Grady, John Cole, a 16-year-old destitute Texan, crosses the Rio Grande into Mexico with his companion Lacey Rawlins in 1949. The two young horsemen pick up a sidekick in the form of a hilarious but deadly marksman named Jimmy Blevins, go south, and eventually arrive at a paradisiacal hacienda where Cole falls into an ill-fated romance.

All the Pretty Horses tells the story of John Grady Cole, a sixteen-year-old boy who finds himself at the end of a long line of Texas ranchers, cut off from the only life he has ever envisaged for himself. He sets out for Mexico with two companions on a sometimes romantic, sometimes comedic journey to a place where dreams are paid for in blood.

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His safe California home was kidnapped. Thrown into a life-or-death fight in the cold Arctic wasteland. Buck, who is half St. Bernard and half Shepard, learns many hard lessons as a sled dog: the lesson of the leash, the lesson of the cold, the lesson of near-starvation, and the lesson of brutality. And the most important lesson he learns from his previous owner, John Thornton, is the power of love and loyalty. Even when he is by the side of the human he loves, Buck feels a tug in his bones, a want to respond to his wolf ancestors as they howl to him.

The Call of the Wild, first published in 1903, is widely recognized as Jack London's masterpiece. The Call of the Wild is a story about an unbreakable spirit and the fight for survival in the cold Alaskan Klondike, based on London's experiences as a gold prospector in the Canadian wilderness and his thoughts on nature and the struggle for existence.

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Centennial is a thrilling celebration of country, filled with the beauty and greatness of the country's past that only famous novelist James Michener could bring to spectacular life. It is a narrative of trappers, traders, homesteaders, gold seekers, ranchers, and hunters caught up in the dramatic events and deadly conflicts that molded the fate of renowned West, from Native Americans to migrating white men and women, cowboys, and foreigners. Trappers, traders, homesteaders, gold seekers, ranchers, and hunters are drawn together in Centennial to shape the fate of the famous West—and the entire country.

James A. Michener's great saga of the West, written to honor the Bicentennial in 1976, is a fascinating celebration of the frontier. The story of Colorado—the Centennial State—is manifested through its people: Lame Beaver, the Arapaho chieftain and warrior, and his Comanche and Pawnee enemies; Levi Zendt, fleeing from Amish country with his child bride; and Jim Lloyd, a cowboy who falls in love with a wealthy and cultured Englishwoman, Charlotte Seccombe.

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Father Jean Marie Latour arrives in New Mexico in 1851 to serve as the Apostolic Vicar. What he discovers is a large expanse of red hills and winding arroyos that is American by law but Mexican and Indian in custom and belief. In the nearly forty years that follow, Latour spreads his religion in the best manner he knows how: softly, despite an inhospitable landscape, derelict and sometimes openly rebellious priests, and his own loneliness. Cather creates an evocative vision of life unfolding in a place where time itself appears to be suspended as a result of these happenings.

Death Comes for the Archbishop follows Bishop Jean Latour and his vicar Father Joseph Vaillant as they organize the new Roman Catholic diocese of New Mexico. Latour is aristocratic, intelligent, and introverted; he is valiant, practical, outgoing, and sanguine. Friends since infancy in France, the cleric's triumph over corrupt Spanish priests, natural obstacles, and the Hopi and Navajo's apathy to establish their church and build a cathedral in the desert. The novel, essentially a character study, delves into Latour's inner conflicts as well as his relationship with the land, which becomes an imposing character in its own right thanks to the author's powerful description.

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He was a man carved by the desert's howling winds, a large, broad-shouldered man who knew Apache traditions and how to keep alive. She was a single mother raising her small boy on a remote Arizona ranch. Between Hondo Lane and Angie Lowe stood the warrior Vittorio, whose people were ready to revolt against the white man. The pioneer woman, the gunman, and the Apache warrior are now entangled in love, war, and honor tale.

Hondo, one of L'Amour's most famous novels, is full of great descriptions, action, and colorful characters. There are times when the reader feels as if he or she is right there in the center of the arid terrain, hunched down between two stones, waiting for an attack at any minute. At times, the dullness and languor of such a solitary existence take hold of you, for better or worse. Despite its flaws, Hondo is a typical tough-guy western that anyone who is still reading this book will certainly enjoy.

