Top 10 Montana Books

Steve McGann  |   Saturday Feb. 1st, 2025


There is a family joke that, to get me to pay attention to something, it is necessary to put it in a list of the best, the top ten, or the classic of whatever is being considered. This is probably true, though I will not click on a catalog of household chores. But lists of hikes, historical sites and, especially, of books, will draw my attention every time. There is the satisfaction of having read some of them, and the intrigue of new possibilities. This led me to compile a list of my all-time favorite books. Looking it over, I noticed that some of my selections had Montana connections. This led me to make another list—ten books that define Montana for me.

The books on this list came to me without much thought as I jotted them down. I made a couple of adjustments, then studied them. It turns out that all of my selections are set either completely or significantly in Montana. Also, all of the authors were either Montana natives or had spent a lot of time in the state. Neither of these aspects were my criteria, but it turned out nicely.

I know. I left out Richard Hugo, Tom McGuane, William Hjorsrtberg, Bill Kittredge, James Lee Burke, James Crumley and Annick Smith, along with Jamie Harrison, Granville Stuart, Ivan Doig, and many others. Apologies; Montana has a rich literary tradition. I have read most of those mentioned above but decided to choose the ten books that provided the most pleasure for me, in addition to having had the most effect upon me. Lists are made to be discussed and modified. Everyone’s will be different. Here is mine.


The Big Sky 
A B Guthrie
This book is the keystone of Montana literature, and Bud Guthrie is our Jack London or Zane Grey. Happily, it is the first volume in a trilogy about frontier Montana. It is a novel of the fur trade that holds such sentiment in our history. It is also the origin of our state nickname. His second in the series, The Way West, won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction. Guthrie grew up near Choteau, and writes lovingly and vividly of the area. As with many of the writers on this list, the land of Montana is not just a setting; it is the biggest character in his work.

Undaunted Courage 
Stephen Ambrose
A midwestern academic historian, Ambrose was given a copy of the Journals of the Lewis and Clark Corps of Discovery in the 1970s. He referred to the Journals as “America’s Iliad.” He began bringing his family to Montana each summer to canoe and camp in the places explored by the expedition. This popular, humanized history concentrates on the original concept that Thomas Jefferson had with regard to the West, and on the character of Meriwether Lewis in leading the expedition, which fulfilled that vision. This book prepared the country and Montana for the bicentennial of the Lewis and Clark Expedition in 2004-2006.


A River Runs Through It 
Norman MacLean
Another academic, MacLean was a Montana native who migrated east for a career at the University of Chicago. He did not publish any of his own work until he was over 70. The River running through this work is the Big Blackfoot, now immortalized along with other Montana trout streams by this book and the movie version, which was filmed in our state. His story is written as a novel, but is essentially an autobiographical account of his own family.

Legends of the Fall 
Jim Harrison
A Michigan native, Harrison spent a lot of time in Montana, eventually settling south of Livingston. His novella is a classic story of generational ranch life. While Norman MacLean’s story of a Montana family is based on his own, Harrison creates a family that feels completely real in their Montana experience. Their story is presented as an end-of-the-frontier saga. Unlike A River Runs Through It, the movie version of Legends was filmed elsewhere, but is presented as an authentic Montana experience. It has become a part of our state’s lore.


The Bloody Bozeman 
Dorothy Johnson
Johnson’s career encompassed newspaper reporting, working in publishing in New York, and teaching writing as a faculty member at the University of Montana. She wrote dozens of books of Western fiction and historical non-fiction including stories made into Hollywood productions, such as The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, among others. Dorothy Johnson’s book The Bloody Bozeman is an account of the Bozeman Trail, a route that was particularly significant during the westward expansion of the United States in the mid-19th century. The trail, which ran through what is now Wyoming and Montana to the Gallatin Valley, was a critical pathway for settlers seeking to reach the gold fields and fertile lands of Montana. However, it became infamous for its peril and bloodshed, hence the title. Until relatively late in her career, she was known as D M Johnson, a way to disguise her gender to prospective readers of Western literature. She is truly a treasure of Montana letters.

Fifty-Six Counties 
Russell Rowland
Rowland is a native Montanan who left the state and returned after a career elsewhere. I grabbed his book expecting a road trip across the state; it is more of a social and cultural commentary, addressing boom and bust, poverty, suicide, and despair on the Reservations. Some of it is hard to read, yet his portraits of Montanans working to better our state and help each other is inspiring. It is a necessary and unflinching look at our state in the 21st Century. Rowland has also written a trilogy of novels about ranching in Eastern Montana.

High, Wide, and Handsome 
Joseph Kinsey Howard
This work, as much a crusade as a history, was the first book written to summarize the Montana story. Howard, a newspaperman in Great Falls, related the saga of Montana’s boom and bust economy, and of the dominant corporations that shaped the state. He saw the small towns of Montana as cradles of democracy, and praised their citizens in this and other works. The success of this book enabled Howard to concentrate his writing on Montana historical, cultural and economic issues rather than on newspaper work. For his efforts he was labeled “Montana’s Conscience.”

Montana, An Uncommon Land 
K Ross Toole
Partially inspired by the work of Howard, Toole, a descendant of a pioneer Montana governor and himself a professor of history in Missoula, wrote this academic history of our state in 1959. A fiery advocate for ordinary Montanans, and against corporate and political corruption, he served as director of the historical society in Helena before becoming a very popular teacher at the University of Montana. Though written as an academic history, this book reads as a popular account. He followed this work with Twentieth Century Montana, A State of Extremes, which chronicled the continued dominance and exploitation of Montana resources and the effect on Montana politics.

Fools Crow 
James Welch
James Welch, a Native American writer, was born in Browning, Montana. He sets this award- winning novel along the Two Medicine River on what is now the Blackfoot reservation. He studied with Richard Hugo at the University of Montana and began his career as a poet. This background is readily apparent in his descriptions of the land. His book relates the story of his native ancestors struggling to maintain their traditional lifestyle in the face of change brought by the encroachment of white Americans upon their land. This story has become a familiar one, but Welch tells it with a compelling plot and sympathetic, believable characters.

80 Years in Montana 
Lori Micken
This little gem of a book is an autobiography of a woman navigating her life in Montana in the mid-twentieth century, when it was a man’s world. Micken grew up in Cut Bank, became a schoolteacher, built her own wilderness cabin and later ran a ranch. All through her journey she battled gender prejudice in a carefree and determined way. The good news is that she has written another book titled; 90 Years in Montana.


Some honorable mentions include Dayton Duncan’s Out West, and Bernard DeVoto’s Across the Wide Missouri—good Montana books, though neither author ever resided here. Chris Warren has written a fascinating book about Ernest Hemingway’s time in Cooke City in the 1930s. Doris Whithorn wrote photo histories about the Paradise Valley. Also, I’d like to mention a few Bozeman writers, including Alan Kesselheim, describing his epic canoe trips; David Quammen, a nationally known science writer; Ron Brunkhorst, author of rock and ice climbing guidebooks, and Kathy Tyers, known for her work in the science fiction genre. Please compile your own lists to complement or argue with mine. But mostly, just read the books.

The best of these books—all of them, in some sense—provide a kind of Montana Mythology.

I grew up in Illinois. We had pride in our local teams and towns, but no one ever called themselves an Illinoisan. But “The Big Sky, An Uncommon Land, made High, Wide and Handsome by the River Running Through It” creates a narrative in which all of us are proud to call ourselves Montanans.  

About the Author(s)