We've had the Movies now how about the top Western Books

[pauld]

I like a good movie but I ove a great book

I can watch a movie after a book but will never enjoy a book as much after seeing the movie/TV series first (unless after a looooong gap)

My contenders

Little Big Man - he meets 'em all, great and small
Son of the Morning Star - Custer and the Greasey Grass
Lonesome Dove - of course (sequels and prequels are merely OK)
Appaloosa - and all the Cole and Hitch books (Robert Parker has a wonderful spare style and ear for dialogue)
The West by Jon E Lewis - not a novel but a great potted history of the American West
Flashman and the Redskins was fun
Centennial and Texas by Michener (also a bit of Chesapeake I suppose)
Gone to Texas - Josey Wales

Give me some of your recommendations - please

I feel the need for read

[Lowtardog]

Not really a western fiction reader but I do like weird western fiction

Skin Medicine has to be the one for me

[thebinmann]

Again not westen but Battle Cry of Freedom is a great read about the Civil War

[goon3423]

Blood Meridian...that is all  .

[joroas]

Remarque: All Quiet on the Western Front?   

[Bugsda]

Geronimo: His Own Story
Once They Moved Like The Wind,  David Roberts
End of Custer, Dale T Schoenberger
Scalp Dance, Thomas Goodrich
Death in the Desert, Paul I Welman
Hombre, Elmore Leonard
Triggernometry, Eugene Cunningham
Bury My Heart At Wounded Knee, Dee Brown

Woops! One too many but I can't decide which to cull  

Oh! Blood and Thunder by Hampton Sides, but that's an audio book so I don't know if it counts 

[pauld]

Scalp Dance - forgpt that one

a good if sometimes gruesome read

a lot there I have not read Bugsda - I will check them out

[Zaheer]

I loved Bury my Heart at Wounded Knee. A fairly laborious read in places but very affecting.

[thebinmann]

Bury My Heart At Wounded Knee, Dee Brown

Woops! One too many but I can't decide which to cull  

Certainly not this one!

[Johnno]

Appaloosa, Resolution, Brimstone all by the late Robert B. Parker

[Malamute]

Reading Two for Texas by James Lee Burket at the moment and really enjoying it.

"A road we do not know" is a great novelisation of the battle of Little Big Horn. Can't remember the author at the moment. But worth a read.

[starkadder]

Deadwood by Pete Dexter. It's absolutely magic.
Definitely Little Big Man, a great film as well

[pauld]

A road we do not know" is a great novelisation of the battle of Little Big Horn. Can't remember the author at the moment. But worth a read

Frederick Chiaventone (sp?)  I have that somewhere - a good book

I also need to get the Custer book by Nathaniel Philbrick.  Has anyone read it?

[Gibby]

Blood Meridian...that is all  .

The author's staunch refusal to use punctuation put me off that book. It clearly doesn't bother others because his books sell millions, but I find the idea that he won't use quote marks because it "makes the page look messy" really f***ing irritating! 

[matakishi]

The Virginian.