Books like 'When the Legends Die'
Readers who enjoyed When the Legends Die by Hal Borland also liked the following books featuring the same tropes, story themes, relationship dynamics and character types.
historical 20th century action / adventure historical-fiction classics western indigenous-mc high-school outdoors coming-of-age
-
Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry
Rated: 4.46 of 5 stars · 42 ratingsA love story, an adventure, and an epic of the frontier, Larry McMurtry’s Pulitzer Prize— winning classic, Lonesome Dove, the third book in the Lonesome Dove tetralogy, is the grandest novel ever written about the last defiant wilderness of America...Categorized as:
classics drama high-school historical-fiction indigenous-mc industrial-era outdoors poc-mc -
Roots: The Saga of an American Family by Alex Haley
Rated: 4.43 of 5 stars · 41 ratingsWhen he was a boy in Henning, Tennessee, Alex Haley's grandmother used to tell him stories about their family—stories that went back to her grandparents, and their grandparents, down through the generations all the way to a man she called "the African...Categorized as:
classics coming-of-age drama high-school historical-fiction industrial-era poc-mc survival -
This Tender Land by William Kent Krueger
Rated: 4.40 of 5 stars · 41 ratingsIn the summer of 1932, on the banks of Minnesota's Gilead River, the Lincoln Indian Training School is a pitiless place where Native American children, forcibly separated from their parents, are sent to be educated. It is also home to Odie O’Banion, a lively orphan boy whose exploits constantly earn him the superintendent’s wrath...Categorized as:
classics coming-of-age drama historical-fiction indigenous-mc outdoors poc-mc survival -
আরণ্যক by Bibhutibhushan Bandyopadhyay
Rated: 4.63 of 5 stars · 16 ratings'Aranyak' is a simple and uncomplicated story. The protagonist Satyacharan has gone to an estate in Bhagalpur after getting a job of a manager. Initially his urban lifestyle might have revolted against the lonely jungle life but gradually nature hypnotized Satyacharan. Gradually he can not even resist a moment's absence from the forest... -
-
These Is My Words: The Diary of Sarah Agnes Prine, 1881-1901 by Nancy E. Turner
Rated: 4.34 of 5 stars · 34 ratings“Belongs on your must-read list. This novel is a gem.” —Omaha World-HeraldNancy E. Turner's unforgettable These Is My Words melds the sweeping adventures and dramatic landscapes of Lonesome Dove with the heartfelt emotional saga of Oldest Living Confederate Widow Tells All...Categorized as:
classics coming-of-age drama historical-fiction indigenous-mc industrial-era poc-mc survival -
La casa del bosque by Laura Ingalls Wilder
Rated: 4.25 of 5 stars · 47 ratingsWolves and panthers and bears roamed the deep Wisconsin woods in the 1860's. Still, Laura Ingalls' father preferred to live miles away from the nearest neighbors. So Pa built a snug cabin for Ma, Laura, Mary and Baby Carrie. He hunted and trapped and farmed. Ma made her own cheese and sugar...Categorized as:
classics coming-of-age drama high-school historical-fiction industrial-era outdoors survival -
Three Day Road by Joseph Boyden
Rated: 4.31 of 5 stars · 26 ratingsSet in Canada and the battlefields of France and Belgium, Three-Day Road is a mesmerizing novel told through the eyes of Niska—a Canadian Oji-Cree woman living off the land who is the last of a line of healers and diviners—and her nephew Xavier. At the urging of his friend Elijah, a Cree boy raised in reserve schools, Xavier joins the war effort...Categorized as:
classics coming-of-age drama high-school historical-fiction indigenous-mc poc-mc survival -
Centennial by James A. Michener
Rated: 4.25 of 5 stars · 31 ratings"Michener is America's best writer, and he proves it once again in CENTENNIAL."THE PITTSBURGH PRESSA stunning panorama of the West, CENTENNIAL is an enthralling celebration of our country, brimming with the glory and the greatness of the American past that only bestselling author James Michener could bring to stunning life...Categorized as:
classics drama historical-fiction indigenous-mc industrial-era outdoors poc-mc western -
Footsteps by Pramoedya Ananta Toer
Rated: 4.33 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsAs the world moves into the twentieth century, Minke, one of the few European-educated Javanese, optimistically starts a new life in a new town: Betawi. With his enrollment in medical school and the opportunity to meet new people, there is every reason to believe that he can leave behind the tragedies of the past...Categorized as:
classics drama historical-fiction indigenous-mc poc-mc 20th-century action-adventure adult -
A Pennyworth of Sunshine by Anna Jacobs
Rated: 4.50 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsKeara Michaels doesn't want to leave her family in Ireland, but fate sends her first to Lancashire, then across the sea to Australia, pregnant and penniless. But danger threatens Keara as she starts the search for her lost sisters...Categorized as:
