Staff Picks

Immerse yourself in the lush and rugged Colorado wilderness on a sweeping epic of love and fate. Using local history and personal narratives, Colorado author Shelly Read tells the story of a woman from the now-flooded town of Iola, CO, and follows her in her quest for truth and answers.

 

Publisher description:

Seventeen-year-old Victoria Nash runs the household on her family's peach farm in the small ranch town of Iola, Colorado--the sole surviving female in a family of troubled men. Wilson Moon is a young drifter with a mysterious past, displaced from his tribal land and determined to live as he chooses. Victoria encounters Wil by chance on a street corner, a meeting that profoundly alters both of their young lives, unknowingly igniting as much passion as danger. When tragedy strikes, Victoria leaves the only life she has ever known. She flees into the surrounding mountains where she struggles to survive in the wilderness with no clear notion of what her future will bring.

 

Find Go as a River in our online catalog

Colorado author Ausma Zehanat Khan returns with the second book in her Blackwater Falls series, which features Det. Inaya Rahman of the Denver Police Department's Community Response Unit. This twisty, fast-paced series is recommended for fans of Tana French, Michael Connelly, and James Lee Burke.

 

Publisher's description:

In Blackwater Falls, Colorado, veteran police officer Harry Cooper is hot on the heels of some local vandals when the situation turns deadly: believing one of them has a gun, Harry opens fire and Duante Reed, a young Black man, is killed. The "gun" in his hands was a bottle of spray paint. Meanwhile, in nearby Denver, a drug raid goes south and a Latino teen, Mateo Ruiz, is also killed. Detective Inaya Rahman is all too familiar with the name of the young cop who has seemingly killed Mateo: Kelly Broda. Kelly is the son of the police officer John Broda, who led a violent attack on her when they were both in Denver. No one is more surprised than Inaya when John turns up on her doorstep, pleading for her help in proving the innocence of his son. With the Denver Police force spread thin between the two cases, protests on both sides of the cases begin. Inaya and her boss Lieutenant Waqas Seif have their work cut out for them to consider the guilt of the perpetrators and their victims. Harry was by all accounts an officer dedicated to the communities he served: was this shooting truly a terrible mistake? Duante was, to some, a street artist with no prior record, but to others, he was a vandal. Mateo was either in the wrong place at the wrong time, or a dangerous drug dealer. In either case, was lethal force truly necessary? Forced to reckon with her own prejudices and work through those of her colleagues around her, Inaya must discover the truth of what really happened on one fateful night in Blackwater Falls.

 

A fun take on the friends-to-lovers/only-one-bed trope in the romance genre. Spicy and cute, you'll enjoy watching these two fight the inevitable while they attend a wedding in Vail.

 

Publisher's description:

Two people make a wager on who can find love first, not realizing what they should be betting on is each other, in this new romantic comedy by Lynn Painter, author of Mr. Wrong Number. Hallie Piper is turning over a new leaf. After belly-crawling out of a hotel room (hello, rock bottom), she decides it's time to become a full-on adult. She gets a new apartment, a new haircut, and a new wardrobe, but when she logs onto the dating app that she has determined will find her new love, she sees none other than Jack, the guy whose room she snuck out of. After the joint agreement that they are absolutely not interested in each other, Jack and Hallie become partners in their respective searches for The One. They text each other about their dates, often scheduling them at the same restaurant so that if things don't go well, the two of them can get tacos afterward. Spoiler: they get a lot of tacos together. Discouraged by the lack of prospects, Jack and Hallie make a wager to see who can find true love first, but when they agree to be fake dates for a weekend wedding, all bets are off. As they pretend to be a couple, lines become blurred and they each struggle to remember why the other was a bad idea to begin with

 

Only in Boulder can you find such interesting subjects for photos. Jacot has really captured the spirit of Boulder. Join in the fun and see how many photos you recognize--maybe that's your wish that your dogs could talk, or your pink flamingoed yard. And nothing says "Boulder" more than the "Free Range Children" sign. Take a few minutes to enjoy the joy that is our city.

 

Publisher's description: 

Take a walk through the City of Boulder with photographer Karen Jacot. Whether you’re a first time visitor or a longtime local, you’ll discover things that surprise and delight you. Jacot’s eye for the “extra” in the everyday ordinary tells the story of Boulderites’ lives and the ways in which we’re all connected through streets and strides.

 

Kali Fajardo-Anstine's Woman of Light is an intergenerational saga that spans the late 1800s in the Lost Territories of the southwest to the 1930s in Denver. The main protagonist Luz endeavors to understand how her Indigenous Chicano family thrived and how they were threatened.

 

Publisher's description:

1890: When Desiderya Lopez, The Sleepy Prophet, finds an abandoned infant on the banks of an arroyo, she recognizes something in his spirit and brings him home. Pidre will go on to become a famous showman in the Anglo West whose main act, Simodecea, is Pidre's fearless, sharpshooting wife, who wrangles bears as part of his show. 1935: Luz "Little Light" Lopez and her brother Diego work the carnival circuit in downtown Denver. Luz, is a tea leaf reader, and Diego is a snake charmer. One day, a pale-faced woman in white fur asks Luz for a reading, calling her by a name that only her brother knows. Later that night at a party downtown, Luz sees Diego dancing with this pale-faced woman, which results in a brawl with the local white supremacist group. Diego leaves town for cover and Luz is left trying to get justice for her brother and family.

