The Great Western Bibliography

The Question:
What informs your personal interpretation of the American West? What novel, movie, artwork, poem, or song, informs your vision of the the western United States?

The Answers:
Gary Sangster:
I want to recommend 4 movies, for their writing.; the directors create vistas and visions that are astonishing.

The Searchers (Classic John Ford western about vengeance obsession, redemption and race relations, between whites and the settlers. A morality tale par excellence.)
Unforgiven (Dirty Harry, in the west, a kind of a buddy movie too, between Clint Eastwood and Morgan Freeman, another morality tale.)
Chinatown (about California, actually, but includes water politics, power and money, incest and death....astonishing, especially John Huston)
There will be Blood (mainly about oil exploration....)

Trevor Lucero:
Storming the Gates of Paradise: Landscapes for Politics, Rebecca Solnit

Diana Holbert:
Grapes of Wrath, John Steinbeck

Colin Gabriel-Black:
Death on the Installment Plan, Louis-Ferdinand Céline
American Visions: The Epic History of Art in America, Robert Hughes
On The Road, Jack Kerouac
Big Sur, Jack Kerouac
Grapes of Wrath, John Steinbeck
Oklahoma! - Rodgers and Hammerstein

Kit Rosenberg:
Where I'm Calling From and Other Short Stories, Raymond Carver



Laura Rogers:
Monkey Wrench Gang, Ed Abbey
Refuge: An Unnatural History of Family and Place, Terry Tempest Williams
Into the Wild, Jon Krakauer
Henry David Thoreau

Chris McLean:
East of Eden, John Steinbeck

Kheng Wee:
I'd say, as a foreigner, my ideas about the West were very much shaped by Sergio Leone's "spaghetti" Western movies, especially the "Man with no name" trilogy starring Clint Eastwood. Ennio Morricone's iconic music also. Yes, I know they were all shot in Europe, and were based on Japanese Samurai films by Kurosawa, but for me, and I would for a lot more people in Europe and Asia, they are the tone of the Great American West.

John Holbert:
Great River: The Rio Grande in North American History, Paul Horgan
All the Pretty Horses, Cormac McCarthy
No Country for Old Men, Cormac McCarthy
John Muir
Wallace Stevens
Of a different class, yet can wax poetic: Tony Hillerman

Christopher P. Schooler:
America, Jean Baudrillard
Reclaiming the American West, Alan Berger

Laura Poppiti:
The work of James Turrell, Walter De Maria and Michael Heizer

Bill Starr:
The Right Stuff, Tom Wolfe

Michael Moore:
Kem Nunn
Denis Johnson
Against the Day - Thomas Pynchon
Waiting for a Ride - Gary Snyder
The Sagebrush Ocean: A Natural History of the Great Basin, Stephen Trimble
William Kittredge

Linda Flemming:
Great River: The Rio Grande in North American History, Paul Horgan

Jon Fernandes:
Divisadero - Michael Ondaatje

Erin Elder:
River of Shadows, Rebecca Solnit
Angle of Repose, Wallace Stegner

Matt Waters:
Desert Solitaire, Edward Abbey



Darius Holbert:
Goodbye to a River, John Graves
In a Narrow Grave: Essays on Texas, Larry McMurtry

Claire Jackel:
Kerouac
Edward Abbey
Cormac McCarthy
Hunter S Thompson
Robinson Jeffers
Stephen Ambrose

Electra Libre Fowler:
Solace of Open Spaces, Gretal Erlich

Kate Stirr:
Sand County Almanac, Aldo Leopold
Silent Spring, Rachel Carson
Collapse, Jared Diamod
Diversity of Life, EO Wilson
The Weather Makers: How Man Is Changing the Climate and What It Means for Life on Earth, Tim Flannery
Desert Solitaire, Ed Abbey
Snow Leopord, Peter Matthiesin
Song of the Dodo, David Quammen
Natural Capitalism: Creating the Next Industrial Revolution, Paul Hawken
Walden, Thoreau
Open Space of Democracy, Terry Tempest Williams
Turtle Island, Gary Snyder
High Country News

Beth McCormack:
John Fremont's journals (1842-45) are what shaped the american perception of the west and paved the way for the frontier movement (mormons, emigration, etc.) as well as the indian wars and manifest destiny. The publication of these journals sparked the westward movement. This is probably the most influential work I can think of as far as shaping modern america both physically and mentally... creating the pioneer spirit and what has become the american identity.

Fray Garces' journals of his travels between california and new mexico. a voice of reason and tolerance in the 1700s.

Brett Green:
Oscar Zeta Acosta

Ian Green:
Desert Solitaire, Edward Abbey
John McPhee

Christopher Metzler:
Cadillac Desert: The American West and Its Disappearing Water, Marc Reisner
Sorrow Floats, Tim Sandlin

Justin Hoover:
Play It As It Lay, Joan Didion

Kara Q. Smith:
The Glass Castle, Jeannette Walls
The Medium is in the Message, Marshall McLuhan

Philip Benn:
Dharma Bums, Kerouac
On the Road, Kerouac

Cynthia Elder:
East of Eden, John Steinbeck
Wallace Stegner

Julian Meyers:
Films:Terrence Mallick's Badlands
Terrence Mallick's Days of Heaven
Music: Waylon Jennings, Johnny Cash, Merle Haggard
Books: The Desert, John C Van Dyke,
The Journals of Stephen Harriman Long, who was the first to call it the "Great American Desert"
Scenes in America Deserta, Reyner Banham
The California Indians, Robert Heizer (Michael's dad)

Michelle
Hard Scrabble, John Graves
Adventures of a Texas Humanist, James Ward Lee
Taking Care, William Kittredge
Land of Bears and Honey, Truett
Sand County Almanac, Aldo Leopold
Walden, Thoureau
Twenty Chickens for a Saddle, Robyn Scott
To the Lighthouse ,Virginia Woolf (oddly enough one of McMurtry's favorite writers)

Justin Hoover:
In my hemisphere

On the road
Red rocks west
Green gulch (Suzuki Roshi)
Sea foam in the setting sun
With fog rolling by in a cover like a canopy

Adam Novac:
Tales of the City, Armistead Maupin
My Own Private Idaho, Gus Van Sant
Twin Peaks ( Everything seemed so big, green, and lush as well as overcast and grey. They totally filmed it in Canada though right?)

Alexandra Johnson:
Little House on the Prairie, but Grapes of Wrath is a close second. another great one is Lakota Woman."

Randall Miller:
Young Guns
Silverado
Dances With Wolves
Unforgiven
The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance

Susan Garsoe:
Desert Solitaire by Edward Abbey
English Creek by Ivan Doig
Of Men and Mountains by William O. Douglas
The Journey Home by Edward Abbey
Animal Dreams by Barbara Kingsolver
Rock Springs by Richard Ford

Nancy Zastudil:
The Little House on the Prairie
The Grand Ole Opry



Lev Anderson:
Books:
On the Road, Jack Kerouac 

You Can't Win, Jack Black

River of Shadows, Rebecca Solnit

Grapes of Wrath, John Steinbeck

John Muir

Rick Bass
Jack London
Joan Didion


Poetry:
Gary Snyder
Walt Whitman



Films: 

Repo Man, Alex Cox

The New World, Terrence Malick (though it is set in the East, the first West, the ideas certainly expand westward)

Chinatown, Roman Polanski

Charles Fresquez:
Grapes of Wrath, Steinbeck

Hillary Schwartz:
East Of Eden, Steinbeck

Ashley Markus
Desert Solitaire, Edward Abbey

Carrie Thompson:
The Hollywood Sign
Gold Rush - Charlie Chaplin

Richard Levy:
Eventide, Kent Haruf
The Tie That Binds, Kent Haruf
Plainsong, Kent Haruf