historical-fiction industrial-era poc-mc survival 20th-century action-adventure adult audiobook -
Angle of Repose by Wallace Stegner
Rated: 4.24 of 5 stars · 32 ratingsStegner’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel of personal, historical, and geographic discovery Confined to a wheelchair, retired historian Lyman Ward sets out to write his grandparents' remarkable story, chronicling their days spent carving civilization into the surface of America's western frontier. But his research reveals even more about his own life than he's willing to admit...Categorized as:
classics drama historical-fiction industrial-era outdoors western 20th-century action-adventure -
On the Banks of Plum Creek by Laura Ingalls Wilder
Rated: 4.21 of 5 stars · 40 ratingsThe adventures of Laura Ingalls and her family continue as they leave their little house on the prairie and travel in their covered wagon to Minnesota. They settle into a house made of sod on the banks of beautiful Plum Creek. Soon Pa builds them a sturdier house, with real glass windows and a hinged door. Laura and Mary go to school, help with the chores around the house, and fish in the creek...Categorized as:
classics coming-of-age historical-fiction industrial-era outdoors survival western 20th-century -
Christy by Catherine Marshall
Rated: 4.23 of 5 stars · 32 ratingsChristy Huddleston left home at 19 to teach school in the Smokey Mountains. There she came to know and love the wild mountain people with their fierce pride, their dark superstitions, their terrible poverty, their yearning for beauty and truth...Categorized as:
classics coming-of-age drama high-school historical-fiction industrial-era western 20th-century -
Little House on the Prairie by Laura Ingalls Wilder
Rated: 4.22 of 5 stars · 73 ratingsSet in the 1870's, these American classics present an authentic description of life in the uncharted West, and offer an intimate perspective on growing up during those trying times...Categorized as:
classics coming-of-age drama historical-fiction indigenous-mc industrial-era outdoors poc-mc -
-
Night Hawk by Beverly Jenkins
Rated: 4.36 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsOutlaw. Preacher. Night Hawk. He's had many names, but he can't escape the past. Since Ian Vance's beloved wife was murdered years ago, the hardened bounty hunter knows he'll never feel love or tenderness again, so he's made it his mission to ensure others get their justice...Categorized as:
historical-fiction indigenous-mc industrial-era poc-mc western 20th-century action-adventure adult -
Westward Spirit by Linda Bridey
Rated: 4.67 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsA clean historical western cowboy romance novel about a mail order bride. Montana Mail Order Brides - Westward Series Book 18 When Bryn Maddox and Dr. Mike Samuels meet, their attraction is immediate. He’s more than she could ever have hoped for in a man and she’s everything he ever dreamed of in a woman... -
Love Comes Softly by Janette Oke
Rated: 4.21 of 5 stars · 28 ratingsMarty and Clem set out for the pioneer West full of hopes and dreams. They would stake a claim of their own on the new frontier, and build a home for themselves and their family.But just after they'd arrived and Clem had chosen the perfect setting for their new home, an accident took his life...leaving Marty alone and pregnant. Then, on the day of his funeral, Clark Davis came along..Categorized as:
classics drama high-school historical-fiction industrial-era western 20th-century action-adventure -
Little Town on the Prairie by Laura Ingalls Wilder
Rated: 4.18 of 5 stars · 39 ratingsLaura is almost fifteen. The long winter is over. With spring comes socials, dances, and "Literaries." There is also work to be done. Laura spends many hours each day sewing shirts to help send Mary to a college for the blind. But, in the evenings, Laura makes time for a new caller, Almazo Wilder... -
Moloka'i by Alan Brennert
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 42 ratingsSet in Hawai'i more than a century ago, this is the story of Rachel Kalama, a spirited seven-year-old Hawaiian girl, who dreams of visiting far-off lands like her father, a merchant seaman. Then one day a rose-colored mark appears on her skin, and those dreams are stolen from her...Categorized as:
coming-of-age drama high-school historical-fiction indigenous-mc poc-mc survival 20th-century -
Orphan Train by Christina Baker Kline
Rated: 4.18 of 5 stars · 76 ratingsThe #1 New York Times Bestseller“A lovely novel about the search for family that also happens to illuminate a fascinating and forgotten chapter of America’s history. Beautiful...Categorized as:
classics coming-of-age drama high-school historical-fiction indigenous-mc poc-mc survival -
The Land Breakers (NYRB Classics) by John Ehle, Linda Spalding
Rated: 4.33 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsSet deep in the Appalachian wilderness between the years of 1779 and 1784, The Land Breakers is a saga like the Norse sagas or the book of Genesis, a story of first and last things, of the violence of birth and death, of inescapable sacrifice and the faltering emergence of community...Categorized as:
