Great Westerns to Read

In no particular order

Thomas Berger, Little Big Man (1964)

A centenarian of dubious integrity relives his life on the frontier. In Jack Crabb, Berger creates one of the great Western anti-heroes of all time. In turn laugh-out-loud funny, visceral and sorrowful, it’s historically accurate too. You'll learn a lot about the Plains Wars and the Little Big Horn. But it's perhaps a chapter or two too long, and you might find attitudes a little dated for modern sensibilities.
The movie (1970) hasn't aged well but still has its joys, including Chief Dan George's upstaging of Hollywood star Dustin Hoffman.

Patrick deWitt, The Sisters Brothers (2011)

Charlie and Eli Sisters, two assassins for hire (who somehow deWitt tricks us into empathizing with), head off to the gold fields on a contract, only to get sidetracked by filthy lucre. Darkly comic, mystical, shockingly violent, yet suffused with melancholy.

Elmore Leonard, Hombre (1961)

Inscrutable John Russell, raised by the Apache, loses patience with fellow stagecoach travellers. As you might expect from Leonard, not a word is wasted. The episode where they wait in the dry gulch to ambush the bad guys is a masterclass in tension-ratcheting (which I attempted to emulate in Comanche Is Not My Name.)
The movie with Paul Newman as Russell isn't half bad too.

Female passenger: Have you ever eaten a dog, Mr. Russell?
John Russell: Eaten one, and lived like one.
Female Passenger: Dear me.

Larry McMurtry, Lonesome Dove (1985)

One of few novels I've read three times. Epic, elegiac, enthralling, shot through with unforgettable characters (I ran out of 'e' words there!), settle down for the long ride as reluctant ranchers Gus and Woodrow (perfectly played by Robert Duvall and Tommy Lee Jones in the 80s mini-series) traverse the American West from south to north. Last time I read it I found it a bit over written, but I'm probably getting grumpy in my old age.

Larry McMurtry, Boone’s Lick (2000)

I'm tired of sitting here in Missouri, going hungry and losing weight. When we finish eating this horse I shot, We are going to take a trip, all of us.

Indomitable homesteader uproots family and sets off through Indian Country to track down philandering husband. Irresistible characters, brimming with authenticity, funny, hard-boiled and wistful, if Lonesome Dove was epic, then Boone's Lick is an exercise in brevity and pith, but none the worse for it.

John Williams, Butcher’s Crossing (1960)

A Harvard boy thirsting for adventure heads west and teams up with a trio of buffalo hunters. They head off towards the Rockies to discover an idyllic hidden valley stuffed with quadrupedal booty. Carnage ensues. But will they get their comeuppance? A serious, thoughtful book. You'll spot prophetic metaphors of the Vietnam War if you want to.

Charles Portis, True Grit (1968)

People do not give it credence that a fourteen-year-old girl could leave home and go off in the winter time to avenge her father’s blood – but I was just fourteen years of age when a coward going by the name of Tom Chaney shot my father down in Fort Smith, Arkansas, and robbed him of his life and his horse and $150 in cash money, plus two California gold pieces that he carried in his trouser band.

Opening sentences do not get any better than that. Settle back. You're in safe hands. Who's your favourite Rooster: John Wayne or Jeff Bridges?

James Welch, Fools Crow (1986)

A rare beast: A ‘Western’ written by Native American.
1870. The plains of northern Montana, a landscape of extremes. A band of Blackfeet are living out their harsh yet idyllic ‘immemorial’ lives. But the whites are shoving onto their home. You know how it ends. In this crucial novel Welch depicts an ancient way of being, and its inevitable dismantling.

Annie Proulx, Close Range (2002)

Raw, laconic, ironic yet compassionate short stories set in the modern west, specifically Wyoming:

The wild country— indigo jags of mountain, grassy plain everlasting, tumbled stones like fallen cities, the flaring roll of sky—provokes a spiritual shudder. It is like a deep note that cannot be heard but is felt, it is like a claw in the gut.

Diamond Felts defies his ma and wrecks his body trying to be rodeo star. For Josanna Skiles wild Saturday nights and a hot cowboy boyfriend are not enough to atone for bleak mundanity. Cuckholded cattle rancher Car Scrope battles against inclement weather, physical decrepitude, involuntary celibacy and vegetarians.
Her muscular, jagged prose is not everybody's cup of tea, but for me this is Proulx at the peak of her powers (and that paragraph employs ham-fisted alliteration Proulx would never dream of using!).

Guy Vanderhaeghe, The Englishman’s Boy (1996)

Shorty McAdoo, ex farmhand, gentleman’s servant, wolfer, Indian fighter, cowboy B-movie actor, gets entangled in the power politics of decadent 1920s Hollywood. A time-shifting epic set also on the Canadian plains in the 1870s, it addresses a brutal episode in Native American history. An important, serious novel, but also a great page-turner.

Percival Everett, God’s Country (1994)

A poor rancher hires the ‘best tracker in the territory’ to track down the desperadoes who burnt down his farm, kidnapped his wife and killed his dog. But events knock plans awry. You might laugh out loud at the first page, but this isn't a funny book. You'll laugh again at the remarks and predicaments of the narrator, but you'll wish you hadn't, as it dawns on you what he is. Comic, short and shocking, this is a book about bigotry, its imbecility, and how sometimes imbeciles get to call the shots.

I am of course far too unassuming to include my own Western Comanche Is Not My Name in this list.