# Any Louis L'Amour Fans Here ?



## J.L. McPherson (Mar 20, 2011)

The first book I ever read was a yellowed, dogeared Louis L'Amour paperback from my grandpas collection at our fish camp. I think I was around 8 years old at the time. The camp didn't have television, everyone was asleep so I decided to give it a read. The book was a small novella called, Fallon. I read the entire book that night and still to this day reread most of his works. Hell, I wanted to name my son, Sackett, but the wife didn't agree ! Just curious if any of you dig L'Amour ?

A few of my favorites...


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## MariaESchneider (Aug 1, 2009)

I read a few and liked them, but it's been years.  When I worked at the library they were still in high demand.  One of the librarians told me 'Write a Western.  We can't get enough of them in to satisfy the readers."  I kind of agree with your wife on the name "Sackett..."


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## J.L. McPherson (Mar 20, 2011)

MariaESchneider said:


> I read a few and liked them, but it's been years. When I worked at the library they were still in high demand. One of the librarians told me 'Write a Western. We can't get enough of them in to satisfy the readers." I kind of agree with your wife on the name "Sackett..."


Lol, Sackett is an acquired taste !


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## Gone 9/21/18 (Dec 11, 2008)

Yes! I think I've read them all except some of the short stories and have read some several times over they years. I've been on a Western streak lately and finding good ones is almost like hens' teeth. Why people who obviously don't know anything about horses except that they have 4 legs set out to write Westerns is beyond me, but they do.

Sackett would be bad, but couldn't you have talked her into Tyrell?


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## J.L. McPherson (Mar 20, 2011)

Tyrell, William Tell, Orin. Tried them all...

Have you read Ralph Cotton, or Charles G West ? Both are really good western writers, Ralph Cotton is excellent !


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## Gone 9/21/18 (Dec 11, 2008)

J.L. McPherson said:


> Have you read Ralph Cotton, or Charles G West ? Both are really good western writers, Ralph Cotton is excellent !


I agree about Ralph Cotton. The one West I tried my notes say the story was totally unbelievable and the head hopping point of view shifts were annoying, so I don't agree about him. Some of the best I've found don't have much of a catalog. Gary Svee, for instance. I recently read _The Curly Wolf_ by M.R. Kayser and liked it a lot, but it's the only western she (I think she) has written. Some of these authors are very uneven, so much so I wonder if all the books under the name are written by one person or it's a franchise, which I know some of particularly the series are.


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## Tony Richards (Jul 6, 2011)

I've always meant to read Louis L'Amour. Some of his titles hit you from a mile away. So thanks for reminding me ... I'll be purchasing a copy before too much longer.


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## J.L. McPherson (Mar 20, 2011)

Well, I'll be damned. I didn't know this one was available on Kindle!


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## typo (Jul 30, 2010)

My first Louis L'Amour was "Radigan," which I found while spinning the paperback book rack in a drug store. I was probably in eighth grade at the time, and I continued to read him until his death.
The Sacketts were among my favorite characters.
Toward the end, he seemed to get more and more commercialized. But that seems to happen to a lot of my favorite authors.


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## ElisabethGFoley (Nov 20, 2011)

I've read about a dozen by L'Amour and enjoyed most of them. My favorite (one of my favorite Western novels overall) is _Last Stand at Papago Wells_. I also liked _High Lonesome, The Burning Hills, Hondo_ and a couple others. A few I didn't like so much..._The Proving Trail_ had to be the biggest clunker.

I love Westerns-my taste runs to older ones in general: B.M. Bower, Dorothy Johnson, H.H. Knibbs, Eugene Rhodes; and O. Henry and Elmore Leonard's short Western stories are awesome too. Anybody here read any of those authors?


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## J.L. McPherson (Mar 20, 2011)

Love some Elmore Leonard. I just snagged this one a few weeks ago!


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## ElisabethGFoley (Nov 20, 2011)

Oh, yes, that's the one I've got on my Kindle! Some great stories in there.


