100 Must-Read Books about The Southwest
I thought The Southwest was much bigger than it actually is, until Wikipedia told me otherwise. Turns out, The Southwest region consists of Arizona and its surrounding areas, but no other complete states: the southeasternmost part of California’s Inland Empire up into the bottom of Nevada; the lower areas of Colorado and Utah in the Four Corners region; the Western half of New Mexico, and a tiny corner of West Texas.
But there is still a huge literary tradition in the Southwest region of the United States, and here are the books you should read either about or taking place there.
Note: There is, amazingly, no crossover with this list of books about the American West.
Literary and Contemporary Fiction
The Bean Trees by Barbara Kingsolver
The King and Queen of Comezon by Denise Chávez
The Old Man’s Love Story by Rudolfo Anaya
Sunland by Don Waters
The Monkey Wrench Gang by Edward Abbey
Laughing Boy by Oliver La Farge
The Guardians by Ana Castillo
Changing Light by Nora Gallagher
Pretty Crooked by Elisa Ludwig
The Last Summer of the Death Warriors by Francisco X. Stork
Walks Away Woman by Ki Longfellow
In the Heart of the Canyon by Elisabeth Hyde
Everybody Sees the Ants by A. S. King
Waiting to Exhale by Terry McMillan
If I Fix You by Abigail Johnson
Historical Fiction
Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe by Benjamin Alire Sáenz
Crossing Purgatory by Gary Schanbacher
Dawn Comes Early by Margaret Brownley
Wraiths of the Broken Land by S. Craig Zahler
Death Comes for the Archbishop by Willa Cather
Meet Josefina by Valerie Tripp
These is My Words: The Diary of Sarah Agnes Prine, 1881-1901 by Nancy Turner
Weedflower by Cynthia Kadohata
Vengeance Road by Erin Bowman
Once in a Promised Land by Laila Halaby
Where they Bury You by Steven W. Kohlhagen
History and Current Events
Detained and Deported: Stories of Immigrant Families Under Fire by Margaret Regan
How the World Moves: The Odyssey of an American Indian Family Family by Peter Nabokov
Ladies of the Canyons: A League of Extraordinary Women and their Adventures in the American Southwest by Lesley Poling-Kempes
Among Unknown Tribes by Bill Broyles et al
Standing on Common Ground by Geraldo L. Cadava
Trauma Red: The Making of a Surgeon in War and in America’s Cities by Peter Rhee
Unreal City: Las Vegas, Black Mesa, and the Fate of the West by Judith Nies
At the Border of Empires: The Tohono O’odham, Gender, and Assimilation, 1880-1934 by Andrae Marak and Laura Tuennerman
Dragoons in Apacheland by William S. Kiser
Grandma’s Santo on its Head by Nasario Garcia
In the Shadow of Billy the Kid: Susan McSween and the Lincoln County War by Kathleen P. Chamberlain
Miera y Pacheco: A Renaissance Spaniard in Eighteenth Century New Mexico by John L. Kessell
Under the Eagle: Samuel Holiday, Navajo Code Talker by Samuel Holiday and Robert McPherson
House of Rain: Tracking a Vanished Civilization Across the American Southwest by Craig Childs
Portrait of an Artist: A Biography of Georgia O’Keefe by Laurie Lisle
Blood and Thunder by Hampton Sides
The Man Who Walked Through Time by Colin Fletcher
The Grand Canyon and the Southwest by Ansel Adams
American Ghost: A Family’s Haunted Past in the Desert Southwest by Hannah Nordhaus
Mystery/Thriller/Suspense
The Jaguar’s Children by John Vaillant
The Quiet Streets of Winslow by Judy Troy
Bad Country by C. B. McKenzie
Zia Summer by Rudolfo Anaya
The Carrion Birds by Urban Waite
Blackening Song by Aimée and David Thurlo
Rage against the Dying by Becky Masterman
The Blessing Way by Tony Hillerman
Tainted Mountain by Shannon Baker
The Visitant by Kathleen O’Neal Gear
Desert Heat by J. A. Jance
Desert Dark by Sonja Stone
Cool in Tucson by Elizabeth Gunn
Spider Woman’s Daughter by Anne Hillerman
Memoir
All The Wild That Remains by David Gessner
Chasing Arizona: One Man’s Yearlong Obsession with the Grand Canyon State State by Ken Lamberton
Unprocessed: My City-Dwelling Year of Reclaiming Real Food by Megan Kimble
An Anthropologist’s Arrival by Ruth M. Underhill
Red-Inked Retablos by Rigoberto González
Simple Dreams: A Musical Memoir by Linda Rondstat
Refuge: An Unnatural History of Family and Place by Terry Tempest Williams
The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls
Tortilla Chronicles: Growing Up in Santa Fe by Marie Romero Cash
Speculative Fiction
The Water Knife by Paolo Bacigalupi
Demigods on Speedway by Aurelie Sheehan
Touched by an Alien by Gini Koch
Under Dark Sky Law by Tamara Boyens
Taming Shadows by Fiona Skye
Hounded by Kevin Hearne
The Milagro Beanfield War by John Nichols and Rini Templeton
The House of the Scorpion by Nancy Farmer
Return of the Bones by Belinda Vasquez Garcia
Otherbound by Corinne Duyvis
Romance
Pieces of Sky by Kaki Warner
She Who Remembers by Linda Lay Shuler
What Price Paradise by Katherine Allred
The Brothers Torres by Coert Voorhees
Ramona by Helen Hunt Jackson (A classic, 19th century Western romance)
Wake Up Maggie by Beth Yarnall
One True Theory of Love by Laura Fitzgerald
Short Stories and Poetry
Night at the Fiestas by Kirstin Valdez Quade
Sonoran Strange by Logan Phillips
The Tijuana Book of the Dead by Luis Alberto Urrea
Words Like Love by Tanaya Winder
Sagrado: A Photopoetics Across the Chicano Homeland by Spencer R. Herrera et al
Three-Ten To Yuma and other Stories by Elmore Leonard
Picture Books
The Good Rainbow Road by Simon J. Ortiz and Michael Lapaca
Camille Carries the Mail by Lisa Hodgkins and Carlos Lemos
Legend of Ponciano Gutierrez and the Mountain Thieves by A. Gabriel Meléndez and Amy Córdova
My Tata’s Remedies/Los Remedios de mi Tata by Roni Capin Rivera-Ashford and Antonio Castro L.
Hip, Hip Hooray! It’s Monsoon Day! by Roni Capin Rivera-Ashford and Richard Johnsen
What are your favorite Southwest reads?
