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24 Best Western Books of All Time


Our goal: Find the best Western books according to the internet (not just one random person's opinion).

    Here's what we did:
  1. Type "best western books" into our search engine and study the top 5 pages.
  2. Add only the books mentioned 2+ times.
  3. Rank the results neatly for you here! 😊
    (It was a lot of work. But hey! That's why we're here, right?)

(Updated 2023)

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  1. 1

    Lonesome Dove

    A Novel

    Larry McMurtry

  2. 2

    True Grit

    A Novel

    Charles Portis

  3. 3

    The Sisters Brothers

    Patrick deWitt

  4. 5

    The Son

    Philipp Meyer

  5. 6

    Hondo

    A Novel

    Louis L'Amour

  6. 7

    The Searchers

    Alan Le May

  7. 8
  8. 9

    El Paso

    A Novel

    Winston Groom

  9. 12
  10. 15

    Little House on the Prairie

    Laura Ingalls Wilder

  11. 16

    Shane

    Jack Schaefer

  12. 17

    The Virginian

    Owen Wister

  13. 18
  14. 19

    The Ox-Bow Incident

    Walter Van Tilburg Clark

  15. 20

    The Shootist

    Glendon Swarthout

  16. 21
  17. 22
  18. 23

    The Longhorns

    J. Frank Dobie

  19. 24

    Ramrod

    Luke Short

FAQ

  • How was this Western books list created?

    We searched for "best Western books", found the top 5 articles, took every book mentioned in 2+ articles, and averaged their rankings.

  • How many Western books are in this list?

    There are 24 books in this list.

  • Why did you create this Western books list?

    We wanted to gather the most accurate list of Western books on the internet.

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