The romance of the cowboy has spawned a whole genre of books that feature these rugged workers of the American West. OWWL2Go offers a curated list of cowboy-oriented titles if they’re a subject you’d like to explore. Here are a few of them.
This first-rate collection of short stories by the incomparable Louis L’Amour showcases the legendary writer at his very best: spinning a fascinating and wholly authentic set of unforgettable tales. In these extraordinary stories, we meet a man who is forced to defend himself by taking another’s life—and must pay for his actions in a most punishing manner; a young thrill-seeker who finally finds a place he can call home, and vows to stay there—regardless of the man who tries to stand in his way; and a drifter who honors a deathbed promise to a stranger by embarking on an unlikely mission of mercy.
Complete with revealing author’s notes, the stories in Law of the Desert Born are historically precise, and filled with L’Amour’s trademark humor and adventure. They are nothing less than modern classics of the American West, told by one of the most beloved storytellers of our time.
Written to commemorate the Bicentennial in 1976, James A. Michener’s magnificent saga of the Westis an enthralling celebration of the frontier. Brimming with the glory of America’s past, 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 with his child bride from the Amish country; the cowboy, Jim Lloyd, who falls in love with a wealthy and cultured Englishwoman, Charlotte Seccombe. In Centennial, trappers, traders, homesteaders, gold seekers, ranchers, and hunters are brought together in the dramatic conflicts that shape the destiny of the legendary West—and the entire country.
BONUS: This edition includes an excerpt from James A. Michener’s Hawaii.
In Colorado Territory, Smoke Jensen is trying to live at peace with the big, beautiful world around him. Then a tinhorn named Puddle enters his valley–and unleashes a hellstorm of a range war.
Then the shooting started.
Malcolm Theodore Puddle is a 21-year shipping clerk–from way back East. What is he doing out here? The Mountain Man’s former neighbor, Humbolt Puddle, has died and left his crumbling 600-acre ranch to his only living heir, just as a greedy and ruthless cattle baron is circling the Humbolt ranch like a ravenous vulture. Poor, unsuspecting Puddle is walking into a death trap. Smoke is the not the pitying kind. But any enemy of Smoke’s neighbor is his enemy, too: kill-crazy hired gunmen are threatening the whole valley and good men are dying. Puddle may not be much, but he’s all Smoke has–as a take-no-prisoners mountain man and a timid tinhorn make for an army of two…in one hell of a fight.
Macedon Public Library 