Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Best book you ever read

Oh Geez, like Western Movies, And Country Songs, I got dozens of favorite books too!
But there are a few books, which have had a Big impact on me for better or worse!
Jack OConners “Rifles And Shotguns”, turned me into a gunnut, and I’ve been suffering with it ever since! I left that damn thing laying around, and Ben found it too! He’s as bad as I am on guns, and I’m figuring that hand loading ain’t far off!
Dad bought me “The Golden Book Of The Civil War” at the Gettysburg Cyclorama bookshop, I think I was 8. I sparked my interest in American History, and I’ve been a History nerd ever since!
Dave my older brother had a 17 book collection, I forget the name, all about American History, each book covered a certain era, from the French & Indian War to the Apollo Missions in the early ‘70s!
I devoured them as a kid!
These three are the Chief causes of what I have become!
I’m not complaining, as a matter of fact, I’m saving copies of all of them for my grandkids!
7mm

Common Sense

"The cause of America is, in a great measure, the cause of all mankind. Many circumstances have, and will arise, which are not local, but universal, and through which the principles of all lovers of mankind are affected, and in the event of which, their affections are interested. The laying a country desolate with fire and sword, declaring war against the natural rights of all mankind, and extirpating the defenders thereof from the face of the earth, is the concern of every man to whom nature hath given the power of feeling; of which class, regardless of party censure is."

There are some good ones listed. Not sure of the best but as others have mentioned there are ones I've read a few times. The Ring Trilogy. Dune.

Other's that I've read just once, Moby Dick, The Sun Also Rises, The Godfather, Stranger in a Strange Land, among others.

Probably the one that had the most influence on me was My Side of the Mountain when I was young. Must have read that a dozen times. Frightful.

I just looked on amazonca and they seemed to have an original copy, around 50 bucks.
I see there are different versions, but the original is the only one I would get. I have borrowed it from the library a number of times.

To know Alexander Ross is itself interesting....he was a North West Company man, led at least two Snake River expeditions, and in his youth he was bad azz. He wrote the book nearing the end of his life.

THIS FOR THE WIN !

I found it. Didn't think to try the Canadian Amazon. Thanks for the tip.

This one. Horn of the hunter as well

Worth reading more than once...^^^^

Another good one

I have been fortunate to read many outdoor writers and will subject Jack O’Conner, Ruark, Capstick, Frederick Courtney Selous and others for your consideration. Many have allowed me to hunt exotic foreign countries vicariously through their writings. MTG

I agree with many of these.
Lonesome Dove sit a standard for the tale of the West
I read Grapes of Wrath when Covid started. Had an impact on me.
One not mentioned yet, One Flew Over The Coo Coo Nest. Reads from a perspective the movie couldn’t create.
Tinker, Tailor, Soldier Spy
Blood Meridian, The Road, Child of God and everything else by Cormac McCarthy

Fountainhead…

Stafford’s book is great, reading it when I was 12 started my lifelong WWII history. I’ve still got a copy of Big E

As a child….Who Walks the Attic. As a 6th grader, Where the Red Fern Grows. In my teens, it was a short story about a rattle snake and I’ve never been able to find it since. As an adult, I’m mostly interested in westerns later in life, since 2005, so I’ve read The Rider of Lost Creek the most and The Haunted Mesa, I have the Louis L’amour collection that belonged to Mom and Dad.

From about the third grade forward, while in school, I consumed about 300 volumes annually.

One I remember most vividly from 3'rd or 4'th grade was Heinlein's "Have Spacesuit, Will Travel".

That piece set me on a lifetime pursuit of meaningful science fiction. Many do not recognize the import of science fiction. If it is any good, it is ultimately a study in Sociology.

In the author's mind, what can human society achieve? Or, on the other hand, to what depths of depravity can man sink? George Orwell's "Animal Farm" from 1945, and "1984" from 1949 have proven to be amazingly prescient.

Heinlein wrote a lot of childish fiction in the forties, fifties and early sixties. But his later, (and sometimes earlier) adult works are masterpieces including:
Methuselah's Children (1941)
Time Enough for Love (1973)
The Number of the Beast (1980)
Friday (1982)
The Cat Who Walks Through Walls (1985)
To Sail Beyond the Sunset (1987).

For pure engrossing, take me away to another world: It has to be JRR Tolkein, followed closely by Frank Herbert. Dune is superlative, with five sequels nearly as entertaining.

As a kid, Where the Red Fern Grows, no doubt. As an adult, I could think of several, many already listed on here, but I will add one not mentioned, Patton: A Genius for War by Carlo D'Este. He also has books on Eisenhower and Churchill which are worth the time.

Good Friends,Good Guns, Good Whiskey by Skeeter Skelton (plus his other books) and any Louis LaAmour western.

This is like asking who the greatest rock guitarist of all time is.

The books I’ve read the most include:

Wendell Berry’s Jayber Crow and That Distant Land

Roger Scruton’s The Soul of the World

I really liked Walker Percy’s The Moviegoer, Russell Kirk’s bio of Edmund Burke, and CS Lewis’ Till We Have Faces, all of which I’ve read lately.

One book that isn’t “the greatest” by any measure but that I think everyone should read is RR Reno’s Return of the Strong gods. He does an excellent job of explaining post War consensus between members of the Uniparty and how it’s gotten us where we are. Very interesting.

The Old Man and The Sea, i like that one.