Carol Cheh
No Country for Old Men, McCarthy

Elizabeth Steele Basile
The Angle of Repose, Stegner



Mike Mcgowan:
Edward Abbey
Travels with Charlie , Steinbeck
Dubious Battle, Steinbeck
Grapes of Wrath, Steinbeck

Carol Cheh
No Country for Old Men, McCarthy

Elizabeth Steele Basile
The Angle of Repose, Stegner

Cathy Fairbanks
My Antonia, Willa Cather

Keith Bakker:
Sometimes a Great Notion, Ken Kesey

Phil Green:
The Way To Rainy Mountain , F Scott Momaday
I Heard The Owl Called My Name, Margaret Craven
Little House on the Prairie, Laura Ingalls Wilder
Red Sky At Morning (Red Sky At Morning - the movie), Richard Bradford
Blood and Thunder, Hampton Sides
Cadilac Desert - The American West and Its Disappearing Water, Marc Reisner
The River Why, David James Duncan
The Brave Cowboy (Lonely Are The Brave - the movie), Edward Abbey
Alburquerque, Tony Anaya
Bless Me Ultima, Tony Anaya
Beatty's Cabin, Elliott Barker
Enchantment and Exploitation: The Life and Hard Times of a New Mexico Range, William DuBuys
Yaqui Gold and Apache Silver, J. Frank Dobie
The Milagro Beanfield War - (The Milagro Beanfield War - the movie), John Graves
Arctic Dreams, Barry Gonzalez
The Rogue River, Zane Grey
A River Runs Through It, John MacClane
Men and Fire, John MacClane
Blood Meridian, Cormac McCarthy
Leaving Cheyenne (Loving Molly - the movie), Larry McMurtry
The Last Picture Show (The Last Picture Show - the movie), Larry McMurtry
Any of the Navajo Mystery Series, Tony Hillerman
Sometimes a Great Notion, Ken Kesey
Barbara Kingsolver
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, Robert M. Pirsig
Coming Into Country, John McPhee
Tortilla Flats, John Steinbeck
Travels With Charlie, John Steinbeck



George McFall
Paso Por Acqui, Eugene Manlove Rhodes
The Big Lonesome, Will Bryant
Shane, Jack Schaefer
A River Runs Through It , Norman Maclean
Young Men and Fire, Norman Maclean
The Oxbow Incident, Walter Van Tilburg Clark
Buckboard Days, Sophie Poe (Sophie’s husband John was Pat Garrett’s deputy on the night Garrett shot Billy the Kid)
I Married Wyatt Earp, Josephine Marcus Earp
Triggernometry, Eugene Cunningham
Fools Crow and just about anything by James Welch (Killing Custer, The Heartsong of Changing Elk, The Indian Lawyer . . . .)
Skins, Adrian C. Louis
A Road We Do Not Know, Frederick Chiaventone
Son of the Morning Star, Evan S. Connell
Black Range Tales, James McKenna
Pat Garrett, Leon Metz
The Fabulous Frontier and Violence in Lincoln County, William A. Keleher
The Searchers, Alan Le May
Lonesome Dove, Larry McMurtry
Horseman Pass By, Larry McMurtry
Bury My Heart At Wounded Knee, Dee Brown
Little Big Man, Thomas Berger
Yellowstone Kelly, Luther S. Kelly (autobiography)
Lord Grizzly, Frederick Manfred
The Longhorns and Coronado’s Children, J. Frank Dobie
Death Comes For The Archbishop, Willa Cather
The Man Who Killed The Deer, Frank Waters
Cimarron, Edna Ferber
Chasing Geronimo, Leonard Wood
Crazy Horse And Custer, Stephen Ambrose
Crazy Horse, The Strange Man Of The Oglalas, Mari Sandoz (also Cheyenne Autumn and Love Song To The Plains and many more)