Top ten books about horses

Jane Smiley is the author of the Horses of Oak Valley Ranch series, as well as many novels for adults and three works of nonfiction. She won the Pulitzer Prize for A Thousand Acres.

Smiley's new book for young readers is Riding Lessons.

One of the author's ten top books about horses, as shared at the Guardian:

The Kellys and the O’Kellys by Anthony Trollope

Trollope’s second novel is insightful about Ireland, women, money and family friction, but my favourite bits take place on the turf. Dot Blake is one of the great horse-racing characters in fiction, not because he’s so colourful but because he’s so smart. He gives good advice, about racing and marriage, and he makes use of many intemperate men while never being one himself. Trollope knew his horses and his hunting: there’s a neatly choreographed hunting scene in his novel Orley Farm, and in The Duke’s Children, Lord Silverbridge is swindled out of what would now be £7m by a racecourse scoundrel.

Read about the other entries on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue