L’Amour is like a fine wine

[Cecil Burch]

Never heard of him...any good?

Edit: For those who didn't know - they've been re-releasing portions of Louis L'amour's library with additional chapters/notes from when he wrote the books. They're doing a few a year. I bought about a dozen of them for my dad before he passed. He really liked the additional info.

As you can see below, I have almost the entire collection. I am missing about half a dozen volumes total.

Attachment 77780

Thanks for that. I did not realize they were doing that. I re-read Flint every year, and will grab the occasional other novel of L'amour's as the mood strikes.

[Duelist]

I'm sure I'll catch flak for this; I haven't read any of his western books, BUT two of my favorite books of all time are his The Walking Drum and The last of the Breed books.

Looks like I need to read some of his western books.

Almost every western of his I’ve read had some value in it, some kind of life observation that could be added to a list of valuable quotes. My dad had a collection of them that I spent many valuable hours reading.

The Walking Drum and The Last of the Breed are departures - IIRC, they are his largest, most ambitious works, and I think probably his most mature, best developed writing.

[Welder]

A lot of my views on the crossroads between independence and the importance of community involvement / debt to society were formed by my family and polished by L'Amour. He hits the perfect balance, i.e., the traditional American note.

[wvincent]

This is a great thread and I thank the OP starting it.

While I have and still do enjoy the LL stories, I would be remiss if I did not mention Will James (Smokey the Cow Horse is one of my favorites) and Elmer Kelton's (The Day the Cowboys Quit) as also being excellent reads.

[Bigguy]

I worked on a tow boat one summer, 30 on 15 off. When on the boat the only place you could by stuff was the "Boat Store," literally a floating store. Captain would throttle back and the boat store would come alongside and tie up as we slowly made way. You could buy about anything you'd need; underwear, toiletries, snacks, stamps, books, and magazines. Just about the only books were Louis L'amour and the magazines were all porno.
I just couldn't get into Louie. By the third book I felt like I'd read the same story three times with different names. Maybe I just got his three worst, or maybe I was just missing something. Certainly no questioning his success.

[Trooper224]

L'amour was a natural story teller. He wrote more than westerns and could make the label on a soup can seem interesting.

[MRW]

For those of us who haven't read any of his books, what are considered his some of his best stories?

[Coyotesfan97]

For those of us who haven't read any of his books, what are considered his some of his best stories?

I grew up reading Louis L’Amour. I was young enough to have purchased his books as they came out. One of my all time favorite authors.

Any of the Sackett books. If you have Kindle get The Sacketts Volume 1 & 2. My favorite is The Sackett Brand although The Daybreakers is a close second.

Any of the Milo Talon books. Fair Blows the Wind about the first Talon is really good. My favorite Talon is The Man From the Broken Hills.

Reilly’s Luck, A Man Called Noon, and Flint are some of my favorites.

[Coyotesfan97]

Yeah, L’AMour took a lot of pride in getting details like that exactly right.

Yes! As he always said he walked the trails and drank from the springs.

[blues]

Yes! As he always said he walked the trails and drank from the springs.

I drank from a spring, high in the Rockies...and got amoebic dysentery for my trouble.

(Of course, it wasn't something a little bit of charcoal from the fire and some other stuff couldn't deal with.)