“What are E. Annie Proulx’s Best Books?” We looked at all of Proulx’s authored bibliography and ranked them against one another to answer that very question!

We took all of the books written by Annie Proulx and looked at their Goodreads, Amazon, and LibraryThing scores, ranking them against one another to see which books came out on top. The books are ranked in our list below based on which titles have the highest overall score between all 3 review sites in comparison with all of the other books by the same author. The process isn’t super scientific and in reality, most books aren’t “better” than other books as much as they are just different. That being said, we do enjoy seeing where our favorites landed, and if you aren’t familiar with the author at all, the rankings can help you see what books might be best to start with.

The full ranking chart is also included below the countdown on the bottom of the page.

Happy Scrolling!

The Top Book’s Of Annie Proulx

12 ) Accordion Crimes

Review Website Ranks:

• Goodreads: 10
• Amazon: 10
• LibraryThing: 9

11 ) The Gourmet Gardener

Review Website Ranks:

• Goodreads: 11
• Amazon: 7
• LibraryThing: 10

10 ) The Fine Art Of Salad Gardening

Review Website Ranks:

• Goodreads: 1
• Amazon: 12
• LibraryThing: 10

9 ) Heart Songs

Review Website Ranks:

• Goodreads: 6
• Amazon: 9
• LibraryThing: 7

Here are her collected stories, including two new works never before anthologized. These stories reverberate with rural tradition, the rites of nature, and the rituals of small-town life. The country is blue-collar New England; the characters are native families and the dispossessed working class, whose heritage is challenged by the neorural bourgeoisie from the city; and the themes are as elemental as the landscape: revenge, malice, greed, passion. Told with skill and profundity and crafted by a master storyteller, these are lean, tough tales of an extraordinary place and its people.

8 ) Plan and Make Your Own Fences Gates, Walkways, Walls, Drives

Review Website Ranks:

• Goodreads: 3
• Amazon: 7
• LibraryThing: 10

7 ) That Old Ace In the Hole

Review Website Ranks:

• Goodreads: 8
• Amazon: 3
• LibraryThing: 8

Bob Dollar is a reluctant land swindler. When the 25-year-old protagonist in Annie Proulx’s That Old Ace in the Hole signs on as a location scout for Global Pork Rind, an industrial hog farming corporation, he has no idea what kind of moral quandaries he’s in for. Well, maybe he does. His assignment, after all, is to infiltrate a tiny town in the Texas Panhandle and find a tract of land his employer can turn into an industrial hog farm.

6 ) Bad Dirt

Review Website Ranks:

• Goodreads: 5
• Amazon: 6
• LibraryThing: 6

Annie Proulx’s new collection is peopled by characters who struggle with circumstances beyond their control. Born to ranching, drawn to it, or desperate to get out, they inhabit worlds that are isolated and often dangerous. Trouble comes at them from unexpected angles, and they drive themselves through it, hardheaded and resourceful. No one writes better than Proulx about the American west and about lives that may no longer be viable.

5 ) Brokeback Mountain

Review Website Ranks:

• Goodreads: 12
• Amazon: 1
• LibraryThing: 3

Annie Proulx has written some of the most original and brilliant short stories in contemporary literature, and for many readers and reviewers, “Brokeback Mountain” is her masterpiece. Ennis del Mar and Jack Twist, two ranch hands, come together when they’re working as sheepherder and camp tender one summer on a range above the tree line. At first, sharing an isolated tent, the attraction is casual, inevitable, but something deeper catches them that summer. Both men work hard, marry, and have kids because that’s what cowboys do. But over the course of many years and frequent separations this relationship becomes the most important thing in their lives, and they do anything they can to preserve it.

4 ) The Shipping News

Review Website Ranks:

• Goodreads: 7
• Amazon: 3
• LibraryThing: 5

In this touching and atmospheric novel set among the fishermen of Newfoundland, Proulx tells the story of Quoyle. From all outward appearances, Quoyle has gone through his first 36 years on earth as a big schlump of a loser. He’s not attractive, he’s not brilliant or witty or talented, and he’s not the kind of person who typically assumes the central position in a novel. But Proulx creates a simple and compelling tale of Quoyle’s psychological and spiritual growth. Along the way, we get to look in on the maritime beauty of what is probably a disappearing way of life.

3 ) The Gardener’s Journal and Record Book

Review Website Ranks:

• Goodreads: 1
• Amazon: 11
• LibraryThing: 1

1 ) Close Range

Review Website Ranks:

• Goodreads: 4
• Amazon: 3
• LibraryThing: 4

Annie Proulx forays through the underside of America’s beloved Wild West in Close Range, a collection of stories about hardship and more hardship in Wyoming territory. Understanding that the West’s infinite spaces tended to inspire neither introspection nor contemplation, but a violent and insatiable restlessness, Proulx’s eight stories are dark reflections on the lives of a handful of characters striving to define themselves against the unforgiving landscapes.

1 ) A53 Great Grapes

Review Website Ranks:

• Goodreads: 9
• Amazon: 1
• LibraryThing: 1

Grapes are among the most desirable and best-known fruits, prized for their beauty, their succulence and varied flavors, their noble metamorphosis into wine, and their more utilitarian roles as sources of fresh juice and tasty jellies. For most growers, the triumph of harvesting fragrant clusters of dusky-bloomed grapes in rose, blue-black, amber, purple, or light red bunches is its own reward–a test of gardening skill. In Great Grapes, you’ll learn all you need to know to grow superb grapes, including how to: -Choose the most suitable cultivars for your area -Choose the right site -Prepare the soil -Build trellises -Plant and train the vines -Prune for maximum yield -Propagate new vines -Control pests -Harvest the grapes at the peak of ripeness

E. Annie Proulx’s Best Books

Annie Proulx Review Website Bibliography Rankings