Books with category Western Adventure
Displaying 11 books

Butcher's Crossing

2015

by John Williams

Butcher’s Crossing is a fiercely intelligent and beautifully written western novel. Set in the 1870s, it follows the journey of Will Andrews, a young man inspired by Emerson to seek an original relation to nature. Leaving Harvard, he ventures west, finding himself in the small Kansas town of Butcher’s Crossing, a place filled with restless men eager to make and waste money.

Andrews befriends a man who speaks of immense herds of buffalo hidden in a beautiful Colorado Rockies valley. Enticed by the promise, Andrews joins an expedition to hunt the buffalo. The journey is grueling, but the valley's richness is worth the struggle. However, as they indulge in an orgy of slaughter, the men lose track of time, and winter traps them in snow.

The following spring, driven to madness by cabin fever, cold, and hunger, they return to Butcher’s Crossing, only to find a world as irrevocably changed as they are.

The Virginian: A Horseman of the Plains

2012

by Owen Wister

The Virginian rides into the untamed West, a land where pioneers test their fortunes and their wills. The Wyoming territory is a harsh, unforgiving landscape, governed by an unwritten code of honor that dictates the lives and deaths of its men.

Into this rugged environment enters the Virginian, a solitary figure whose unbending will guides him through life. His beliefs in right and wrong face trials as he endeavors to prove his love to a woman who struggles to accept his sense of justice.

At the same time, a betrayal by his most trusted friend forces him to confront the corruption that plagues the land. This epic tale, still as exciting and meaningful as when it was first published over a century ago, exemplifies enduring themes in American literature.

With remarkable character depth and vivid passages, The Virginian stands not only as the first great novel of American Western literature but also as a testament to the eternal struggle between good and evil in humanity.

The Ox-Bow Incident

Set in 1885, The Ox-Bow Incident is a searing and realistic portrait of frontier life and mob violence in the American West. First published in 1940, it focuses on the lynching of three innocent men and the tragedy that ensues when law and order are abandoned. The result is an emotionally powerful, vivid, and unforgettable re-creation of the Western novel, which Clark transmuted into a universal story about good and evil, individual and community, justice and human nature.

As Wallace Stegner writes, Clark's theme was civilization, and he recorded, indelibly, its first steps in a new country.

Streets of Laredo

2000

by Larry McMurtry

From the Pulitzer Prize-winning author Larry McMurtry comes the sequel and final book in the Lonesome Dove tetralogy. An exhilarating tale of legend and heroism, Streets of Laredo is classic Texas and Western literature at its finest.

Captain Woodrow Call, August McCrae's old partner, is now a bounty hunter hired to track down a brutal young Mexican bandit. Riding with Call are an Eastern city slicker, a witless deputy, and one of the last members of the Hat Creek outfit, Pea Eye Parker. This long chase leads them across the last wild stretches of the West into a hellhole known as Crow Town and, finally, into the vast, relentless plains of the Texas frontier.

Cities of the Plain

1999

by Cormac McCarthy

Cities of the Plain is the concluding volume of The Border Trilogy, crafted by the National Book Award-winning author Cormac McCarthy. This magnificent novel serves as a darkly beautiful elegy for the American frontier.

Set in 1952, the story follows John Grady Cole and Billy Parham, who work as ranch hands in New Mexico, near the proving grounds of Alamogordo and the cities of El Paso and Juarez. Their lives are filled with trail drives, horse auctions, and stories told by campfire light. They cherish this life, knowing it is about to change forever.

The change is triggered when John Grady falls in love with a beautiful, ill-starred Mexican prostitute, setting in motion a chain of violent and unstoppable events. The novel is haunting in its beauty, filled with sorrow, humor, and awe. Cities of the Plain is a genuine American epic, capturing the essence of a world on the brink of transformation.

For the Roses

1996

by Julie Garwood

In Blue Belle, Montana, everyone knew better than to mess with the Claybornes. The brothers had once been a mismatched gang of street urchins—until they found an abandoned baby girl in a New York City alley, named her Mary Rose, and headed west to raise her to be a lady.

They became a family—held together by loyalty and love, if not by blood—when suddenly they faced a crisis that threatened to tear them apart. Trouble came to town with one Lord Harrison Stanford MacDonald. Armed with a swagger and six-shooter, he cut a striking figure—but it soon became apparent to Mary Rose that he was too much of a gentleman to make it in her rough-and-tumble town.

She asked her brothers to teach him the basics of frontier survival, which he acquired with ease. And soon he possessed a deep and desperate love for Mary Rose. She returned his affection wholeheartedly... until MacDonald revealed a secret that challenged everything she believed about herself, her life, and her newfound love.

Now her search for identity and meaning would begin, raising questions that could only be answered if she listened to the truth within her heart.

Prince Charming

1995

by Julie Garwood

Only her beloved grandmother, Lady Esther, knew how devastated Taylor Stapleton had been when her fiancé eloped with Taylor's cousin. Now dear Esther — one of London's richest and most formidable matriarchs — lies dying. But first, she was going to help Taylor pull off the scam of the season.

To escape becoming a ward of her unscrupulous uncle, Taylor would wed Lucas Ross, a rugged American rancher. Lady Esther's money would enable Ross to return home to Montana. Taylor had her own urgent reason to go to America... a precious legacy she hadn't revealed to Ross, for they had agreed to part ways once they reached Boston. But as her handsome new husband spoke of life in Montana, Taylor began planning a new future. To Taylor, the wide-open spaces of Montana sounded like paradise....

Love's Enduring Promise

1985

by Janette Oke

Tragedy brought them together, but love bound them into a family. Clark and Marty Davis, the pioneer couple thrown together after the death of their first spouses, now preside over a growing number of youngsters in their prairie home.

Together they face the joys and trials of life on a homesteader's farm. Will they be able to find a suitable teacher for the long-awaited new school? Is the "very learned" Eastern preacher going to be able to communicate with the simple people of the West?

And how do Clark and Marty guide their lovely daughter, now grown to womanhood, in her choice of a partner?

The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford

1983

by Ron Hansen

One of the great classic tales of The Great American West...

It is 1881. Jesse James, at the age of 34, is at the height of his fame and powers as a singularly successful outlaw. Robert Ford is the skittish younger brother of one of the James gang: he has made himself an expert on the gang, but his particular interest - his obsession - is Jesse James himself. Both drawn to him and frightened of him, the nineteen-year-old is uncertain whether he wants to serve James or destroy him or, somehow, become him.

Never have these two men been portrayed and their saga explored with such poetry, such grim precision and such raw-boned feeling as Ron Hansen has brought to this masterful retelling.

The Lonesome Gods

1983

by Louis L'Amour

I am Johannes Verne, and I am not afraid. This was the boy’s mantra as he plodded through the desert alone, left to die by his vengeful grandfather. Johannes Verne was soon to be rescued by outlaws, but no one could save him from the lasting memory of his grandfather’s eyes, full of impenetrable hatred.

Raised in part by Indians, then befriended by a mysterious woman, Johannes grew up to become a rugged adventurer and an educated man. But even now, strengthened by the love of a golden-haired girl and well on his way to making a fortune in bustling early-day Los Angeles, the past may rise up to threaten his future once more. And this time only the ancient gods of the desert can save him.

Shane

1949

by Jack Schaefer

A stranger rode out of the heart of the great glowing West, into the small Wyoming valley in the summer of 1889. It was Shane, who appeared on the horizon and became a friend and guardian to the Starrett family at a time when homesteaders and cattle rangers battled for territory and survival.

Jack Schaefer’s classic novel illuminates the spirit of the West through the eyes of a young boy and a hero who changes the lives of everyone around him. Renowned artist Wendell Minor provides stunning images and a moving introduction to this new edition of Shane, the ultimate tale of the Western landscape.

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