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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

I can second Zane Gray.
I loved Nevada Smith, as a youngster.

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)

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

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

"Jeremiah Johnson" was based on a book entitled "Crow Killer." It was the real story of Liver-eating Johnson.

Very cool Kent!

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.

Clarence Mulford. The original Hop A long Cassidy. Written 100 years ago. Very different than the movies. I recommend them highly.

The Carpetbaggers. It has nothing to do with Zane Grey or the Steve McQueen movie Nevada Smith.

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. 🤣

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.

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.

Anything by Elmer Kelton.

Longarm series by Tabor Evans. (The first few years were best)

The Sidewinder series by William Johnstone and JA Johnstone.

Really like Keltons stuff, to my taste he's probably better than Lamour

"A 100 Miles to Water". By Mike Kearby you will enjoy it

https://www.amazon.com/Bob-Sharps-Cattle-Country-Ranching/dp/0816509379

“Boss Cowman” by Ed Lemon

“Hell I was there” by Elmer Kieth

All non fiction

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

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.