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Joined: Aug 2005
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Campfire Ranger
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Campfire Ranger
Joined: Aug 2005
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The Time it Never Rained by Elmer Kelton is about as real of a "Western" as I've ever read....
- Greg
Success is found at the intersection of planning, hard work, and stubbornness.
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Campfire Tracker
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Campfire Tracker
Joined: Dec 2016
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The Time it Never Rained by Elmer Kelton is about as real of a "Western" as I've ever read.... I thank God I came along after the drought was over with. Some of that book will bring you close to tears especially if you had folks that had to scratch by during that time No amount of hard work you could do would make rain fall
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Joined: Jun 2006
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Campfire Ranger
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Campfire Ranger
Joined: Jun 2006
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I can second Zane Gray. I loved Nevada Smith, as a youngster.
I've always been a curmudgeon - now I'm an old curmudgeon. ~Molɔ̀ːn Labé Skýla~
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Campfire Tracker
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Campfire Tracker
Joined: Dec 2016
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As far as I know, Nevada smith is a character in the harold robbins book about jonas cord and his family ( jonas was kind of a thinly disguised Howard Hughes)
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Joined: Jan 2005
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Campfire Ranger
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Campfire Ranger
Joined: Jan 2005
Posts: 17,042 |
Zane Grey wrote a novel, Nevada and a bunch more. I've picked up some first editions in used state to keep in my camp trailer a few miles from where Zane's cabin was before it burned in the Dude fire, the cabin has been rebuilt in Payson. Took the kids to the cabin a couple times when the kids were little, it was a cool place, he built his own furniture with pine and manzanita.
Those books are about 100 years old, my granddaughter can read them sitting in the same country they were written about. His style is rather dated but still worth reading for the historical factor.
Kent
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Campfire Ranger
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Campfire Ranger
Joined: Jan 2005
Posts: 17,042 |
Kit Carson and Fremont historical books have a relative of mine in them Auguste Archambeau, he was a guide for them in the 1840s, having run away from home when he was 12 and coming west with the Reeds to start the first trading post in the Taos area 1820s, he was also an associate of Antoine Robidoux.
Kent
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Campfire Ranger
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Campfire Ranger
Joined: Jan 2006
Posts: 19,816 Likes: 1 |
Elmore Leonard, who wrote the books that "Justified" is based on, also has a bunch of good Westerns, many of which became movies. A personal favorite, not quite a Western, is "The Hot Kid', which has a lot of gunplay and seems to me to be a precursor to the Raylan Givens stories.
"Mountain Man", by Vardis Fisher, became "Jeremiah Johnson"
"The Big Sky" series by A.B. Guthrie
"Welcome to Hard Times"
"The Last Hunt" "Jeremiah Johnson" was based on a book entitled "Crow Killer." It was the real story of Liver-eating Johnson.
"Be sure you're right. Then go ahead." Fess Parker as Davy Crockett
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Campfire 'Bwana
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Campfire 'Bwana
Joined: Dec 2009
Posts: 31,619 Likes: 4 |
Kit Carson and Fremont historical books have a relative of mine in them Auguste Archambeau, he was a guide for them in the 1840s, having run away from home when he was 12 and coming west with the Reeds to start the first trading post in the Taos area 1820s, he was also an associate of Antoine Robidoux.
Kent Very cool Kent!
Founder Ancient Order of the 1895 Winchester
"Come, shall we go and kill us venison? And yet it irks me the poor dappled fools, Being native burghers of this desert city, Should in their own confines with forked heads Have their round haunches gored."
WS
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Joined: Dec 2009
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Campfire 'Bwana
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Campfire 'Bwana
Joined: Dec 2009
Posts: 31,619 Likes: 4 |
I read Guthrie’s The Big Sky while in high school. That was the standard for all things Mountain Man! A great book!!! I was a bit disappointed with The Way West.
