A nameless cowpuncher on a Wyoming ranch falls for the new schoolteacher from Vermont while feuding with a ranch hand named Trampas. His code of honour is tested by a cattle thief, a lynching and a duel, in a territory where the law is still being made.
William Andrews leaves Harvard for a frontier town in Kansas, hoping to see the West for himself. He joins an old buffalo hunter on an expedition into Colorado, where the work becomes a brutal test of endurance and the hunters' ambitions strip the land bare.
After Comanche raiders kill his brother's family and carry off his niece Debbie, Amos Edwards and Martin Pauley, the orphan the Edwards family took in, spend years searching the Texas plains for her. The long hunt hardens Amos's hatred and strains his bond with Martin, who wants to bring the girl home.
In 1870 Texas, an ageing widower who reads newspapers aloud to frontier audiences agrees to carry a ten-year-old girl south to her relatives. She was taken by Kiowa years earlier and has forgotten English, and the long journey is dangerous for them both.
After her father is shot dead in 1870s Arkansas, fourteen-year-old Mattie Ross hires Rooster Cogburn, a one-eyed U.S. marshal with a taste for whiskey, to hunt the killer into Indian Territory. A Texas Ranger joins them, and the three ride into a hard country where justice is personal.
Two former Texas Rangers drive a herd of cattle north to Montana, leading a ragged crew across rivers, drought and hostile country. The long journey tests the old friendship of the two men and the loyalties of everyone who follows them.
Frontiersman Hugh Glass is mauled by a bear and left for dead by his companions, who take his rifle and supplies. He crawls out of the wilderness and sets out on a long journey to find the men who abandoned him.
Jane Withersteen runs a Utah ranch under pressure from Mormon elders who want her to marry one of them. When the gunslinger Lassiter arrives looking for the men who destroyed his family, his quarrel with the town's leaders becomes hers, and she must decide how far she will go to protect the people she has taken under her wing.
Stolen from a comfortable California home, the dog Buck is sold into the Klondike gold rush and forced to haul sleds through frozen wilderness. Amid cruelty and hardship he discovers a wildness within himself that calls him away from men.
Eli and Charlie Sisters are hired killers riding to California to find a prospector. As the brothers travel, Eli grows tired of the violence of their trade and begins to imagine another life, while Charlie insists that the job must be finished.
In the 1850s, a teenage runaway known only as the kid drifts into a borderland of scalphunters and broken towns. He joins the Glanton gang, whose campaign against Apache raiders becomes indiscriminate slaughter, shadowed by a pale, learned judge who preaches war as the highest law.
In a militarised near-future American West, a young woman flees an arranged marriage and hides in a travelling library. The librarians turn out to carry banned books and help people cross the border, and she finds a purpose, a community, and a woman she loves.
In an alternate 1878, Karen Memery works at a brothel in Seattle. When a badly injured woman arrives with a ruthless man on her trail, Karen is pulled into a hunt for a serial killer, a corrupt election and a mess of dangerous inventions.
Bilbo Baggins likes his quiet, well-stocked hole. Then the wizard Gandalf and thirteen dwarves arrive and sweep him off on a journey to reclaim a treasure from the dragon Smaug, and he finds a courage and a ring he never expected.
A security android that has quietly hacked its own governor module would rather watch soap operas than protect the survey team it is assigned to. When the planet turns hostile, it must choose between staying hidden and risking everything for the humans in its care.
Doctor Adoulla Makhslood is the last real ghul hunter in the desert city of Dhamsawaat, and he wants only to retire. When a series of murders points to a powerful supernatural enemy, he takes up his sword again with his young apprentice and a fierce tribeswoman, and the three pursue the danger beyond the city walls.
Robert Jordan, an American volunteer, joins a band of Republican guerrillas in the Spanish mountains to blow up a bridge. Over a few days he falls for Maria, a young woman scarred by war, and weighs duty, love and the near certainty that the mission will cost him his life.
Gen has been locked in the king's prison of Sounis for boasting that he can steal anything. Freed by the king's magus, he is dragged along on a hunt for an ancient artifact that could settle the fate of three nations, and he schemes, complains and remembers more than he admits.
Frodo inherits a golden ring that is far more than it seems, and learns it is the master ring of the enemy Sauron. With a company of dwarves, elves, men and a hobbit gardener, he sets out to carry it to the only place where it can be destroyed.
Taran, an assistant pig-keeper who wants only to be a hero, loses the oracular pig Hen Wen and follows her into the land of Prydain. With a bard, a princess and a creature named Gurgi, he stumbles into a war against the Horned King.
Clay Cooper left his days as a mercenary behind for a quiet life. Then an old bandmate arrives to say his daughter is trapped in a besieged city, and Clay must round up the ageing, out-of-shape heroes of Saga for one more job.
Santiago, an Andalusian shepherd, dreams of treasure buried near the Egyptian pyramids and sets out across the desert to find it. Along the way strangers, omens and hardship teach him to read the world and to trust his own heart.
Marco Loristan lives in London with his exiled father, a Samavian patriot. With his friend the Rat, a street boy, Marco carries a secret sign across Europe to help restore Samavia's rightful king. The journey tests both boys' courage and loyalty as danger follows them from border to border.
On the same day in Tudor London a beggar boy and the heir to the English throne meet and find they look identical. They trade clothes as a joke, and the swap turns real, so each must survive a life he was never taught to live. A tale of switched places, misrule and what a crown is really worth.
Start with “The Virginian”, “Butcher's Crossing”, “The Searchers”: they are the closest to “Shane” in tropes and mood. Under each book in the list you will see what exactly it has in common.
How are similar books chosen?
We compare tropes (for “Shane” these are Wild West, Reluctant Hero, Found Family), genre, plot, era and tone. It is not “readers also bought”; it is similarity in the content itself.
Are there recent books in this list?
Yes. Among the newer ones are “News of the World”, “The Revenant”, “The Sisters Brothers”. Switch the “Modern” filter to keep only books from 2000 onward.
