Each week as part of SunLit — The Sun’s literature section — we feature staff recommendations from book stores across Colorado. This week, the staff from Poor Richard’s Books in Colorado Springs recommends a touching summer story, classic King and Longmire’s latest.

The Summer Book

By Tove Jansson
NYRB Classics
$15.95
May 2008
Purchase

From the publisher: Tove Jansson distills the essence of the summer—its sunlight and storms—into 22 crystalline vignettes. This brief novel tells the story of Sophia, a 6-year-old girl awakening to existence, and Sophia’s grandmother, nearing the end of hers, as they spend the summer on a tiny unspoiled island in the Gulf of Finland. The grandmother is unsentimental and wise, if a little cranky; Sophia is impetuous and volatile, but she tends to her grandmother with the care of a new parent. Together they amble over coastline and forest in easy companionship, build boats from bark, create a miniature Venice, write a fanciful study of local bugs. They discuss things that matter to young and old alike: life, death, the nature of God and of love.

From Jeffery Payne, assistant retail manager: Opening the first page of “The Summer Book” we are gently introduced to Sophia – a precocious, inquisitive child with worldly questions and a bit of seething anger just underneath the skin, and her grandmother – wise, caring with sharp words with a glint of mischievousness in eyes and cigarettes in worn pockets.

Jansson captured the pace of summer life on a small remote island in the Gulf of Finland. Skillfully crafted words lull the reader into a quiet space of mind and place. Her keen observations (on both nature and humankind) are a gentle, compassionate soft punch to the stomach at times. Written with a naturalist eye and an obvious love of life on the Finnish coast, “The Summer Book” gives us a good reason to stop and take a few moments to enjoy the waning days of this season.

Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption

By Stephen King
Scribner Book Company
$14
September 2020
Purchase

From the publisher: A mesmerizing tale of unjust imprisonment and offbeat escape, this is one of Stephen King’s most beloved and iconic stories, and it helped make Castle Rock a place readers would return to over and over again. Suspenseful, mysterious, and heart-wrenching, this iconic King novella, populated by a cast of unforgettable characters, is about a fiercely compelling convict named Andy Dufresne who is seeking his ultimate revenge. Originally published in 1982 in the collection “Different Seasons,” it was made into the film “The Shawshank Redemption” in 1994.

From Jeffery Payne, assistant retail manager: Let me be perfectly honest, I am not a Stephen King fan. I don’t know what (story) started it, but I have shied away from reading anything written by Mr. King for decades. Recently when I was stuck without something to read between “major” books, I asked my colleague (Hi, Thom!) for ideas, he suggested, again, this novella.

There isn’t much new to say about “Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption” other than if one hasn’t read it, put it on the list. The concise and powerful use of words tells a story of hope and determination. The characters are incredibly fully developed even though this is a very small book when compared to King’s other volumes. We are drawn in easily, willingly. There is a reason that King has been a writing monument for many years, he is seriously good at his craft.

First Frost

By Craig Johnson
Viking
$30
May 2024
Purchase

From the publisher: It’s the summer of 1964, and recent college graduates Walt Longmire and Henry Standing Bear read the writing on the wall and enlist to serve in the Vietnam War. As they catch a few final waves in California before reporting for duty, a sudden storm assaults the shores and capsizes a nearby cargo boat. Walt and Henry jump to action, but it’s soon revealed by the police who greet them ashore that the sunken boat carried valuable contraband from underground sources.

The boys, in their early 20s and in the peak of their physical prowess from playing college football for the last four years, head out on Route 66. The question, of course, is how far they will get before the consequences of their actions catch up to them—the answer being, not very.

Back in the present day, Walt is forced to speak before a judge following the fatal events of “The Longmire Defense.” With powerful enemies lurking behind the scenes, the sheriff of Absaroka County must consider his options if he wishes to finish the fight he started. Going back and forth between 1964 and the present day, Craig Johnson brings us a propulsive dual timeline as Walt Longmire stands in the crossfire of good and evil, law and anarchy, compassion and cruelty at two pivotal stages in his life.

From Jeffery Payne, assistant retail manager: Craig Johnson doesn’t disappoint with the latest volume in the Longmire series. In “First Frost” we seesaw between the past, where Longmire and his best friend, Standing Bear, do a good deed, or at least they think it’s a good deed, and how things play out decades later. The page-turning read shows just how decisions of years ago play an important part in where we all are today. The turmoil plays out cleverly, trying and strengthening the patience of friendships and the law. In quintessential Johnson style, there is subtle humor, point-on examination of the human psyche and the great cast of side characters that rarely get their due.

THIS WEEK’S BOOK RECS COME FROM:

Poor Richard’s Books

320 N. Tejon St., Colorado Springs

poorrichardsdowntown.com

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As part of The Colorado Sun’s literature section — SunLit — we’re featuring staff picks from book stores across the state. Read more.

Each week as part of SunLit — The Sun’s literature section — we feature staff recommendations from book stores across Colorado. This week, the staff from Old Firehouse Books in Fort Collins recommends books about romance, roads and reconciling long-held secrets.

The Pairing

By Casey McQuiston
St. Martin’s Griffin
$20
August 2024
Purchase

From the publisher: Theo and Kit have been a lot of things: childhood best friends, crushes, in love, and now estranged exes. After a brutal breakup on the transatlantic flight to their dream European food and wine tour, they exited each other’s lives once and for all. Time apart has done them good.

All that remains is the unused voucher for the European tour that never happened, good for 48 months after its original date and about to expire. Four years later, it seems like a great idea to finally take the trip. Solo. Separately.

It’s not until they board the tour bus that they discover they’ve both accidentally had the exact same idea, and now they’re trapped with each other for three weeks of stunning views, luscious flavors, and the most romantic cities of France, Spain, and Italy.