Founder Ancient Order of the 1895 Winchester
"Come, shall we go and kill us venison? And yet it irks me the poor dappled fools, Being native burghers of this desert city, Should in their own confines with forked heads Have their round haunches gored."
WS
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Joined: Aug 2017
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Campfire Regular
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Campfire Regular
Joined: Aug 2017
Posts: 1,127 |
Clarence Mulford. The original Hop A long Cassidy. Written 100 years ago. Very different than the movies. I recommend them highly.
The cow is where you are, the bull is where you want to be.
No one gets something for nothing unless someone else got nothing for something.
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Joined: Nov 2005
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Campfire Kahuna
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Campfire Kahuna
Joined: Nov 2005
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As far as I know, Nevada smith is a character in the harold robbins book about jonas cord and his family ( jonas was kind of a thinly disguised Howard Hughes) The Carpetbaggers. It has nothing to do with Zane Grey or the Steve McQueen movie Nevada Smith.
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Campfire 'Bwana
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Campfire 'Bwana
Joined: Dec 2009
Posts: 31,619 Likes: 4 |
I remember reading in J. Frank Dobie once where he was in Arizona and a bunch of local ranch hands came riding down the road shooting up in the air. He asked em what was going on. They said that Zane Grey was home and hired em to add som local flavor to the area while he was there. 🤣
Founder Ancient Order of the 1895 Winchester
"Come, shall we go and kill us venison? And yet it irks me the poor dappled fools, Being native burghers of this desert city, Should in their own confines with forked heads Have their round haunches gored."
WS
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Joined: Dec 2014
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Campfire Outfitter
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Campfire Outfitter
Joined: Dec 2014
Posts: 9,125 Likes: 2 |
Elmer Kelton, compared to some of the the other authors mentioned here, sounds to me like the only guy who actually spent much time in a saddle. Sounds to me like one of the few to shake frost off a bedroll in the dawn light. Sounds like one of the few to try to make a fire with piss poor damp sagebrush. Writing books of the western theme, requires more experience than driving through the subject country with the window down occasionally.
Well this is a fine pickle we're in, should'a listened to Joe McCarthy and George Orwell I guess.
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Campfire Regular
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Campfire Regular
Joined: Feb 2005
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Not really westerns, although they are set on what was the western border at the time about which they were written, are James Fennimore Cooper's books. "Last of the Mohicans" is my favorite, but all of them are good reads.
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Campfire Kahuna
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Campfire Kahuna
Joined: Aug 2004
Posts: 69,653 Likes: 14 |
Anything by Elmer Kelton.
Longarm series by Tabor Evans. (The first few years were best)
The Sidewinder series by William Johnstone and JA Johnstone.
Molɔ̀ːn Labé Skýla!
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Campfire Regular
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Campfire Regular
Joined: May 2013
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My Dad has read every old western book in his county library. The paperbacks all have different geezer initials all up and down the inside first page so they can see if they already read it. Clearly he needs new material for Father's Day.
Help me with a good western book or series about steely-eyed cowboys, slim-waisted rancher daughters, blazing Colt 45's and sidekicks named Blue. Another western author with quite a few books to his credit is Elmer Kelton. Llano River is a good read. Stand Proud is another. Really like Keltons stuff, to my taste he's probably better than Lamour
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Campfire Regular
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Campfire Regular
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"A 100 Miles to Water". By Mike Kearby you will enjoy it
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Campfire Tracker
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Campfire Tracker
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Monte Walsh by Schaefer. I felt I had lost a friend by the end. The virginian From Where the Sun Now Stands. Will Henry. story of Chief Joseph
Last edited by kennyd; 06/18/20.
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Campfire Tracker
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Campfire Tracker
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Not really westerns, although they are set on what was the western border at the time about which they were written, are James Fennimore Cooper's books. "Last of the Mohicans" is my favorite, but all of them are good reads. Read them in grade school. 12 or 13 years old I thought I was Hawkeye / Pathfinder killing squirrels behind the house. I have them on kindle now.
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