14 books for year of the horse
Hi dearest reader,
Were you a horse girl or a wolf girl growing up? If you were a horse girl this one is for you—I happen to be deathly allergic, but I appreciate their magisterial quality. These are books high on the reading list that happen to have horses on the cover or in the title—with them may we book nerds celebrate the year of the fire horse and a prosperous Lunar New Year of reading to come. (If you’re a novice like me, here’s an article with more info on the Chinese zodiac.)
Here are 14 books with horses on the cover or title—a healthy mix of literary fiction and nonfiction:
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Half of Man Is Woman by Xianliang Zhang, translated by Martha Avery: There’s a beautiful painting of a horse on the cover of this 1985 novel, described as, “A love story set in a Chinese labor camp during the Cultural Revolution follows Zhang, a rightist poet made impotent, and Huang, a woman jailed for promiscuity, and their passionate, ill-fated love affair,” says Fantastic Fiction.
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All the Pretty Horses by Cormac McCarthy: A book recommended to us by the author Rochelle Dowden-Lord on the B&B podcast. Rochelle attributes McCarthy’s book as being a great inspiration for her as a writer.
“All the Pretty Horses is the tale of John Grady Cole, who at sixteen finds himself at the end of a long line of Texas ranchers, cut off from the only life he has ever imagined for himself. With two companions, he sets off for Mexico on a sometimes idyllic, sometimes comic journey to a place where dreams are paid for in blood.”
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Horse by Geraldine Brooks: Now this just has the word horse but it is about a horse, so it counts.
“A discarded painting in a junk pile, a skeleton in an attic, and the greatest racehorse in American history: from these strands, a Pulitzer Prize winner braids a sweeping story of spirit, obsession, and injustice across American history.”
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Mare by Emily Haworth-Booth: Now here’s an alphabet ‘M’ horse but it feels like a horse, and so it is hoofed enough for me. A fitting cover for the synopsis:
“The story of a horse and the woman who loves her—a lively first novel of not-daughters and non-mothers; animals and animal bodies; and how we find freedom, care, and community in unexpected places.” (Mare comes out 5/19/2026 and I’m hoping to read it.)
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All the horses of Iceland by Sarah Tolmie: There’s a dash of magic with these horses and all in 112 pages.
“Everyone knows of the horses of Iceland, wild, and small, and free, but few have heard their story. Sarah Tolmie’s All the Horses of Iceland weaves their mystical origin into a saga for the modern age.”
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Whistler by Ann Patchett: Could this be a more perfect cover of a horse? And the title evokes the sensations around communing with animals: a whistle, a yip, a tender pat on the head. However, I have no clue whether a horse actually shows up in Whistler, I think it’s more the mood here that counts.
“Whistler is a story about two adults looking back over the choices they made, and the choices that were made for them. It’s a story about bravery, memory, the often small yet consequential moments that define our lives, and the endless stream of loss that in time comes for us all. Beautiful in its simplicity, it is ultimately about how love endures…” (Whistler doesn’t come out until 6/2/2026)
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Chasing Painted Horses by Drew Hayden Taylor: Winner of the 2020 PMC Indigenous Literature Award: “When Ralph Thomas comes across graffiti of a horse in an alleyway in the early hours of the morning, he is stopped in his tracks…Chasing Painted Horses has a magical, fablelike quality that will enchant readers, and haunt them, for years to come.”
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Mounted: On Horses, Blackness, and Liberation by Bitter Kalli: With a tapestry of a horse on the cover; a beautiful nod to history!
“Joining the growing Black creative movement currently refashioning horses and cowboy imagery, a thoughtful, probing exploration of the shared history of Blackness and horses which reveals what its image can teach us about nationhood, race, and culture.”
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Frighten the Horses by Oliver Radclyffe: Not about horses, but certainly as much about the freedom that horses so often represent:
“Frighten the Horses is a trans man’s coming of age story, about a housewife who comes out as a lesbian and tentatively, at first, steps into the world of queerness. With growing courage and the support of his newfound community, Oliver is finally able to face the question of his gender identity and become the man he is supposed to be.
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The Last Report on the Miracles at Little No Horse by Louise Erdrich: What a title! The broody, smudgy horse on the cover makes me feel unbearably curious about the story.
“For more than a half century, Father Damien Modeste has served his beloved Native American tribe, the Ojibwe, on the remote reservation of Little No Horse. Now, nearing the end of his life, Father Damien dreads the discovery of his physical identity, for he is a woman who has lived as a man.”
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The Year of the Horses by Courtney Maum: A very horsey memoir that fits the brief, about how a writer and her horse-riding recover her mental health.
“Sharp, heartfelt, and cathartic, The Year of the Horses captures a woman’s journey out of depression and the horses that guide her, physically and emotionally, on a new path forward.”
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Octavia E. Butler: H Is for Horse by Chi-Ming Yang: But of course Butler had an interest in horses! Empathy is a huge theme in her work, so I’m not surprised she thought a lot about animals too. What a legend. This book is about:
“Bringing to view a selection of Butler's unpublished writings and drawings, this book traces her fascination with human-alien symbiosis to her early empathy with horses and other marginalized creatures. The figure of the horse, at once earthly and transcendent, represented the contradictions of freedom and captivity that enabled young Octavia to develop her nuanced sense of voice and place.”
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Harrow by Joy Williams: I hope there is a horse in Harrow, only because a literary science-fiction with a horse sounds intriguing. Otherwise, the cover does a good job to suggest how far humans have drifted from their natural, animal origins.
“In her first novel since the Pulitzer Prize–nominated The Quick and the Dead, the legendary writer takes us into an uncertain landscape after an environmental apocalypse, a world in which only the man-made has value, but some still wish to salvage the authentic.”
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The Horse by Willy Vlautin: Okay, we’re back on the horse thing, like really back. In this book a horse is a main character and tré sympathetic:
“Hampered by insomnia, bouts of anxiety, and a chronic lethargy that keeps him from moving back to town, Al finds himself teetering on the edge of madness and running out of reasons to go on—until a horse arrives on his doorstep: nameless, blind, and utterly helpless.”
That’s it for now turtledoves! Stay reading. Stay sassy.
Love,
Amani