For the bibliophile in your life, nothing makes a greater gift than a classic book. This reading list is dedicated to our classic writers, whose names are synonymous with great Western literature.

 

My Ántonia, Bison Classic Edition

Willa Cather

Hailed by reviewers and readers for its originality, vitality, and truth, this novel secured Willa Cather a place in the first rank of American writers. Cather called My Ántonia “the best thing I’ve done.”

 

The Gathering of Zion

Wallace Stegner

Pulitzer Prize-winning author Wallace Stegner tells about a thousand-mile migration marked by hardship and sudden death—but unique in American history for its purpose, discipline, and solidarity.

 

Sandhill Sundays and Other Recollections

Mari Sandoz

Those who have not read her classic Old Jules (1935) will find Sandhill Sundays and Other Recollections a colorful introduction to Sandoz Country. Those who have read Old Jules will look for the same landmarks and unforgettable people. Dangers in every form—blizzards, fires, rattlesnakes, murderous men—are described, and, just as vividly, so are the pleasures afforded by country cooking, storytelling, pet animals, and the first phonograph for miles around.

 

A Cycle of the West

John G. Neihardt

Unquestionably the masterpiece of the poet who has been called the “American Homer,” A Cycle of the West celebrates the land and legends of the Old West in five narrative poems. A Cycle of the West, Bison Classic Annotated Edition will be available in August 2018.

 

Spring Came On Forever

Bess Streeter Aldrich

Elsewhere an artist of the romance, here Aldrich turns romance on its head. Quickly paced and precisely drawn, this novel is Aldrich’s greatest tribute to the complexity, humor, endurance, and intelligence of the people who settled the prairie.

 

 

The Wheeling Year

Ted Kooser

Kooser, winner of the Pulitzer Prize and a former U.S. poet laureate, has filled scores of workbooks. The Wheeling Year offers a sequence of contemplative prose observations about nature, place, and time arranged according to the calendar year.