97 books like The Vaquero's Heart

Essentially this is an homage to the American Cowboy as it tells of his demise as a lifestyle. While some say this one’s hard to read because of its episodic format, I found it the ideal setting for telling the background of the Cowboy’s life and times. Life doesn’t happen in such a structured way as most stories depict. As Monty fights against the progress that will consume him, the reader sees its inevitability. Lament it if you will, it’s a forward-moving engine that will not be stopped.

This is the cleverest, funniest, best Sherlock Holmes homage ever. It’s Montana, 1893, and I’m watching the red-headed Amlingmeyer brothers, down-on-their-luck ranch hands, entertain themselves reading Holmes stories in Harper’s Weekly.

Big Red, the younger brother, is reading to his older brother, Old Red (all of 27). Old Red might be illiterate, but I’ll match his “detectifyin’” skills with Holmes’ any day. I love Big Red’s reluctant but loyal acceptance of his role as Watson as the two cowpokes deal with stampedes, mysterious deaths, and cowboys named Puddin-foot and Swivel-eye.

No matter what Big Red tells him, Old Red doesn’t quite believe the Holmes stories are fiction. But I believe Hockensmith’s stories are exactly what Mark Twain would have written if he’d come up with this brilliant idea.

This book is a great read by Louis L'Amour, who’s arguably one of the greatest Western writers to ever live.

L'Amour executes the book brilliantly, placing a woman and her six-year-old son in grave danger from some angry, fired-up Apaches, who are on the warpath.

All that stands between them and their safety is one tough man and his dog.

By some estimates, a quarter of the cowboys on the frontier were African-Americans. I tell some of their stories in my Outlaws book, but this is a much more complete account. Some of the prominent figures of color—Nat Love, Bass Reeves, Rufus Buck, Cherokee Bill, Jim Beckwourth—are portrayed in the 2021 Netflix movie They Harder They Fall, but any resemblance to actual history in that film is purely coincidental. 

Kit Morgan describes the town of Clear Creek, the setting for her Prairie Brides series, as the wackiest town in the West. But it’s her inspired pairing of hunky, honorable British cowboys (yes, you read that right) and the independent, clever women who humble them that makes this book and its sequels so worth the read.

Jordan’s memoir strikes close to my heart: parents, like mine, who encourage their children to better their lives by leaving their homes, going to college, working at fulfilling jobs, and building loving families. But where does that leave the family ranch? As in my own family, Jordan’s parents sell it when there is no one to return and take over the hard, often unrewarding work. In this beautifully written, poignant work, Jordan explores her ancestors, neighbors, and her own time on the ranch, and she makes the reader feel just how deep her grief is over the loss of her heritage and, especially, the land. Be ready to cry.

This book delights me. It makes me laugh, it inspires me, and it makes me wish I could have met Elinore Pruitt Stewart. Even though her life certainly wasn't easy, she never lost her hope, her joy, her faith, or her sense of humor.

Stewart wrote these letters to a friend, detailing her successes and failures as a woman homesteader, and hoping to encourage other women to try forging their own lives on the frontier. Wanting to build a better life for herself and her daughter, this widow headed off into the plains of Wyoming, where she took a job keeping house for a rancher while also claiming her own homestead. Her accounts of her new life are funny, moving, and encouraging by turn.

In 1886, the XIT became the largest cattle brand in Texas. They ran 150,000 head of cattle on three million acres—that’s most of the Texas Panhandle. The author, Cordia Duke, was married to one of the division managers. Over the years, she asked the cowboys to write down their memories and experiences, which she eventually published. For me, as a western author, these stories were (and still are) vital for authenticity, and I keep going back for inspiration. The cowboys’ voices are crystal clear, and we get to read firsthand descriptions of cattle roundups, branding, prairie fires, rustlers, fine cowhorses (good horses), spoilt gotch-eared outlaws (bad horses), and even a recipe for “son-of-a-gun stew,” straight from the mouth of a chuckwagon cook.

While this is a short story, not a novel, it is, in my opinion, the quintessential psychological Western. Depicting the struggle of an ordinary man saddled with extraordinary tasks, to maintain his honor and his values in the face of temptation, it delves into the minds of the two participants, and takes the reader on a wild ride as they wait for the train. Tension you could cut with a knife replaces action, keeping the reader on the edge of his/her seat until the end.

Bob Fudge worked for the famous XIT, a large cattle outfit based in the Texas Panhandle, during the late 1800s and early 1900s. Bob Fudge lived an iconic cowboy life, driving cattle from Texas to Montana. He told his life story in 1932, a year before his death. I first heard about this rare book during a song intro, by western singer Ian Tyson on his Live At Longview album. Before he plays the song “Bob Fudge,” Tyson tells a story of how someone left this book on his guitar case during an earlier performance—and it captivated him. The book captivated me, too, and served as inspiration for my own western novels. Another Canadian western singer, Colter Wall, recorded a live cover version (watch it on YouTube) that is quite cool.