From my list on western books to make your heart race with empathy and adventure.
Why am I passionate about this?
I am uniquely qualified to assemble this list because I gave my heart and head to the fictional and true West in fourth grade. When I learned California history, enraptured by images of wild horses and vaqueros, the cruelty of bear and bullfighting (no one talked then about cruelty to “converted” Native Americans), and the myth of Zorro. I grabbed the chance to move to the cowgirl state of Nevada, where I learned to love the scents of sagebrush and alkali flats. Research for my fiction and non-fiction has given me license to ride in a Pony Express reenactment and 10-day cattle drive and spend all night bottle-feeding an orphan mustang.
Terri's book list on western books to make your heart race with empathy and adventure
Why did Terri love this book?
I saw a well-used copy of this book in the bunkhouse of real cowboys. That totally confirmed the way I felt–that this book is authentic. Yes, it has the feel of the mythical West I fell in love with as a girl, but it’s gritty and quirky, too.
Who would guess that Augustus, a tough-as-leather former Texas Ranger, would bring two pigs on a hundreds of miles-long cattle drive? Not for eating, but because he couldn’t leave those friendly pets behind. His heart is tender, though he’s tough as any Western man you ever imagined.
Whenever I (unwillingly) think of Blue Duck, I realize he is the worst literary villain I’ve ever read. Thinking of him gives me chills, just as thinking of Captain Call makes me reluctantly admire him. He is a man with foot-thick emotional armor, but his sense of honor is just as strong. Plus, he calls…
15 authors picked Lonesome Dove as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.
Larry McMurtry's Pulitzer Prize winning novel is a powerful, triumphant portrayal of the American West as it really was. From Texas to Montana, it follows cowboys on a grueling cattle drive through the wilderness.
It begins in the office of The Hat Creek Cattle Company of the Rio Grande.
It ends as a journey into the heart of every adventurer who ever lived . . .
More than a love story, more than an adventure, Lonesome Dove is an epic: a monumental novel which embraces the spirit of the last defiant wilderness of America.
Legend and fact, heroes and outlaws,…