Western fiction is a genre of literature set in the American Old West frontier and typically set from the late eighteenth to the late nineteenth century.[1] Well-known writers of Western fiction include Zane Grey from the early 20th century and Louis L'Amour from the mid-20th century.[2][3] The genre peaked around the early 1960s, largely due to the popularity of televised Westerns such as Bonanza. Readership began to drop off in the mid- to late 1970s and reached a new low in the 2000s. Most bookstores, outside a few west American states, only carry a small number of Western fiction books.