Best books ... chosen by Brady Udall

Brady Udall’s new novel, The Lonely Polygamist, charts the longings of a Mormon contractor with four wives. Below, the author of The Miracle Life of Edgar Mint names his six favorite books about the American West.

Roughing It by Mark Twain (Signet, $7). This wide-eyed account of prospecting, newspaper reporting, and general “vagabondizing” out West is so full of droll observations and hilarious asides you’ll find yourself laughing on every page. (“Sagebrush is very fair fuel, but as a vegetable it is a distinguished failure.”) Roughing It depicts the woolly, wild West of legend, and with it Twain helped ensure that that legend was born.

Fools Crow by James Welch (Penguin, $16). A work of great power and imagination that illuminates, like no other book has, early Native American culture and its looming demise.

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