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## J.L. McPherson (Mar 20, 2011)

Steven Hardesty said:


> I got my literary education in the Army reading cast off paperbacks between combat missions and one of my favorite reads (and re-reads) down in the bottom of my foxhole was Louis L'Amour's _Shalako_. Not because it's such a great story, tho' it is good. But because L'Amour made me feel/smell/taste the wild country through which his characters ride. So profoundly impressed me that when I sat down to write my first war novel I modeled its feel/smell/taste on _Shalako_. BTW, I still have that foxhole paperback on my bookshelf and still reread it.


The desert was a school, a school where each day, each hour, a final examination was offered, where failure meant death and the buzzards landed to correct the papers ~ Shalako, Louis L'Amour

One of my favorites!


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## rider1046 (Feb 25, 2016)

Read everything I could get my hands on by Louis L'Amour. Been reading him since back in the sixties. If Louis wrote it and it was published during the last 50 years, I've read it and still have most of his work. My kids and grandkids have got their hands on much of it as they are also real fans. I'm a huge Elmore Leonard fan also.
I think Louis ruined me for most other western writers though over the years, there have been a few individual books that I really liked. 
Always wanted to get my hands on the book of poetry he wrote but never could find a copy of it.


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## Christopher Bunn (Oct 26, 2010)

I think I own almost every book he wrote. The Sackett series is great. Gotta love those vendettas.

Zane Grey is another favorite western writer of mine. Definitely moodier than L'Amour, but just as impressive with sense of place and interesting characters.


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## SidneyW (Aug 6, 2010)

I liked Leonard's Valdez is Coming.

I can't remember which L'Amour I read first, but I've always liked them. I like the Bowdrie short stories, and Flint is one of the novels I remember fondly. There are some nice audios of his shorts.

My dad, in retirement, read just about all of th L'Amour titles. I worked at a library and would get the paperbacks for him steadily.


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## S P Oldham (Feb 21, 2016)

I haven't thought about Louis L'Amour in years! My dad was an avid reader and his was just one of many names on his bookshelf when I was a kid. I don't recall ever reading him myself but the very name conjurs up my dad's old bookshelf and armchair, quite vividly! Funny how things trigger memories.


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## J.L. McPherson (Mar 20, 2011)

S P Oldham said:


> I haven't thought about Louis L'Amour in years! My dad was an avid reader and his was just one of many names on his bookshelf when I was a kid. I don't recall ever reading him myself but the very name conjurs up my dad's old bookshelf and armchair, quite vividly! Funny how things trigger memories.


Yeah, reading L'Amour is almost like eating comfort food. Takes me back to my childhood, my grandpa's fish camp. I was never bored, always fighting Apaches in some desert canyon, or battling some ruthless cattle baron in a range war. Good stuff!


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## Howtoguru (Dec 12, 2015)

Wife and I are avid fans - have them all and read them over and over.  Am reading Radigan at the moment - probably for the 20th time.  Some of my absolute favorites of his beyond all of them?  Flint, Constock Load, Westward the Tide, Rider of Lost Creek, Kilkenny, The Empty Land - and anything to do with the Sackett Family - from Barnabus on up...

Best wishes, - Dan


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## Goulburn (May 21, 2014)

I am a  Louis L'Amour Fan. They aren't all Westerns.


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## SandraMiller (May 10, 2011)

Love, love LOVE Louis L'Amour. First one of his I ever read was Comstock Lode, and I read every one I could find after that. When I was sixteen and got my first job in fast food, I used the money to subscribe to that leather-bound hardback series they did. I still have them, lining the bookshelf on my big writing desk. I loved Fallon too, and the Sacketts! But my very favorite was The Haunted Mesa. I remember being a little surprised even then that it got published because it was so different from his usual fare, but I loved it. Still do.

''I could sit in the middle of Sunset Boulevard and write with my typewriter on my knees. Temperamental I am not.'' -- Louis L'Amour


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