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Who else writs like him? I like the style , the stories �I�ve picked up a few western books at the store in passing��but I think I judged them more by the cover than the contents �who do u have that�s close?

You might give Harry Combs a try. A great one to start with is "Brules". Probably my favorite western fiction.

Another good one is "Gone To Texas" and "The Vengenance Trail of Josey Wales", both by Forrest Carter. GTT is the book the movie "The Outlaw Josey Wales" was from.

Jack London, Zane Grey, oldees but goodees. So many current writers seem to pick themes that I don't care for that much, or are writing to sell to moviemakers. A lot of violence and sex, but not much story.

Lamour wrote a lot of short stories and novellas for pulp mags before he got into westerns about boxers and adventurers that are good but harder to find now.

I like to find the books that a western movie i like was based on and read them for the differences. Sometimes you aren't sure you got the right book, they are so different, but interesting.

Try the older western novels of Elmore Leonard and Elmer Kelton. Both authors are very good writers.

L.W.

Elmer Kelton is good, sometimes even great.

Luke Short can be excellent or so-so. He varies from book to book.

Larry McMurtry generally makes me want to hang myself, but Lonesome Dove was quite good.

Robert B. Parker Westerns are quite good. His book Appaloosa was the basis for the movie of the same name. He also did a great take on the Wyatt Earp saga; Gunman's Rhapsody.

Donald Hamilton, author of the Matt Helm series (Don't let those crappy Dean Martin movies fool you, they were great books), wrote a few very good Westerns including "The Big Country" which was turned into a great movie with our president Charleton Heston.

Lamour. Believe it or not after you get all of the Sacketts and how they are loosely connected. First one I ever read was The Daybreakers. The best one is The Walking Drum about old world including Constantinople.

I read all of the JT Edson's too but they get redundant with the reintroduction of "The Floating Outfit" over and over. I have read a lot of Luke Short's as well.

Not related but a truly good read is Lone Survivor.

Terry Johnston books are quite good in some aspects........weapons use and description...and battle history research in my opinion. However, for me, his interplay of characters was detailed so finely that it was slow and painful for me to read...and I really tried. I think I read most of his, many times before they hit the shelf due to Terry being a friend of a friend of mine. Terry was always flying out to research battle sites and walk the ground where they had taken place. I remember him flying out with an original Sharps rifle to do research at the Adobe Walls battle site. I asked him " are you going hunting Terry? " Terry says " no, I'm going to walk around Adobe Walls to get information for my next book." So I said " what's the rifle for, Terry?" He says, " oh, that's an old original Sharps that I'm going to carry around the battlefield while I'm there. Would you like to see it?" I replied, " sure Terry, I'd love to see it. " Terry got his Sharps out of the hard case and let me check it out while he told me a little about it.....this was all while he was getting his boarding passes at the ticket counter in the airport. Probably something you can't do in New York, Chicago, or LA without getting tazed, shot or arrested. 2 of my friends absolutely loved Terrys books, so they might be something you would like to check out.

The Clan of the Cave Bear series by Jean Auel is well researched and makes an excellent read.

Max Evans.

Expat

Nobody really writes like Louis L'Amour. Here are some ideas for reading materials in the same general vein though.

The Wonderful Country by Tom Lea. All the Pretty Horses by Cormac McCarthy. Hombre by Elmore Leonard.

I really enjoyed reading Louis L'Amour. His Last of the Breed, a modern day story, was quite well done. I do wish he had been able to write a sequel.

No doubt, I'm surprised a money was never made based on that book. If done right, it would have been a good one.

Properly done, Last of the Breed would make an excellent movie.

+ another 1 on McMurtry and Leonard.

Try Bernard Cornwell's Richard Sharpe series.

I'd suggest Max Brand - real name Fredric Faust - as more like Louis L'Amour than some others are. L'Amour tends to be more a teller of tales than a novelist.

AFAIK Luke Short is currently a house name and so not really a useful guide.

Agreed that Donald Hamilton western's are first rate in the longer books - another writer who wrote places if not times that he knew - although some of the shorter works should have been left in the trunk so to speak. The Matt Helm books are well worth reading for a western hero updated as are the modern setting books before Matt Helm and the modern setting big book Mona Intercept and even the sailboat books. The non-fiction collection Donald Hamilton on Guns and Hunting is a good read too.

Robert B. Parker's books aren't set in the west we knew - I'll never know why he made that choice - frex rather than giving a character a Frontier Colt and a Winchester in .44-40 which might have been a real choice Parker imagines a Winchester in .45 Colt chosen by the character to match the cartridge in his SAA. Not bad but by no means the real west.

William Johnstone books are excellent and in the same era as many of Louis L'Amores. I just finished "Last of Breed" a few weeks ago, agreed good book and could be a great movie. If you have never given Steven Hunter and his books a try they are very entertaining also.

I remember reading "Last of the Breed" just before being stationed in England. I was hoping for the sequel only to here the sad new of Louis' death a couple days after I got there.

TNrifleman, if I had a better idea of what you were looking for I could make recommendations. Writing is my business. The one book by L'Amour that is overlooked is EDUCATION OF A WANDERING MAN, his biography, and I think, his best book by far. But, of course, it is non-fiction. Some folks here in the West are reading C.J. Box novels. I haven't. When I was involved with the Western Writers of America I got to know Richard Wheeler a little. He is quite prolific and historically accurate, I think. Though I've written fiction, I personally prefer western history written by people who were there, so I look for books published in the early 20th Century. I just read a book entitled BUFFALO DAYS that was amazing. A great first-hand look at the West from the early 1870s to the 1900s.

mtrancher,

I have read Education of a Wandering Man, and it is quite good, as you mentioned. I also highly recommend it to any L'Amour fan. He certainly lead an interesting life. No doubt, his varied life experiences greatly enriched his writings.

I'd be very interested in any further recommendation you might have.

TNRifleman, I have a large library of non-fiction western history so if you are into good non-fiction I have scores of books I can recommend. I am a literary writer, as opposed to a commercial writer, so my personal taste in fiction runs to the better written, more character-driven novels. Norman Zillinger is excellent. I would recommend in this order, PASSAGE TO QUIVIRA, RIDERS TO CIBOLA, and RAGE IN CHUPADERA. Another good author was Robert F. Jones who was also an outdoors writer who wrote about hunting in Africa. A western novel of his is TIE MY BONES TO HER BACK. If you have never read the non-fiction classic TOUGH TRIP THROUGH PARADISE by Andrew Garcia then let me highly recommend it. My fiction trilogy THE BREAKING OF EZRA RILEY is set in the current west. Book one was a runnerup for the Golden Spur Award, placing first on two of three ballots. If you look for it make sure you find the Broadman and Holman edition, large book with a white cover, as it contains all three novels.