Travel Talk
No novel refl ects the quiet beauty of Eastern Colorado grasslands better that Kent Haruf’s Plainsong. It’s hard to believe that over a decade has passed since its publication, and it remains a perennial favorite on bookstore and library shelves. Plainsong is set in a ranching community on the high plains east of Denver. Its cast of characters include the irascible elderly McPheron brothers, who take in a pregnant high school girl, a single Dad and his two young sons who learn hard lessons, and the rest of the brilliantly
realized cast of characters who inhabit Haruf’s fi ctional community of Holt. There are some nasty actors in this very realistic novel, but kind-
ness and humanity prevail. The best, most evocative books about Colorado include landscape as a character. Windswept plains, blow- ing snow, endless prairie and wide blue skies are integral to the way in which the people of Holt behave and interact. The landscape of the plains is wide open, and from a dis- tance appears uncomplicated. Venture closer and see that it is otherwise.
Denver celebrated its 150th anniversary a few years back and to honor this occasion the late great Rocky Mountain News published A Dozen of Denver, a lovely volume of short stories, each set in a different decade
and penned by a literary lumi- naries of Colorado. Bestselling mystery writer
Margaret Coel opens the col- lection with her story “Yellow Roses,” where a young widowed mother in booming 1860’s gold rush Denver City uses wit and moxie to make her way in a very rough town. Pam Houston (Contents May Have Shifted) takes on the 1880’s, Hugo and Nebula Award winning science fi ction writer Connie Willis writes of a young woman traveling to Denver in 1924, no longer a town of cowboys and Indians, but “a modern metropolis.” Scattered throughout are beautiful illus- trations by Charles Chamberlin. Happy reading!
Cathy Langer is lead book buyer for Tattered Cover, a nationally recog- nized independent bookstore with three Denver-area locations.
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100 Years Up High: Colorado Mountains and Mountaineers Janet Neuhoff Robertson, James E. Fell, Jr., David Hide, Christopher J. Case, Walter R. Bornemann Published by The Colorado Mountain Club Press 2011
An American Provence Thomas Huber
Published by The University Press of Colorado 2011
Nothing Daunted: The Unexpected Education of Two Society Girls in the West Dorothy Wickenden
Published by The Scribner Book Company 2011
Contents May Have Shifted Pam Houston Published by W. W. Norton 2012
Plainsong Kent Haruf
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www.AAA.com 1-866-892-3473 Published by Vintage Books 1999
A Dozen of Denver The Rocky Mountain News Published by Fulcrum Publishing 2009
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