classics coming-of-age historical-fiction indigenous-mc industrial-era outdoors poc-mc survival -
Sacajawea by Anna Lee Waldo
Rated: 4.21 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsClad ln a doeskin, alone and unafraid, she stood straight and proud before the onrushlng Forces of America’s destiny: Sacajawea. child of a Shoshoni chief, lone woman on Lewis and Clark‘s historic trek-beautiful spear of a dying nation.She knew many men, walked many miles... -
Demelza by Winston Graham
Rated: 4.21 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsDemelza, the miner's daughter that Poldark rescued from a fairground rabble, is now his wife. Demelza's efforts to adapt to the ways of the gentry bring her confusion and heartache, despite the joy in the birth of their first child. Additionally the seeds of dispute with Warleggan are sown...Categorized as:
classics drama historical-fiction industrial-era western 20th-century action-adventure adult -
Dances with Wolves by Michael Blake
Rated: 4.19 of 5 stars · 26 ratingsOrdered to hold an abandoned army post, John Dunbar found himself alone, beyond the edge of civilization. Thievery and survival soon forced him into the Indian camp, where he began a dangerous adventure that changed his life forever. Relive the adventure and beauty of the incredible movie, Dances with Wolves...Categorized as:
classics drama historical-fiction indigenous-mc industrial-era poc-mc western 20th-century -
-
Chesapeake by James A. Michener
Rated: 4.19 of 5 stars · 26 ratingsOnce again James A. Michener brings history to life with this 400-year saga of America's great bay and its Eastern Shore. Following Edmund Steed and his remarkable family, who parallel the settling and forming of the nation, CHESAPEAKE sweeps readers from the unspoiled world of the Native Americans to the voyages of Captain John Smith, the Revolutionary War, and right up to modern times...Categorized as:
classics drama high-school historical-fiction outdoors 20th-century action-adventure adult -
A River Runs Through it and Other Stories by Norman Maclean, Annie Proulx
Rated: 4.19 of 5 stars · 26 ratingsJust as Norman Maclean writes at the end of "A River Runs through It" that he is "haunted by waters," so have readers been haunted by his novella. A retired English professor who began writing fiction at the age of 70, Maclean produced what is now recognized as one of the classic American stories of the twentieth century...Categorized as:
classics coming-of-age drama high-school historical-fiction industrial-era outdoors western -
By the Shores of Silver Lake by Laura Ingalls Wilder
Rated: 4.16 of 5 stars · 36 ratingsThe adventures of Laura Ingalls and her family continue as they move from their little house on the banks of Plum Creek to the wilderness of the unsettled Dakota Territory. Here Pa works on the new railroad until he finds a homestead claim that is perfect for their new little house... -
Flashman & the Redskins by George MacDonald Fraser
Rated: 4.25 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsHarry Flashman is back in the saddle, so to speak, making history that you won't find in textbooks. Mingling among heroes in the American West, the ace of knaves flees a murder charge, travels with a mobile brothel to California's goldfields, betrays the scarlet woman who loves him and tricks the noble Indians while seducing their women...Categorized as:
historical-fiction indigenous-mc industrial-era poc-mc western 20th-century action-adventure adult -
The Long Winter by Laura Ingalls Wilder
Rated: 4.15 of 5 stars · 38 ratingsOn the empty winter prairie, gray clouds to the northwest meant only one thing: a blizzard was seconds away. The first blizzard came in October. It snowed almost without stopping until April. The temperature dropped to forty below. Snow reached the roof-tops. And no trains could get through with food and coal. The townspeople began to starve. The Ingalls family barely lived through that winter...Categorized as:
classics coming-of-age drama historical-fiction industrial-era survival western 20th-century -
Little Big Man by Thomas Berger
Rated: 4.22 of 5 stars · 18 ratings"I am a white man and never forget it, but I was brought up by the Cheyenne Indians from the age of ten."So starts the story of Jack Crabb, the 111-year old narrator of Thomas Berger's masterpiece of American fiction. As a "human being", as the Cheyenne called their own, he won the name Little Big Man... -
Sackett by Louis L'Amour
Rated: 4.22 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsA drifter by circumstance, William Tell Sackett hungered for a place he couldn’t name but knew he had to find. South of the Tetons, through a keyhole pass, he found it: a lonely yet beautiful valley—with a fortune in gold. Then he found an even greater treasure: Ange Kerry, a courageous and resourceful woman...Categorized as:
