting light. Humor has the unique ability to transcend genres, from thrillers to cozy mysteries. It helps you process difficult emotions, or lift your spirits when the world feels a little too dark. These are some of my favorites within this category, and they all happen to be the first books in a series (you’re welcome). I hope you enjoy them as much as I do!

Jinn's book list on underrated humorous fantasy with happy endings

Jinn Nelson Why did Jinn love this book?

Oliver, a financial analyst befriends a stray cat who begins talking to him one night. And then things start to get really strange.

This is an ‘all the myths are true’ adventure fantasy set in modern-day San Francisco, where absurd things just keep happening while Oliver runs for his life from an inhuman assassin, and finds himself allied with a werewolf with excellent baking skills and a grumpy gunslinger who take orders from an (apparently) immortal child.

I love this story not only for the talking cat (though admittedly it’s what made me start reading), but for the way Oliver is forced to rethink his perceptions of both the world and himself. 

By Matthew Storm,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Interesting Times as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Oliver Jones used to live an ordinary life, until one night a stray cat began speaking to him and things began to go very wrong. Now he is on the run, hunted by an inhuman assassin who will stop at nothing to kill him. His only hope for survival rests with a trio of unlikely new allies: A werewolf with a fondness for Hawaiian shirts, a strange little girl who just might be immortal, and a gunfighter with an anger management problem. For better or for worse, Oliver lives in interesting times...


Book cover of Wyatt Earp: The Life Behind the Legend
Book cover of Ride the Devil's Herd: Wyatt Earp's Epic Battle Against the West's Biggest Outlaw Gang
Book cover of Wyatt Earp's Vendetta Posse Rider: The Story of Texas Jack Vermillion

Share your top 3 reads of 2024!

And get a beautiful page showing off your 3 favorite reads.

1,176

readers submitted
so far, will you?

5 book lists we think you will like!

Interested in Doc Holliday, gunfighter, and the Gunfight at the O.K. Corral?

Doc Holliday 3 books
Gunfighter 10 books