Best Reads (And They Aren't All Westerns)
Western writers share the books that most influenced their lives and craft.
By: TW Editors 07/01/2007
A Confederacy of Dunces
John Kennedy Toole
This novel was published in 1980, eleven years after the author took his own life. In 1981, Toole posthumously won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction. I still get angry when I think of how Toole gypped all of us who love his work by committing suicide in 1969 at the young age of 32. Thankfully his doting mother persisted and fought to have the book published, with help from writer Walker Percy. The novel is set in New Orleans in the early 1960s and features central character, Ignatius J. Reilly, and all the other colorful French Quarter denizens who will haunt readers the rest of their lives. Toole’s mastery of dialect and dialogue are pure genius.
Desert Solitaire
Edward Abbey
When published in 1968, this was Edward Abbey’s fourth book and his first book-length work of nonfiction. It brought him a ton of critical acclaim and boosted his popularity as an author with a passion for the land and nature, especially in the American Southwest. To this day, many critics compare this work to Henry David Thoreau’s Walden. They get no argument from me. Abbey gave us a book warning of the excesses of land development and tourism that is as important today as it was when he wrote it.
The Old Man and the Sea
Ernest Hemingway
I could have put anything by Ernest Hemingway on this list, but this novella he penned in Cuba in 1951 is pretty much my favorite. Like many young, white, male Americans struggling to become a writer in the 1960s, I turned to Papa Hemingway. He was my companion until I developed my own voice, but he still remains a pal. I don’t give a damn about the many critics who say this is a disappointing and weak minor work. It works for me—always has and always will.
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
Mark Twain
It would be difficult for a boy, native to Missouri, not to list Huck Finn on his all-time favorite reading list. This story of a youth on a journey of a lifetime made a bigger impression on me than Hamlet. I agree with what my literary mentor Hemingway had to say: “All modern literature comes from one book by Mark Twain called Huckleberry Finn.” Amen.
Post A Comment