New & Novel: Western Fiction

Four Mile Old West Town, Custer, Black Hills, South Dakota, United States of America, North America. Photography. Britannica ImageQuest, Encyclopædia Britannica, 25 May 2016.
quest.eb.com/search/151_2582682/1/151_2582682/cite. Accessed 17 Jun 2017.

The discovery of the Americas and the mysterious, unexplored West fired the imagination of Spanish conquistadors, English pilgrims, French fur traders, and the legions that have followed over the centuries. In spurts, awestruck and hypnotized by the power and beauty of the land, we pushed the boundaries of the known Western Hemisphere to the edge of dense forests, over endless grassy prairies, through towering barrier mountains, and finally across scorched deserts to the shores of the Pacific Ocean. Explorers, naturalists, soldiers, cowboys, poets, adventurers, treasure hunters, army wives, artists, gold miners, traders, stockmen, European noblemen, and just about anyone else you can think of who traveled by foot, horse, or wagon under the vast western sky and could put pen to paper felt compelled to write about the American West. And it hasn’t stopped yet.
~Michael McGarrity, "Top Ten Essential Western Novels You Have to Read"

Did you know that the Western was the most popular Hollywood film genre until the 1960s? That's probably why when we think of Westerns, we think of Shane, The Virginian, True Grit, and The Ox-Bow Incident, though we're familiar with authors as well - Louis L'Amour, Elmer Kelton, William W. Johnstone, Johnny D. Boggs, Zane Grey, and Cormac McCarthy. But though the genre has a rich canon of classics to choose from, there are new Westerns being published all the time! Additionally, there are subgenres, such as Western romance, horror Westerns, space Westerns, and Western graphic novels, though much current Western fiction adheres to the familiar 1860 - 1900 setting and a recognizably Old West cast of characters.

We hope you will enjoy some of these new and novel Western titles from the library catalog:

Huck Out West by Robert Coover

World, Chase Me Down by Andrew Hilleman  [large print]

Centennial by James Michener [eBook, eAudio]

The Son by Philipp Meyer 

The Assassination of Jesse James By the Coward, Robert Ford by Ron Hansen 

American Meteor by Norman Lock [eAudio] 

Barkskins by Annie Proulx [eAudio] 

El Paso by Winston Groom [book on CD] 

Crossing Purgatory by Gary Schanbacher

The Collected Works of Billy the Kid by Michael Ondaatje [eAudio] 

News of the World by Paulette Jiles

Kind of Kin by Rilla Askew 

Winter In the Blood by James Welch 

Matchless: A Western Story by Jane Candia Coleman

The Brave Cowboy: An Old Tale In a New Time by Edward Abbey  

The Sisters Brothers by  Patrick deWitt     

Doc by Mary Doria Russell 

Wake of Vultures by Lila Bowen

Legends of the Fall by Jim Harrison [eBook, eAudio] 

Vengeance Road by Erin Bowman [YA]

Silver On the Road by Laura Anne Gilman

Paradise Sky by Joe R. Lansdale

Glorious: A Novel of the American West by Jeff Guinn

Painted Horses by Malcolm Brooks

 

Links 

12 Best Darn Western Books of All Time [Early Bird Books] 

Yee haw! 10 Western novels that show how wild the West really was [Ink Tank]  

Top 10 Western books [American Cowboy]  

Spur Awards winners [Western Writers of America]