classics drama historical-fiction industrial-era western 20th-century action-adventure audiobook -
Be Still the Water by Karen Emilson
Rated: 4.50 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsFinalist 2019 Canadian Book Club AwardsShortlisted for the 2017 Margaret Laurence Award for Fiction2017 IPPY Silver Medal WinnerSet in 1906 along the unspoiled shores of Lake Manitoba, Be Still the Water brings us into the fold of the Gudmundsson Family—immigrants determined to begin life anew in the Icelandic farming and fishing community of Siglunes...Categorized as:
historical-fiction outdoors survival coming-of-age fiction historical literary-fiction family -
A Girl Of The Limberlost by Gene Stratton-Porter
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsDeeply wounded by her embittered mother's lack of sympathy for her aspirations, Elnora finds comfort in the nearby Limberlost Swamp, whose beauty and rich abundance provide her with the means to better her life...Categorized as:
classics coming-of-age drama high-school historical-fiction industrial-era outdoors 20th-century -
Sackett's Land by Louis L'Amour, John Curless
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsAfter discovering six gold Roman coins buried in the mud of the Devil’s Dyke, Barnabas Sackett enthusiastically invests in goods that he will offer for trade in America. But Sackett has a powerful enemy: Rupert Genester, nephew of an earl, wants him dead. A battlefield promise made to Sackett’s father threatens Genester’s inheritance...Categorized as:
classics historical-fiction indigenous-mc industrial-era poc-mc survival western 20th-century -
-
To Sir, With Love by E.R. Braithwaite
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsThis classic schoolroom drama of a black teacher in London's tough East End who triumphs over bigotry and ignorance to change the lives of his students forever was hailed by the "New York Times" as "a book that the reader devours quickly, ponders slowly, and forgets not at all"With opportunities for black men limited in post-World War II London, Rick Braithwaite, a former Royal Air Force pilot...Categorized as:
classics coming-of-age drama high-school historical-fiction poc-mc 20th-century action-adventure -
True Grit by Charles Portis
Rated: 4.14 of 5 stars · 31 ratingsFourteen-year-old Mattie Ross' father was shot and killed. Told through her eyes, True Grit is the story of how she and hard-drinking Marshal Rooster Cogburn set out to find and prosecute his murderer. "An epic and a legend".--Washington Post...Categorized as:
classics coming-of-age drama high-school historical-fiction industrial-era survival western -
When Calls the Heart by Janette Oke
Rated: 4.15 of 5 stars · 26 ratingsNothing in her cultured East Coast upbringing prepared Elizabeth for a teaching position on the Canadian frontier. Yet, despite the constant hardships, she loves the children in her care. Determined to do the best job she can and fighting to survive the harsh land, Elizabeth is surprised to find her heart softening towards a certain member of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police...Categorized as:
classics drama historical-fiction industrial-era western 20th-century action-adventure audiobook -
Forty Guns West by William W. Johnstone
Rated: 4.30 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsA Friendly Place... During a trip back east for a family reunion, Preacher learns that even the civilized midwest can attract a motherlode of trouble... especially when a gang of local bully boys decides to pick a fight. Now, wealthy landowner Elam Parks lies dead -- and there's a $5,000 reward on the head of the man accused: the first mountain man. ..Categorized as:
historical-fiction industrial-era western 20th-century action-adventure adult audiobook book -
The Complete Short Stories of Ernest Hemingway by Ernest Hemingway, John Hemingway
Rated: 4.14 of 5 stars · 29 ratingsTHE ONLY COMPLETE COLLECTION BY THE NOBEL PRIZE-WINNING AUTHOR In this definitive collection of Ernest Hemingway's short stories, readers will delight in the author's most beloved classics such as "The Snows of Kilimanjaro," "Hills Like White Elephants," and "A Clean, Well-Lighted Place," and will discover seven new tales published for the first time in this collection...Categorized as:
classics drama high-school historical-fiction poc-mc 20th-century action-adventure adult -
The Fields by Conrad Richter
Rated: 4.25 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsConrad Richter's trilogy of novels The Trees (1940), The Fields (1946), and The Town (1950) trace the transformation of Ohio from wilderness to farmland to the site of modern industrial civilization, all in the lifetime of one character. The Fields continues the saga of the Luckett family that began in The Trees...Categorized as:
classics historical-fiction industrial-era western 20th-century action-adventure book epic -
Smoke Bellew by Jack London