From Andrea, event coordinator: Sure, several years later they can get along, as long as they can prove to one another that they’ve moved on. And really, what’s the best way to prove to your ex that you have no feelings for them whatsoever? Definitely a hookup competition!

Casey McQuiston is back at it again with a book that is absolutely hilarious and beautiful and so fun to read. Kit and Theo are wonderful bisexual messes who, while mistake prone, have so much heart and care for the world around them and each other (begrudgingly). And I can’t even explain the incredible FOMO I felt reading about their tour. You will finish this novel and book a tour to Europe immediately after. The explanation of the food, wine, and cities were mouth-watering. (Also, I listened to the audiobook and highly recommend it!! Get yours on Libro.fm today!!)

Killed by a Traffic Engineer

By Wes Marshall
Island Press
$35
June 2024
Purchase

From the publisher: In the U.S. we are nearing 4 million road deaths since we began counting them in 1899. The numbers are getting worse in recent years, yet we continue to accept these deaths as part of doing business. There has been no examination of why we engineer roads that are literally killing us.  Fixing the carnage on our roadways requires a change in mindset and a dramatic transformation of transportation. This goes for traffic engineers in particular because they are still the ones in charge of our streets.

Civil engineering professor Wes Marshall shines a spotlight on how little science there is behind the way that our streets are engineered, which leaves safety as an afterthought. While traffic engineers are not trying to cause deliberate harm to anyone, he explains, they are guilty of creating a transportation system whose designs remain largely based on plausible, but unproven, conjecture.

From Sterling, bookseller: In an attempt to soothe my lingering sadness over not having been able to attend the event we held with the author, I’ve chosen August to highlight a book both impactful and necessary. Wes Marshall takes us on an intense, thorough and sometimes dark yet compassionate tour through the underpinnings of a nigh unquestioned (until recently) profession. This is the ultimate insider’s guide to a fascinating sphere of design tangled up with often disastrous safety outcomes and one that touches our lives by shaping the ways in which we move every single day: the traffic engineer.

The Widow’s Guide to Dead Bastards

By Jessica Waite
Atria Books
$29.99
July 2024
Purchase

From the publisher: In the midst of mourning her husband’s sudden death, writer Jessica Waite discovered shocking secrets that undermined everything she thought she knew about the man she’d loved and trusted. From uncovered affairs to drug use and a pornography addiction, Waite was overwhelmed reconciling this devastating information with her new reality as a widowed single mom. Then, to further complicate matters, strange, inexplicable coincidences forced her to consider whether her husband was reaching back from beyond the grave.

With her signature candor and unflinching honesty, Waite details her tumultuous love story and the pain of adjusting to the new normal she built for herself and her son. A riveting, difficult, and surprisingly beautiful story, “The Widow’s Guide to Dead Bastards” is also a lyrical exploration of grief, mental health, single parenthood, and betrayal that demonstrates that the most moving love stories aren’t perfect — they’re flawed and poignantly real.

From Revati, general manager: This is an amazing memoir that will make anyone re-examine what it really means to love someone. Jessica Waite writes with such understanding and raw emotion that you can’t help feel the loss, rage, sadness, confusion and love with her. Despite the heavy subject, you will be instantly engaged and I’m sure it’ll be a favorite memoir of the year.

THIS WEEK’S BOOK RECS COME FROM:

Old Firehouse Books

232 Walnut St., Fort Collins

oldfirehousebooks.com

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As part of The Colorado Sun’s literature section — SunLit — we’re featuring staff picks from book stores across the state. Read more.

Each week as part of SunLit — The Sun’s literature section — we feature staff recommendations from book stores across Colorado. This week, the staff from the Park Hill Community Bookstore in Denver recommends tales of unsung WWII heroes, comic Western assassins and a family of cannibals.

The Enigma Girls

By Candace Fleming
Scholastic Focus
Prices vary by seller; PHCB Price: $3 PB/$5 HC if available
March 2024
Purchase: In store only

From the publisher: Bletchley Park was a well-kept secret during World War II, operating under the code name Station X. The critical work of code-cracking Nazi missives that went on behind its closed doors could determine a victory or loss against Hitler’s army. Amidst the brilliant cryptographers, flamboyant debutantes, and absent-minded professors working there, it was teenaged girls who kept Station X running. Some could do advanced math, while others spoke a second language. They ran the unwieldy bombe machines, made sense of wireless sound waves, and sorted the decoded messages. They were expected to excel in their fields and most importantly: know how to keep a secret.

From Linda Baie, volunteer coordinator: Fleming follows 10 specific girls as they arrive, find challenges in their billets and in their work, some working in codes and ciphers, some working with the later “bombe” machines, and well into the war, the newly created “colossus” machines. Each one is 20 or younger. One is a debutante who took the invitation as a chance to skip her debutante coming out! One young woman, through constant work beside another worker, a man, eventually married him, though each never revealed all of their secret work. 

The book is tension-filled as the workers rush as quickly as possible to solve messages and to help those in power improve their plans of attack when learning about the enemies’ plans, right up to Hitler’s orders. Although all were proud to be helpful, they often realized that any attack, even successful, meant lives lost. Parts of the London Blitz felt especially sad to read about. Many photos are added within the text that illuminate the telling.

The Sisters Brothers

By Patrick deWitt
House of Anansi Press
List price depends on seller; PHCB Price: $3 PB/$5 HC if available
April 2011
Purchase: In store only

From the publisher: Hermann Kermit Warm is going to die. The enigmatic and powerful man known only as the Commodore has ordered it, and his henchmen, Eli and Charlie Sisters, will make sure of it. Though Eli doesn’t share his brother’s appetite for whiskey and killing, he’s never known anything else. But their prey isn’t an easy mark, and on the road from Oregon City to Warm’s gold-mining claim outside Sacramento, Eli begins to question what he does for a living — and whom he does it for.

With “The Sisters Brothers,” Patrick deWitt pays homage to the classic Western, transforming it into an unforgettable comic tour de force. Filled with a remarkable cast of characters-losers, cheaters, and ne’er-do-wells from all stripes of life — and told by a complex and compelling narrator — it is a violent, lustful odyssey through the underworld of the 1850s frontier that beautifully captures the humor, melancholy, and grit of the Old West and two brothers bound by blood, violence, and love.

From Sheryl Hartmann, volunteer:  I normally avoid western-themed books — probably because I had to watch episode after episode of “Gunsmoke” with my grandparents when I was growing up. In any case, “The Sisters Brothers” is unlike any book I’ve read. It’s a western yes, but the protagonists are exceptionally literate and capable of stunning moral insights. Apparently the author was inspired by a Time-Life book on the California Gold Rush that he found at a yard sale. In 2018 the book was made into a movie starring John C. Reilly and Joaquin Phoenix as the Sisters brothers. It was directed by the well-known French director Jacques Audiard. If the movie had been directed by the Coen brothers I might be tempted to watch it because it seems to me that they’re the only directors who could do justice to the characters and the mood of the narrative.

Mother for Dinner

By Shalom Auslander
Picador
List price depends on seller; PHCB Price: $3 PB/$5 HC if available
September 2020
Purchase: In store only

From the publisher: Seventh Seltzer has done everything he can to break from the past, but in his overbearing, narcissistic mother’s last moments he is drawn back into the life he left behind. At her deathbed, she whispers in his ear the two words he always knew she would: “Eat me.”

This is not unusual, as the Seltzers are Cannibal-Americans, a once proud and thriving ethnic group, but for Seventh, it raises some serious questions, both practical and emotional. Of practical concern, his dead mother is six-foot-two and weighs about four hundred and fifty pounds. Even divided up between Seventh and his eleven brothers, that’s a lot of red meat. Plus Second keeps kosher, Ninth is vegan, First hated her, and Sixth is dead. To make matters worse, even if he can wrangle his brothers together for a feast, the Can-Am people have assimilated, and the only living Cannibal who knows how to perform the ancient ritual is their Uncle Ishmael, whose erratic understanding of their traditions leads to conflict.

Irreverent and written with Auslander’s incomparable humor, “Mother for Dinner” is an exploration of legacy, assimilation, the things we owe our families, and the things we owe ourselves.

From Sheryl Hartmann, volunteer: I first heard about Shalom Auslander when I read his article in The Jewish Chronicle entitled “The 10 classic types of Jew, and how to decide which one you are.” Since I love humor about cultural stereotypes I decided to read some of Auslander’s fiction. “Mother for Dinner” is gruesome and hilarious; irreverent and yet poignant; satirical and, in some places, quite sincere. The arguments Seventh has with Ninth (who is a vegan) about what counts as “eating” provoked convulsive laughter.

I read “Mother for Dinner” before Auslander’s new book “Feh” came out. He’s been on a book tour lately and I’ve heard him interviewed on “Fresh Air” and on Yascha Mounk’s “The Good Fight.” It’s on my hold list at the library.

THIS WEEK’S BOOK RECS COME FROM:

Park Hill Community Bookstore

4620 E 23rd Ave, Denver

(303) 355-8508

parkhillbookstore.org

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As part of The Colorado Sun’s literature section — SunLit — we’re featuring staff picks from book stores across the state. Read more.

Each week as part of SunLit — The Sun’s literature section — we feature staff recommendations from book stores across Colorado. This week, the staff from The Bookies Bookstore in Denver recommends an app-based novel, a delicious kids’ tale and a cozy fantasy.

Five-Star Stranger

By Kat Tang
Scribner
$27 (hardcover)
August 2024
Purchase

From the publisher: In an age where online ratings are all-powerful, “Five-Star Stranger” follows the adventures of a top-rated man on the Rental Stranger app — a place where users can hire a pretend fiancé, a wingman, or an extra mourner for a funeral. Referred to only as Stranger, the narrator navigates New York City under the guise of characters he plays, always maintaining a professional distance from his clients.

But, when a nosy patron threatens to upend his long-term role as father to a young girl, Stranger begins to reckon with his attachment to his pretend daughter, her mother, and his own fraught past. Now, he must confront the boundaries he has drawn and explore the legacy of abandonment that shaped his life.

From Bess Maher, event liaison: “Five-Star Stranger” has a unique premise that explores an idea most of us can relate to: being afraid to get close to other people. The narrator of the novel has so perfected his ability to distance himself from others that he makes the perfect “rental stranger”— and has no real-life connections at all. If you can relate, work in the gig economy, or like quick-moving literary fiction, you will love this novel. 

The Last Apple Tree

By Claudia Mills
Holiday House
$17.99 (hardcover)
June 2024
Purchase

From the publisher: Twelve-year-old Sonnet’s family has just moved across the country to live with her grandfather after her nana dies. Gramps’s once-impressive apple orchard has been razed for a housing development, with only one heirloom tree left. Sonnet doesn’t want to think about how Gramps and his tree are both growing old — she just wants everything to be OK.

Sonnet is not OK with her neighbor, Zeke, a boy her age who gets on her bad side and stays there when he tries to choose her grandpa to interview for an oral history assignment. Zeke irks Sonnet with his prying questions, bringing out the sad side of Gramps she’d rather not see. Meanwhile, Sonnet joins the Green Club at school and without talking to Zeke about it, she asks his activist father to speak at the Arbor Day assembly — a collision of worlds that Zeke wanted more than anything to avoid. 

From Marilyn Robbins, children’s book buyer and programs manager: “The Last Apple Tree” tells the story of Sonnet, who has just moved from Colorado to the Midwest with her mom and sister to live with her aging grandfather. There, Sonnet discovers her grandpa’s apple orchard only has one tree left. What will this mean to her family, especially her grandfather? This book is perfect for ages nine to 12. It is, by far, my favorite of the year! Grab a piece of apple pie and get ready to settle in for a delicious book.

Can’t Spell Treason Without Tea

By Rebecca Thorne
Tor/Forge
$19.99 (paperback)
May 2024
Purchase

From the publisher: All Reyna and Kianthe want is to open a bookshop that serves tea. Worn wooden floors, plants on every table, firelight drifting between the rafters … all complemented by love and good company. Thing is, Reyna works as one of the Queen’s private guards, and Kianthe is the most powerful mage in existence. Leaving their lives isn’t so easy.

But after an assassin takes Reyna hostage, she decides she’s thoroughly done risking her life for a self-centered queen. Meanwhile, Kianthe has been waiting for a chance to flee responsibility — all the better that her girlfriend is on board. Together, they settle in Tawney, a town nestled in the icy tundra near dragon country, and open the shop of their dreams. What follows is a cozy tale of mishaps, mysteries, and a murderous queen throwing the realm’s biggest temper tantrum.

From Krista Carlton, manager: Sometimes you need a break from everything and you just want to run away to some remote town and open a bookstore/tea cafe. This book’s main characters do that exact thing, but one of them is the greatest mage in the region and they do have to fight off dragons at some point. This book was a joy, a release of tension after a long day, and truly a cozy fantasy.

THIS WEEK’S BOOK RECS COME FROM:

The Bookies Bookstore
2085 S. Holly Street
Denver, CO 80222

thebookies.com

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As part of The Colorado Sun’s literature section — SunLit — we’re featuring staff picks from book stores across the state. Read more.

Each week as part of SunLit — The Sun’s literature section — we feature staff recommendations from book stores across Colorado. This week, the staff from Explore Booksellers in Aspen recommends books that explore the Grand Canyon, economic history and a fictional serial killer.

A Walk in the Park

By Kevin Fedarko
Scribner
$32.50
May 2024
Purchase

From the publisher: A few years after quitting his job to follow an ill-advised dream of becoming a guide on the Colorado River, Kevin Fedarko was approached by his best friend, the National Geographic photographer Pete McBride, with a vision as bold as it was harebrained. Together, they would embark on an end-to-end traverse of the Grand Canyon, a journey that, McBride promised, would be “a walk in the park.” Against his better judgment, Fedarko agreed to the scheme, unaware that the small cluster of experts who had completed the crossing billed it as “the toughest hike in the world.”

The ensuing ordeal, which lasted more than a year, revealed a place that was deeper, richer, and far more complex than anything the two men had imagined—and came within a hair’s breadth of killing them both.

From Amy Floyd, finance and operations manager: I love how Kevin Fedarko brings both hilarity and gravitas to his tale of the quest to walk the entire length of the Grand Canyon with his best friend, Aspen’s own Pete McBride. A delightful storyteller, Fedarko weaves his memoir of their mishaps and triumphs with a history of the park, the land and geology, and the Indigenous tribes that have been its caretakers for eons. It will make you immediately want to run out to hike in the canyon, or never go hike in the canyon — likely both.  I also recommend picking up McBride’s “The Grand Canyon: Between River and Rim” to read alongside to experience all of the photos he took on the journey.

Slouching Towards Utopia: An Economic History of the Twentieth Century

By J. Bradford DeLong
Basic Books
$22.99
November 2023
Purchase

From the publisher: Before 1870, humanity lived in dire poverty, with a slow crawl of invention offset by a growing population. Then came a great shift: invention sprinted forward, doubling our technological capabilities each generation and utterly transforming the economy again and again. Our ancestors would have presumed we would have used such powers to build utopia. But it was not so. When 1870–2010 ended, the world instead saw global warming; economic depression, uncertainty, and inequality; and broad rejection of the status quo.

Economist Brad DeLong’s book tells the story of how this unprecedented explosion of material wealth occurred, how it transformed the globe, and why it failed to deliver us to utopia. Of remarkable breadth and ambition, it reveals the last century to have been less a march of progress than a slouch in the right direction.

From Alec Sprague, events & programming: “Slouching Towards Utopia” led me to really reflect on where we’re at as a society and a species. It’s a master work, walking through over a century of economic history and detailing how we, the people living today, inherited the fruits of the greatest period of progress in human history. But given all of that progress, you’d think we’d live in something closer to utopia — why don’t we? This is, in my view, the most important question of our time. 

In a Lonely Place

By Dorothy B. Hughes
New York Review of Books
$15.95
August 2017
Purchase

From the publisher: Los Angeles in the late 1940s is a city of promise and prosperity, but not for former fighter pilot Dix Steele. To his mind nothing has come close to matching “that feeling of power and exhilaration and freedom that came with loneness in the sky.” He prowls the foggy city night — ­bus stops and stretches of darkened beaches and movie houses just emptying out — seeking solitary young women. His funds are running out and his frustrations are growing. Where is the good life he was promised? Why does he always get a raw deal? Then he hooks up with his old Air Corps buddy Brub, now working for the LAPD, who just happens to be on the trail of the strangler who’s been terrorizing the women of the city for months…

Written with controlled elegance, Dorothy B. Hughes’s tense novel is at once an early indictment of a truly toxic masculinity and a twisty page-turner with a surprisingly feminist resolution. A classic of golden age noir, “In a Lonely Place” also inspired Nicholas Ray’s 1950 film of the same name, starring Humphrey Bogart.

From Clare Pearson, book buyer: I picked up this book for the promise of a moody and atmospheric sense of place, and was not disappointed by the subtle character study of evil that followed. “In a Lonely Place” presages the best of its genre while drawing influences from masters such as Raymond Chandler and Dashiell Hammett. I felt as if I were transported into a mid-century film noir, and I experienced the prose in an immersive grayscale. A quick read for fans of “The Talented Mr. Ripley” and other mystery classics. 

THIS WEEK’S BOOK RECS COME FROM:

Explore Booksellers

221 E. Main St., Aspen

(970) 925-5343

explorebooksellers.com

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As part of The Colorado Sun’s literature section — SunLit — we’re featuring staff picks from book stores across the state. Read more.

Each week as part of SunLit — The Sun’s literature section — we feature staff recommendations from book stores across Colorado. This week, the staff from Out West Books in Grand Junction recommends three books all connected to the amazing characteristics of…crows.

Crow Talk

By Eileen Garvin
Dutton
$28
April 2024
Purchase

From the publisher: Frankie O’Neill and Anne Ryan would seem to have nothing in common. Frankie is a lonely ornithologist struggling to salvage her dissertation on the spotted owl following a rift with her advisor. Anne is an Irish musician far from home and family, raising her 5-year-old son, Aiden, who refuses to speak. When Frankie finds an injured baby crow in the forest, little does she realize that the charming bird will bring all three lost souls – Frankie, Anne, and Aiden – together on a journey toward hope, healing, and rediscovering joy. 

From Marya Johnston, owner: My mom used to tell a story about how her cowboy cousins raised a crow and taught it to talk. It would tell them when visitors were coming or when it was time to bring in the laundry. As it turns out, this family lore could be true! Not only that, but crows mourn their dead, and can remember the face of a human that has treated them badly and will pass that information down through generations. Though “Crow Talk” is full of such intriguing facts and lore, this heartwarming story of nature’s power to heal wounded hearts and bring the most disparate personalities together made it a winner for me.  It is a wonderfully poignant book about friendship, love and life affirmation. As an added bonus, it’s made me pay a lot more attention to crows!

Comfort of Crows

By Margaret Renkl
Spiegel & Grau
$32
October 2023
Purchase

From the publisher: In “The Comfort of Crows” Margaret Renkl presents a literary devotional: 52 chapters that follow the creatures and plants in her backyard over the course of a year. As we move through the seasons – from a crow spied on New Year’s Day, its resourcefulness and sense of community setting a theme for the year, to the lingering bluebirds of December, revisiting the nest box they used in spring – what develops is a portrait of joy and grief: joy in the ongoing pleasures of the natural world, and grief over winters that end too soon and songbirds that grow fewer and fewer. With 52 original color artworks by the author’s brother, Billy Renkl, this book is a lovely and deeply moving book from a cherished observer of the natural world.

From Marya Johnston:

Oh, my! “The Comfort of Crows” is a delight, a joy. I’m not one for making notations in books, but from the first page I read lines that moved me enough to sticky note the hell out of this thing.  Margaret Renkl writes with such honesty, reverence, and warmth about her life, the life in her backyard, and the beauty and reality of life all around us. This is a book that reaches right into my heart about how important it is to slow down and truly see the natural world. Many passages brought tears to my eyes. She’s right up there with Annie Dillard or Gene Stratton-Porter in my book. Since each short chapter is a week in the year of her garden or life, or both, a person could read this book a chapter a day each week…and then spend the rest of the week contemplating, or noticing, or just taking delight in their environs. The beautiful illustrations and collages by Margaret’s brother Billy compliment her writing beautifully and will be published alongside samples of Margaret’s wisdom as a journal titled, “Leaf, Cloud, Crow,” in October. Do yourself a favor and read this book. Then, buy it as a gift for everyone you know. My only complaint? This book should come with ribbon markers to limit the use of sticky notes. 

 A favorite passage: “I can scroll and worry indoors, or I can step outside and remember how it feels to be part of something larger, something timeless, a world that reaches beyond me and includes me, too.”

Science Comics: Crows: Genius Birds

By Kyla Vanderklugt
FirstSecond
$13.99
March 2020
Purchase

From the publisher: In “Science Comics: Crows” you’ll learn all about the avian Einsteins that are as smart as some primates and can perform some of the same cognitive feats as human children! Did you know that crows make their own tools, lead complex social lives, and never forget a human face? That’s something to crow about! 

From Didi Herald, bookseller: Despite not being a big fan of nonfiction or graphic novels, “Crows: Genius Birds” has become a favorite. I knew crows were smart and tricky and love the way Vanderklugt incorporates so many facts into this delightful caper featuring a helpful, but perhaps not the brightest, dog who is cajoled into escaping from his yard to help his new crow friend break into a trash can full of treasure. Meanwhile, the dog’s kibble bowl is being robbed by the rest of the murder of crows. The combination of thrilling story, bright illustrations, and credible science information is great fun to read and even includes a three-page glossary.

THIS WEEK’S BOOK RECS COME FROM:

Out West Books

533 Main St., Grand Junction

outwestbooks.co

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As part of The Colorado Sun’s literature section — SunLit — we’re featuring staff picks from book stores across the state. Read more.

Each week as part of SunLit — The Sun’s literature section — we feature staff recommendations from book stores across Colorado. This week, the staff from Poor Richard’s Books in Colorado Springs recommends books about natural wonders, growing hemp in Colorado and the Green River.

World of Wonders

By Aimee Nezhukumatathil (Author), Fumi Nakamura (Illustrator)
Milkweed Editions
$20
April 2024
Purchase

From the publisher: As a child, Nezhukumatathil called many places home: the grounds of a Kansas mental institution, where her Filipina mother was a doctor; the open skies and tall mountains of Arizona, where she hiked with her Indian father; and the chillier climes of western New York and Ohio. But no matter where she was transplanted — no matter how awkward the fit or forbidding the landscape — she was able to turn to our world’s fierce and funny creatures for guidance.

“What the peacock can do,” she tells us, “is remind you of a home you will run away from and run back to all your life.” The axolotl teaches us to smile, even in the face of unkindness; the touch-me-not plant shows us how to shake off unwanted advances; the narwhal demonstrates how to survive in hostile environments. Even in the strange and the unlovely, Nezhukumatathil finds beauty and kinship.

From Jeffery Payne, assistant retail manager: In a treasure of memoir and nature study, “World of Wonder” captures us immediately with quiet poise as the author shows us her wonderment of nature while giving us morsels of memories in her life. The tidy chapter on Touch-Me-Nots, a shy little plant that falls into itself when something brushes against it, took me back to the moment when my father pointed out the delicate gangly plant to my 6-year-old self. It was curious magic to watch the fronds fold in.

Nezhikumatathil’s writing opens our senses to that curious magic and gives us the opportunity to share in her admiration and awe of the natural world.

 Rocky Mountain High: A Tale of Boom and Bust in the New Wild West

By Finn Murphy
W. W. Norton & Co.
$17.99
June 2024
Purchase

From the publisher: After decades as a long-haul trucker, Finn Murphy left the road and settled in Boulder County, Colorado. Before long he noticed that many of his neighbors were captivated by the prospect of vast riches in “the Hemp Space.” When hemp was legalized, after 80 years in federal exile, Colorado became the center of a hemp growing and processing boom. Figuring he’d harvest some of that easy money, Murphy bought a thirty-six-acre farm. What could go wrong? Well, pretty much everything…

From Jeffery Payne, assistant retail manager: Finn Murphy’s business acumen, entrepreneurial spirit and dry wit make “Rocky Mountain High” a very enjoyable read. With dollar signs in his eyes, the author jumps into the newly opened pastures of hemp in Colorado. The author’s on-the-spot observations of law, land and the mixed cast of individuals he meets along the way will bring a smile to the reader’s face and knowing nod of the head.

We are given an amusing schooling in what it’s like to start up an agriculture business in Boulder County during the boom of hemp farming. I envision this book as a manual being given to anyone who has that dream or idea of “making it big” regardless of the industry.

Downriver

By Heather Hansman
University of Chicago Press
$19.99
March 2019
Purchase

From the publisher: The Green River, the most significant tributary of the Colorado River, runs 730 miles from the glaciers of Wyoming to the desert canyons of Utah. Over its course, it meanders through ranches, cities, national parks, endangered fish habitats, and some of the most significant natural gas fields in the country, as it provides water for 33 million people. Stopped up by dams, slaked off by irrigation, and dried up by cities, the Green is crucial, overused, and at-risk, now more than ever.

Fights over the river’s water, and what’s going to happen to it in the future, are longstanding, intractable, and only getting worse as the West gets hotter and drier and more people depend on the river with each passing year. As a former raft guide and an environmental reporter, Heather Hansman knew these fights were happening, but she felt driven to see them from a different perspective—from the river itself. So she set out on a journey, in a one-person inflatable pack raft, to paddle the river from source to confluence and see what the experience might teach her.

From Jeffery Payne, assisant retail manager: It is hard to escape the reality of what water means to us as we live, work and play here in Colorado and the West as a whole. In short, without water we are, well, hosed (sorry, couldn’t resist). Heather Hansman’s “Downriver” delves into the very complicated, twisty history of rivers in the West and our never-ending need to dam, tame and take what is “rightfully” ours.

We follow the author, an experienced raft guide, as she sets her raft in the headwaters of the Green River of Wyoming to learn more about the river itself and how vital it is to the region. Her interactions with not only the river but the people, land and industry that surround the Green illustrate how the teetering balance of need, neglect and overuse is woefully catching up with us all.

Hansman’s genial narrative shows us there are no easy answers to the countless number of tangled, muddy questions when it comes to water in the West. 

THIS WEEK’S BOOK RECS COME FROM:

Poor Richard’s Books

320 N. Tejon St., Colorado Springs

poorrichardsdowntown.com

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As part of The Colorado Sun’s literature section — SunLit — we’re featuring staff picks from book stores across the state. Read more.

Each week as part of SunLit — The Sun’s literature section — we feature staff recommendations from book stores across Colorado. This week, the staff from Old Firehouse Books in Fort Collins recommends a novel set in Nigeria, an indispensable dictionary and an epic fantasy.

Little Rot

By Akwaeke Emezi
Riverhead Books
$29
June 2024
Purchase

From the publisher: One weekend. The elite underbelly of a Nigerian city. A party that goes awry. A tangled web of sex and lies and corruption that leaves no one unscathed.

Aima and Kalu are a longtime couple who have just split. When Kalu, reeling from the breakup, visits an exclusive sex party hosted by his best friend, Ahmed, he makes a decision that will plunge them all into chaos, brutally and suddenly upending their lives. Ola and Souraya, two Nigerian sex workers visiting from Kuala Lumpur, collide into the scene just as everything goes to hell. Sucked into the city’s corrupt and glittering underworld, they’re all looking for a way out, fueled by a desperate need to escape the dangerous threat that looms over them.

Each week as part of SunLit — The Sun’s literature section — we feature staff recommendations from book stores across Colorado. This week, the staff from Old Firehouse Books in Fort Collins recommends a novel set in Nigeria, an indispensable dictionary and an epic fantasy.

From Teresa, bookseller: A gripping, twisty & utterly heartbreaking story from the oh-so-talented Emezi. Aima & Kalu breaking up (after several years together and many fights surrounding marriage) kick off this story; desperate to dull his pain, Kalu decides to attend one of his best friend’s infamous sex parties. His decision will ultimately end up changing both his & Aima’s life forever….not to mention all the people they come in contact with over the next couple days. I finished this in one sitting and ran through all the emotions as I read it…..Emezi is a powerhouse not to be missed.

Dictionary of Fine Distinctions: Nuances, Niceties, and Subtle Shades of Meaning

By Eli Burnstein
Union Square & Co.
$20
April 2024
Purchase

From the publisher: What’s the difference between mazes and labyrinths? Proverbs and adages? Clementines and tangerines? Join author Eli Burnstein on a hairsplitter’s odyssey into the world of the ultra-subtle with “Dictionary of Fine Distinctions.” Illustrated by New Yorker cartoonist Liana Finck, this humorous dictionary takes a neurotic, brain-tickling plunge into the infinite (and infinitesimal) nuances that make up our world.

The perfect gift for book lovers, word nerds, trivia geeks, and everyday readers, this illustrated gem is more than just a book–it is an indispensable resource akin to a thesaurus but filled with charm and wit. Each entry, from “latte vs. flat white” to “Great Britain vs. The United Kingdom,” is accompanied by mnemonic aids, quirky asides, and detailed illustrations, making it a standout dictionary for any bibliophile or language enthusiast’s library.

From Zane, bookseller: Do you either hate or love the English language? Is it complicated? (same) Here’s a book for you! Look, words are made up and English is a soup made of too many other soups. This is just a fun lil book showcasing how disgustingly beautiful the language is, and I flipped through half of it in one sitting.

Black Sun

By Rebecca Roanhorse
S&S/Saga Press
$17.99
June 2021
Purchase

From the publisher: In the holy city of Tova, the winter solstice is usually a time for celebration and renewal, but this year it coincides with a solar eclipse, a rare celestial event proscribed by the Sun Priest as an unbalancing of the world.

Meanwhile, a ship launches from a distant city bound for Tova and set to arrive on the solstice. The captain of the ship, Xiala, is a disgraced Teek whose song can calm the waters around her as easily as it can warp a man’s mind. Her ship carries one passenger. Described as harmless, the passenger, Serapio is a young man, blind, scarred, and cloaked in destiny. As Xiala well knows, when a man is described as harmless, he usually ends up being a villain. This epic adventure explores the decadence of power amidst the weight of history and the struggle of individuals swimming against the confines of society and their broken pasts in the most original series debut of the decade.

From Andrea, events coordinator: With the recent release of “Mirrored Heavens,” I thought it was about time I dug my feet into the world of “Black Sun.” This story grabbed my attention from its incredible (and jarring!) first chapter. “Black Sun” is a story about a reborn god, a dying god, a disgraced traveler, belief, the lack of it, the darkest and brightest magic, and oh so so much more. Written from different character POV’s and inspired by the civilizations of the Pre-Columbian Americas, Roanhorse creates incredibly well crafted characters, world-building that you can see clearly in your mind, and magic systems that never stop surprising you. This is truly a fantasy world you’ll never want to let go of!

THIS WEEK’S BOOK RECS COME FROM:

Old Firehouse Books

232 Walnut St., Fort Collins

oldfirehousebooks.com

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As part of The Colorado Sun’s literature section — SunLit — we’re featuring staff picks from book stores across the state. Read more.

Each week as part of SunLit — The Sun’s literature section — we feature staff recommendations from book stores across Colorado. This week, the staff from Park Hill Community Bookstore in Denver recommends a ’60s portrait of a streetwise Black man, a Jerusalem personal and political drama and a novel about a Nigerian family.

Manchild in the Promised Land

By Claude Brown
Macmillan & Co
List price depends on seller; PHCB Price: $3 PB/$5 HC if available
June 1965
Purchase: In store only

From the publisher: This thinly fictionalized account of Claude Brown’s childhood as a hardened, streetwise criminal trying to survive the toughest streets of Harlem has been heralded as the definitive account of everyday life for the first generation of African Americans raised in the northern ghettos of the 1940s and 1950s. When the book was first published in 1965, it was praised for its realistic portrayal of Harlem — the children, young people, hardworking parents; the hustlers, drug dealers, prostitutes, and numbers runners; the police; the violence, sex, and humor. The book continues to resonate generations later, not only because of its fierce and dignified anger, not only because the struggles of urban youth are as deeply felt today as they were in Brown’s time, but also because the book is affirmative and inspiring.

From Sheryl Hartmann, volunteer: Sonny Boy somehow knows that he can only get away with being a criminal until he is old enough to get a “sheet.” Surprisingly, he knows that he should never do heroin even though he smokes pot and does the occasional line of cocaine — there’s just some force within him that keeps pulling him back from total self-destruction even as most of his peers OD, are killed, or spend the rest of their lives in prison.

Something that really stood out to me is the way the authorial tone changes and matures as Sonny grows up. The narrative ends up not only portraying life in Harlem at a particular time but the evolving nature of Sonny’s relationships as he moves from childhood into adulthood.

A Day in the Life of Abed Salama: Anatomy of a Jerusalem Tragedy

By Nathan Thrall
Metropolitan Books
List price depends on seller; PHCB Price: $3 PB/$5 HC if available
October 2023
Purchase: In store only

From the publisher: Five-year-old Milad Salama is excited for a school trip to a theme park on the outskirts of Jerusalem. On the way, his bus collides with a semitrailer. His father, Abed, gets word of the crash and rushes to the site. The scene is chaos ― the children have been taken to different hospitals in Jerusalem and the West Bank; some are missing, others cannot be identified. Abed sets off on an odyssey to learn Milad’s fate. It is every parent’s worst nightmare, but for Abed it is compounded by the maze of physical, emotional, and bureaucratic obstacles he must navigate because he is Palestinian. He is on the wrong side of the separation wall, holds the wrong ID to pass the military checkpoints, and has the wrong papers to enter the city of Jerusalem. Abed’s quest to find Milad is interwoven with the stories of a cast of Jewish and Palestinian characters whose lives and histories unexpectedly converge.

From Sheryl Hartmann, volunteer: One of the things you’ll get from reading this book is an understanding of how the political and local dynamics of Israeli governance can dramatically affect Palestinian lives. Although the author, a Jewish-American journalist based in Jerusalem, is critical of Israel, he does not demonize Israelis nor does he glorify Palestinians; he just reports.

Purple Hibiscus: A Novel

By Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
Algonquin Books
Prices vary by seller; PHCB Price: $3 PB/$5 HC if available
October 2003
Purchase: In store only

From the publisher: Fifteen-year-old Kambili’s world is circumscribed by the high walls and frangipani trees of her family compound. Her wealthy Catholic father, under whose shadow Kambili lives, while generous and politically active in the community, is repressive and fanatically religious at home.

When Nigeria begins to fall apart under a military coup, Kambili’s father sends her and her brother away to stay with their aunt, a University professor, whose house is noisy and full of laughter. There, Kambili and her brother discover a life and love beyond the confines of their father’s authority. The visit will lift the silence from their world and, in time, give rise to devotion and defiance that reveal themselves in profound and unexpected ways.

From Sheryl Hartmann, volunteer: “Purple Hibiscus” was Adichie’s first novel written when she was 25 years old. What you will get from this novel, besides the beautiful writing and rich characterizations, is a stark contrast between religious practice within two families. Kambili’s home life is rich, miserable and severely Catholic; a legacy perhaps of the colonial missionaries prior to Nigerian independence. On the other hand, the poor but happy household of her aunt and cousins is focused on kindness, questioning, and intellectual flourishing.

THIS WEEK’S BOOK RECS COME FROM:

Park Hill Community Bookstore

4620 E 23rd Ave, Denver

(303) 355-8508

parkhillbookstore.org

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As part of The Colorado Sun’s literature section — SunLit — we’re featuring staff picks from book stores across the state. Read more.

Each week as part of SunLit — The Sun’s literature section — we feature staff recommendations from book stores across Colorado. This week, the staff from The Bookies Bookstore in Denver recommends a book on racism, as well as novels exploring slavery and a ghostwriter who sees…ghosts.

White Women: Everything You Already Know About Your Own Racism and How to Do Better

By Regina Jackson and Saira Rao
Penguin Publishing Group
$16 (paperback)
November 2022
Purchase

From the publisher: It’s no secret that white women are conditioned to be “nice,” but did you know that the desire to be perfect and to avoid conflict at all costs are characteristics of white supremacy culture? In this book, Jackson and Rao pose these urgent questions: how has being “nice” helped Black women, Indigenous women and other women of color? How has being “nice” helped you in your quest to end sexism? Has being “nice” earned you economic parity with white men?

Beginning with freeing white women from this oppressive need to be nice, they deconstruct and analyze nine aspects of traditional white woman behavior–from tone-policing to weaponizing tears–that uphold white supremacy society, and hurt all of us who are trying to live a freer, more equitable life.

From Bess Maher, event liaison: This book, by Denver-based and formerly Denver-based authors Regina Jackson and Sairo Rao, addresses–yes–white women. White Women isn’t always easy reading, but the authors show how real anti-racism work never is. It’s a call to action, and I highly recommend it. 

The Dead Romantics

By Ashley Poston
Penguin Publishing Group
$17 (paperback)
June 2022
Purchase

From the publisher: Florence Day is the ghostwriter for one of the most prolific romance authors in the industry, and she has a problem—after a terrible breakup, she no longer believes in love. When her new editor, a too-handsome mountain of a man, won’t give her an extension on her book deadline, Florence prepares to kiss her career goodbye. But then she gets a phone call she never wanted to receive, and she must return home for the first time in a decade to help her family bury her beloved father.

For 10 years, she’s run from the town that never understood her, and even though she misses the sound of a warm Southern night and her eccentric, loving family and their funeral parlor, she can’t bring herself to stay. Even with her father gone, it feels like nothing in this town has changed. And she hates it. Until she finds a ghost standing at the funeral parlor’s front door, just as broad and infuriatingly handsome as ever, and he’s just as confused about why he’s there as she is.

From Krista Carlton, manager: A book about a romance ghost writer who sees ghosts? I’m not normally a romance reader, but this book surprised and delighted me. It’s a sweet (and a little spicy) romance that also delivers a frank and refreshing view of death, which grounds the book pleasantly. It kept me engaged and left me feeling like it was time well spent. Poston’s newest novel, “A Novel Love Story,” publishes at the end of June.

The Water Dancer

By Ta-Nehisi Coates
Random House Publishing Group
$19 (paperback)
November 2020
Purchase

From the publisher: Young Hiram Walker was born into bondage. When his mother was sold away, Hiram was robbed of all memory of her—but was gifted with a mysterious power. Years later, when Hiram almost drowns in a river, that same power saves his life. This brush with death births an urgency in Hiram and a daring scheme: to escape from the only home he’s ever known. So begins an unexpected journey that takes Hiram from the corrupt grandeur of Virginia’s proud plantations to desperate guerrilla cells in the wilderness, from the coffin of the Deep South to dangerously idealistic movements in the North. Even as he’s enlisted in the underground war between slavers and the enslaved, Hiram’s resolve to rescue the family he left behind endures.

From Pat Macy, bookseller: “The Water Dancer” explores slavery from the point of view of the enslaved people. In this unique storyline, memories of the old power from Africa mixes with the Underground Railroad. A very good book!

THIS WEEK’S BOOK RECS COME FROM:

The Bookies Bookstore
2085 S. Holly Street
Denver, CO 80222

thebookies.com

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As part of The Colorado Sun’s literature section — SunLit — we’re featuring staff picks from book stores across the state. Read more.