 

We recommend this new book about living off the grid in the San Luis Valley from Pulitzer Prize finalist Conover, winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award for Newjack. In her insightful review, New York Times book critic Jennifer Szalai calls Conover "one of our great narrative journalists."

 

Publisher's description:

In May 2017, Ted Conover went to Colorado to explore firsthand a rural way of life that is about living cheaply, on your own land--and keeping clear of the mainstream. The failed subdivisions of the enormous San Luis Valley make this possible. Five-acre lots on the high prairie can be had for five thousand dollars, sometimes less. Conover volunteered for a local group trying to prevent homelessness during the bitter winters. He encountered an unexpected diversity: veterans with PTSD, families homeschooling, addicts young and old, gay people, people of color, lovers of guns and marijuana, people with social anxiety--most of them spurning charity and aiming, and sometimes failing, to be self-sufficient. And more than a few predicting they'll be the last ones standing when society collapses. Conover bought his own five acres and immersed himself for parts of four years in the often contentious culture of the far margins. He found many who dislike the government but depend on its subsidies; who love their space but nevertheless find themselves in each other's business; who are generous but wary of thieves; who endure squalor but appreciate beauty. In their struggles to survive and get along, they tell us about an America riven by difference where the edges speak more and more loudly to the mainstream.

 

I was completely drawn in by Fajardo-Anstine's rich story that captures the joys and sorrows of love and life. Woman of Light beautifully and hauntingly explores family systems over four generations, friendships, classism, racism, and the divine, all set in Denver and The Lost Territory of Colorado.

 

Publisher's description: 

1890: When Desiderya Lopez, The Sleepy Prophet, finds an abandoned infant on the banks of an arroyo, she recognizes something in his spirit and brings him home. Pidre will go on to become a famous showman in the Anglo West whose main act, Simodecea, is Pidre's fearless, sharpshooting wife, who wrangles bears as part of his show. 1935: Luz "Little Light" Lopez and her brother Diego work the carnival circuit in downtown Denver. Luz, is a tea leaf reader, and Diego is a snake charmer. One day, a pale-faced woman in white fur asks Luz for a reading, calling her by a name that only her brother knows. Later that night at a party downtown, Luz sees Diego dancing with this pale-faced woman, which results in a brawl with the local white supremacist group. Diego leaves town for cover and Luz is left trying to get justice for her brother and family.

Find Woman of Light in our online catalog. 

Primarily focusing on a character named Luz Lopez in 1930's Denver, Woman of Light depicts a Denver that is eerily similar to our own. Facing police brutality, class and racial tensions, set against the backdrop of a worldwide recession, young Luz and her family do their best to survive in this hostile world. With flashbacks to the Lost Territory in the late 19th and early 20th century, we see how the Lopez family's way of life has become disrupted with the immigration of Anglos to Colorado. Like Sandra Cisneros before her, Fajardo-Anstine does an absolutely incredible job depicting the universal joys and pains of Chicana womanhood. Despite taking place nearly 100 years ago, the lives of Luz, Lizette, and Maria Josie still ring familiar to audiences today. With just two books under her belt, I feel confident in saying that Fajardo-Anstine is one of my generation's great Chicana authors.

Publisher's description:

1890: When Desiderya Lopez, The Sleepy Prophet, finds an abandoned infant on the banks of an arroyo, she recognizes something in his spirit and brings him home. Pidre will go on to become a famous showman in the Anglo West whose main act, Simodecea, is Pidre's fearless, sharpshooting wife, who wrangles bears as part of his show. 1935: Luz "Little Light" Lopez and her brother Diego work the carnival circuit in downtown Denver. Luz, is a tea leaf reader, and Diego is a snake charmer. One day, a pale-faced woman in white fur asks Luz for a reading, calling her by a name that only her brother knows. Later that night at a party downtown, Luz sees Diego dancing with this pale-faced woman, which results in a brawl with the local white supremacist group. Diego leaves town for cover and Luz is left trying to get justice for her brother and family.

 

This book explores the Centennial State's long history through 100 museum items. From prehistoric arrowheads and baskets to the fad cultural phenomenon of Crocs, you can open to any page and learn something neat about the wonderful state we call home. You can visit the collection at the History Colorado Center in Denver to see these objects up close and personal!

 

Publisher's description:
Paints a vivid portrait of Colorado history using 100 objects selected from the History Colorado collection. These objects reveal how Colorado evolved over time, allowing readers to draw multiple connections between periods, places, and people. Collectively, the essays offer a treasure trove of insight and unforgettable detail.

 

Mostly through historic letters and news articles, Chris Enss reconstructs the adventurous 19th century world travels of Isabella Bird, focusing on her time spent in the Rocky Mountains and particularly the Estes Park area of Colorado, where we meet Jim Nugent, the notorious mountain man she fell in love with. The unlikely pairing should not be a surprise from what we know of Bird, a woman who defied the scope of what was expected of women in the mid-1800s. Overlaying much of the book are the ever-present Rockies and the splendor of the old Mountain West, along with its undercurrent of frontier conflicts. Interesting to read what it was like traversing the local terrain and climbing Long's Peak over 160 years ago.

 

Publisher description: 

Isabella Bird was a proper Victorian lady expected to marry a man of means and position. Instead she was drawn to a gruff mountain man, a desperado named Jim Nugent. This book reveals the true story of Bird's relationship with Nugent as they traveled through the dramatic wilderness of the Rocky Mountains.