Rated: 4.21 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsChristopher Bellew is a success in the eyes of the world, engaged with the San Francisco paper and penning stories daily... but for no pay. When Klondike fever strikes the region, he sees his chance to break from drudgery – starting him on a journey that takes him over mountain passes and down swirling rapids, removing him forever from the world he knew and the man he was...Categorized as:
classics historical-fiction outdoors western 20th-century action-adventure animals audiobook -
A Lantern in Her Hand by Bess Streeter Aldrich
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsThe Place: Nebraska.The time: the 1870's, when every day on the prairie brought its threat -of hostile Indians, of prairie fires, of blizzards, and the overwhelming threat of accident or illness to the little homesteading family, Will and Abbie Deal and their babies...Categorized as:
classics coming-of-age drama historical-fiction industrial-era survival western 19th-century -
Jubal Sackett: The Sacketts by Louis L'Amour
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsIn Jubal Sackett, the second generation of Louis L’Amour’s great American family pursues a destiny in the wilderness of a sprawling new land. Jubal Sackett’s urge to explore drove him westward, and when a Natchez priest asks him to undertake a nearly impossible quest, Sackett ventures into the endless grassy plains the Indians call the Far Seeing Lands... -
A River Runs Through It by Norman Maclean
Rated: 4.15 of 5 stars · 20 ratingsFrom its first magnificent sentence, "In our family, there was no clear line between religion and fly fishing," to the last, "I am haunted by waters," "A River Runs Through It" is an American classic...Categorized as:
classics drama high-school historical-fiction industrial-era outdoors western 20th-century -
-
Mrs. Mike by Benedict Freedman, Nancy Freedman
Rated: 4.13 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsA moving love story set in the Canadian wilderness, Mrs. Mike is a classic tale that has enchanted millions of readers worldwide. It brings the fierce, stunning landscape of the Great North to life—and tenderly evokes the love that blossoms between Sergeant Mike Flannigan and beautiful young Katherine Mary O'Fallon...Categorized as:
classics coming-of-age drama high-school historical-fiction indigenous-mc industrial-era outdoors -
The Education of Little Tree by Forrest Carter
Rated: 4.13 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsThe Education of Little Tree tells of a boy orphaned very young, who is adopted by his Cherokee grandmother and half-Cherokee grandfather in the Appalachian mountains of Tennessee during the Great Depression...Categorized as:
classics coming-of-age drama high-school historical-fiction indigenous-mc industrial-era outdoors -
Butcher's Crossing by John Williams
Rated: 4.13 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsIn his National Book Award–winning novel Augustus, John Williams uncovered the secrets of ancient Rome. With Butcher’s Crossing, his fiercely intelligent, beautifully written western, Williams dismantles the myths of modern America.It is the 1870s, and Will Andrews, fired up by Emerson to seek “an original relation to nature,” drops out of Harvard and heads west...Categorized as:
classics coming-of-age drama historical-fiction indigenous-mc industrial-era outdoors poc-mc -
Stones from the River by Ursula Hegi
Rated: 4.09 of 5 stars · 41 ratingsUrsula Hegi draws parallels between groups of outsiders in this dramatic audiobook set in Germany. Trudi Montag, the town librarian, feels dissociated from society because she is a dwarf. In her role as librarian, Trudi meticulously archives secrets, stories, and history, all of which become her source of power when the townspeople allow Jews to be mistreated during World War II...Categorized as:
classics coming-of-age drama high-school historical-fiction survival 20th-century action-adventure -
Cities of the Plain by Cormac McCarthy
Rated: 4.12 of 5 stars · 26 ratingsThe concluding volume of the Border trilogy. In this magnificent new novel, the National Book Award-winning author of All the Pretty Horses and The Crossing fashions a darkly beautiful elegy for the American frontier. It is 1952 and John Grady Cole and Billy Parham are working as ranch hands in New Mexico, not far from the proving grounds of Alamogordo and the cities of El Paso and Juarez... -
Bambi by Felix Salten
Rated: 4.11 of 5 stars · 28 ratingsThe Prince of the ForestBambi's life in the woods begins happily. There are forest animals to play with -- Friend Hare, the chattery squirrel, the noisy screech owl, and Bambi's twin cousins, frail Gobo and beautiful Faline.But winter comes, and Bambi learns that the woods hold danger -- and things he doesn't understand. The first snowfall makes food hard to find...Categorized as:
classics coming-of-age drama historical-fiction outdoors survival 20th-century action-adventure
Or - use our amazing romance book finder to get recommendations based on your favorite content tropes and themes. Mix and match at will.