Books like All the Pretty Horses

All the Pretty Horses by Cormac McCarthy reads as lyrical, melancholic. These 12 books share its genome — matched by how they actually read, not just their shelf label.

No Country for Old Men

Cormac McCarthy · 2005

Shares the transgress + bleak thread

83% genome match

Ambrose Bierce's Civil War

Ambrose Bierce · 1956

Shares the bleak + vspare thread

69% genome match

Shane

Jack Schaefer · 1949

Shares the transgress + bleak thread

69% genome match

The Power of the Dog

Thomas Savage · 1967

Shares the transgress + bleak thread

69% genome match

La Virgen de los Sicarios / Our Lady of the Assassins

Fernando Vallejo · 1994

Shares the transgress + bleak thread

69% genome match

Less Than Zero

Bret Easton Ellis · 1985

Shares the transgress + bleak thread

69% genome match

Between Here and the Yellow Sea

Nic Pizzolatto · 2006

Shares the transgress + bleak thread

69% genome match

For Whom the Bell Tolls

Ernest Hemingway · 1940

Shares the vspare thread

70% genome match

A Streetcar Named Desire

Tennessee Williams · 1947

Shares the bleak + transgress thread

69% genome match

A Wizard of Earthsea

Ursula K. Le Guin · 1968

Shares the vspare thread

69% genome match

Jesus' Son

Denis Johnson

Shares the transgress + vspare thread

69% genome match

Wrong

Dennis Cooper · 1992

Shares the transgress + bleak thread

69% genome match