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The Pulitzer Prize-winning American Western classic about two old Texas Rangers embarking on one last adventure. Lonesome Dove, an epic of the frontier, is the biggest novel ever written about America's last rebellious wildness. Lonesome Dove, set in the late 1800s, tells the story of a cattle to drive from Texas to Montana – and much more.

It is a drive that represents not just a brave, even reckless, adventure for everyone involved, but also a piece of the American Dream — the desire to create a new life out of the last remaining wilderness. Journey to the dusty Texas town of Lonesome Dove and meet a fascinating cast of heroes and outlaws, whores and ladies, Indians and settlers. Lonesome Dove is a book that will make everyone laugh, cry, dream, and remember. It is richly authentic, brilliantly written, and always dramatic.

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Monte Walsh, first published in 1963, continues to enchant readers as a Western classic and popular favorite. The story follows Monte Walsh and Chet Rollins as they carouse, ride, and work at the Slash Y with Cal Brennan. As the West transforms and their cowboy antics are called into question, the two must separate ways to pursue new opportunities. Chet marries and goes on to become a prosperous merchant and later a politician, whereas Monte can only find satisfaction in continuing the cowboy lifestyle till the end.

Author Schaefer explores the end of the Old West with wit and pathos. In a series of loosely related stories, he wonderfully captures the life and times of working cowboy Walsh, sidekick Chet Rollins, and other notable Slash Y characters. There will be shootings, cattle drives, winter storms, and spring floods, as well as cattle rustling, romancin', and horse breaking. When pushed to their limits, man and beast must choose whether to live or die.

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A man is ready to be whipped by Mormons in the isolated border territory of South Utah in order to force Jane Withersteen into marrying against her will. The execution is delayed by the appearance of the hero, Lassiter, a gunman dressed in black leather who routs the persecutors before gradually recounting his own history of an interminable hunt for a woman taken long ago by the Mormons. Zane Grey's classic epic of the American West is built on secrecy, seduction, captivity, and escape.

Cottonwood, Utah, 1871. A woman has been charged. A man who has been sentenced to be whipped. The one-man the village elders fear rides into this mockery of small-town justice. Lassiter is a notorious gunman who has come to avenge his sister's death. It doesn't take long for Lassiter to see that this once-peaceful Mormon town is now under the grip of the unscrupulous Deacon Tull—a strong elder who is attempting to steal the woman's farm by forcing her to marry him, branding her foreman as a dangerous "outsider". Lassiter promises to assist them. However, as the ranch is besieged by horse thieves, cattle rustlers, and a mysterious Masked Rider, he understands they're up against something greater and crueler than the terrain itself...

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Zollinger is a great writer, and he has produced a literary western epic. For many people, the western genre represents escapism. Even the best literary Westerns provide an escape. In contrast, being dragged through the McCallister family's and those around them's sad existence left me feeling hollow and empty.

In this narrative, which begins with Pancho Villa, Ignacio Ortiz, an orphan and runaway looking for his past, goes through times of dramatic upheaval, including two world wars and the birth of the modern West. Ignacio's loyalty will be tested by the passions of his tumultuous employers–the MacAndrews clan–as these violent events serve as the backdrop to his life. Ignacio is caught between these two worlds; he spends his leisure time in a cantina in the Latino portion of town. His bittersweet story will appeal to fans of old-fashioned westerns as well as those looking for less mythic yet intriguing stories.

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This epic novel, published in 1936, depicts the tensions that arose during the settlement of the American Southwest. The Sea of Grass is set in late-nineteenth-century New Mexico and depicts the often violent battles between the pioneering ranchers, whose cattle roam freely through the enormous sea of grass, and the farmers, or "nesters", who build fences and turn the sod. Against this backdrop, the rancher Colonel Jim Brewton, his unstable Eastern wife Lutie, and the ambitious Brice Chamberlain form a triangle. Richter frames the story in Homeric lines, with the children caught up in their parents' disputes.

The Sea of Grass is a work of artistic literature. Conrad Richter's word-painting of New Mexico at the conclusion of the cowboy period is rich in analogies and images. This is a story about horrible people doing foolish, horrible things to a slightly less horrible guy. There's some good slightly violet prose thrown in here and there, but everyone wishes there was more. Richter excels in waxing poetic about the grandeur of the seemingly barren plains and describing life on them.

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