Exploring Top Books of Shelfari

In this extraordinary literary debut third-generation homesteader Judy Blunt describes her hardscrabble life on the prairies of eastern Montana in prose as big and bold as the landscape. On a ranch miles from nowhere, Judy Blunt grew up with cattle and snakes, outhouse and isolation, epic blizzards and devastating prairie fires. She also grew up with a set of rules and roles prescribed to her sex long before she... (more)

Winter Wheat

by Mildred Walker

2003 One Book Montana Selection For this Bison Books edition, James Welch, the acclaimed author of Winter in the Blood (1986) and other novels, introduces Mildred Walker's vivid heroine, Ellen Webb, who lives in the dryland wheat country of central Montana during the early 1940s. He writes, "It is a story about growing up, becoming a woman, mentally, emotionally, spiritually, within the space of a year and a... (more)

Where Rivers Change Direction

by Mark Spragg

Mark Spragg grew up on the oldest dude ranch in Wyoming, a place of unrelenting winds, pitiless blizzards, fierce rivers, and the men who work there have to be tough to survive. He writes lyrically of this world, its animals - horses, bears, elk - and of its people, in particular his parents and John, an old cowboy who became his mentor.

Shane

by Jack Warner Schaefer, Jack Schaeffer

A stranger rode out of the heart of the great glowing West, into the small Wyoming valley in the summer of 1889. It was Shane, who appeared on the horizon and became a friend and guardian to the Starrett family at a time when homesteaders and cattle rangers battled for territory and survival. Jack Schaefer"s classic novel illuminates the spirit of the West through the eyes of a young boy and a hero who changes... (more)

The Border Trilogy: Book 1

All the Pretty Horses

by Cormac McCarthy

The national bestseller and the first volume in Cormac McCarthy's Border Trilogy , All the Pretty Horses is the tale of John Grady Cole, who at sixteen finds himself at the end of a long line of Texas ranchers, cut off from the only life he has ever imagined for himself. With two companions, he sets off for Mexico on a sometimes idyllic, sometimes comic journey to a place where dreams are paid for in blood. ... (more)

Smoky The Cowhorse

by Will James

Smoky knows only one way of life: freedom. Living on the open range, he is free to go where he wants and to do what he wants. And he knows what he has to do to survive. He can beat any enemy, whether it be a rattlesnake or a hungry wolf. He is as much a part of the Wild West as it is of him, and Smoky can't imagine anything else. But then he comes across a new enemy, one that walks on two legs and makes funny... (more)

Moon Shadow

by Chris Platt

Grade 4–7—Callie is passionate about the wild mustangs that live near her Nevada home. Although her parents have limited financial means, the exuberant 13-year-old still hopes to own her own horse someday. She gets close to the animals any way she can-observing her favorite herd (and her "dream horse," Moonbeam) in their desert habitat and working with an equine veterinarian. The wild mustangs are under the legal... (more)

Stay Away, Joe, a Novel

Cinchfoot,: The story of a range horse,Thomas C Hinkle

Cinchfoot,: The story of a range horse,

by Thomas C Hinkle

The Will James Cowboy Book

by Will James

Loping through a book by Will James is the next best thing to being there. Born in a covered wagon near Great Falls, Montana, and an orphan at the age of three, James was adopted by a French Canadian trapper and prospector. With no formal schooling or lessons in drawing, "he was a cowboy until a bucking horse threw him into writing," as Time magazine once said of him. He looked more like an Irish scholar... (more)

Ashleigh #10: Derby Dreams (Ashleigh)

by Chris Platt, Joanna Campbell

Before Thoroughbred , Ashleigh Griffen lived at Edgardale, her family's farm in Kentucky. Nothing could be more perfect than life on the farm with her family, her favorite horses, and her best friend, Mona. Ashleigh loves helping with the horses -- and dreaming of becoming a jockey someday... Meet Ed ardale's new racehorse! Ashleigh Griffen's dream has come true. Her parents have bought their very own... (more)

Secrets I Have Kept

by Beverly Stowe McClure

One rainy spring night, on a dark Texas back road, sixteen-year-old Jennifer Barrets father, Sam, a molecular biologist at Orion Laboratories, is kidnapped. Armed with nothing more than her own courage, a phone number on a candy wrapper, and her loyal dog, Chopin, she begins a desperate attempt to rescue him.On the way to her neighbor Mitch Pearsons house for help, Jen meets Casey Christopher, a runaway on a... (more)

Tressa

by Evelyn Trent Bachmann

A Gentle Rain

by Deborah Smith

A Connecticut heiress learns she's adopted and travels to northern Florida "cracker"cattle ranch to find her birth parents. There she also finds unexpected romance with the ranch's owner.

Black Hills

by Nora Roberts

#1 New York Times –bestselling author Nora Roberts takes us deep into the rugged Black Hills of South Dakota, where the shadows keep secrets, hunters stalk the land, and a childhood friendship matures into an adult passion. A summer at his grandparents’ South Dakota ranch is not eleven-year-old Cooper Sullivan’s idea of a good time. But things are a bit more bearable now that he’s discovered the neighbor girl,... (more)

Breaking Clean

by Judy Blunt

ThunderheadMary O'Hara

Thunderhead

by Mary O'Hara

353 pp. Tightly bound copy with minimal external wear. Pages are clean. There is no dj. Presence of edge wear and minimal shelf wear. Remnants of a stain on front cover board.

Willow King

by Chris Platt

This inspiring debut novel by a female former professional jockey and horse trainer tells the moving tale of Willow King, a colt born with crooked legs, who is saved from destruction by 13-year-old Katie Durham. Because one of Katie's own legs is shorter than the other, she feels an immediate kinship with the imperfect little colt. With painstaking care, she pulls King through arduous training until he becomes a... (more)

by Debra Clopton

Tacy Jones had come to Mule Hollow to learn how to train wild horses. But former rodeo champion Brent Stockwell might as well carry a sign saying "No Cowgirls Allowed." If Brent doesn't think ladies belong in the pen, determined Tacy will just have to change his mind. When Tacy learns the secret behind his stance, she longs to help him heal. She's ready to show the handsome cowboy that taking a chance on your... (more)

Green Grass Of WyomingMary O'Hara

Shelfari Book Activity

Tags: ranch life

Breaking Clean (Vintage)

by Judy Blunt

Winter Wheat

by Mildred Walker

Where Rivers Change Direction

by Mark Spragg

Shane

by Jack Warner Schaefer, Jack Schaeffer

All the Pretty Horses

by Cormac McCarthy

Smoky The Cowhorse

by Will James

Moon Shadow

by Chris Platt

Stay Away, Joe, a Novel

Cinchfoot,: The story of a range horse,

by Thomas C Hinkle

The Will James Cowboy Book

by Will James

Ashleigh #10: Derby Dreams (Ashleigh)

by Chris Platt, Joanna Campbell

Secrets I Have Kept

by Beverly Stowe McClure

Tressa

by Evelyn Trent Bachmann

A Gentle Rain

by Deborah Smith

Black Hills

by Nora Roberts

Breaking Clean

by Judy Blunt

Thunderhead

by Mary O'Hara

Willow King

by Chris Platt

by Debra Clopton

Green Grass Of Wyoming

by Mary O'Hara