Every year Colorado Matters calls on two booksellers to share their top summer reading picks for books with Colorado ties or Western themes. Nicole Magistro is owner of The Bookworm of Edwards, while Abbey Paxton manages BookBar in Denver.
- Urban-Rural Divide At Heart Of New Novel Set Around Colorado's 'Black Sunday'
- Author Laura Pritchett Explores Human Sexuality In New Novel
- Nature Writer Craig Childs Tracks The First People In North America
The Bookworm’s Nicole Magistro recommends:
- "The Optimistic Decade" by Heather Abel
- In Abel's debut novel, five characters ride the waves of Colorado's oil shale bust and real estate boom, as well as nationwide protests against Reagan and the Gulf War.
- "Rough Beauty" by Karen Auvinen
- This memoir follows Auvinen as she retreats to a remote cabin in the Rockies after a fire destroyed her home and most of her possessions.
- "Wings of Her Dreams" by Ann Lewis Cooper
- A biography of Kitty Banner, one of the few female glacier and bush pilots. She transported mountain climbing tourists on and off Alaskan glaciers and to the Denali base camp.
- "Atlas of a Lost World" by Craig Childs
- This prehistoric travelogue traces the steps the first people in North America took across land bridges to arrive here 20,000 years ago.
BookBar’s Abbey Paxton recommends:
- “The Blue Hour” by Laura Pritchett
- A small mountain town is torn apart when the local veterinarian commits a violent act and plunges the community into tragedy. Won the 2018 Colorado Book Award for literary fiction.
- “Trophic Cascade” by Camille Dungy
- The fourth in a series of poems following a suite of human and non-human characters in a dystopian world struggling with environmental degradation, violence and corruption. Won the 2018 Colorado Book Award for poetry.
- “Do Princesses and Super Heroes Hit The Trails?” by Carmela LaVigna Coyle
- This children's book features a little girl and her friend as they explore national parks and the outdoors. Part of Coyle's "Do Princesses/Super Heroes" series.
Looking for more summer reading? Join the CPR News Book Club.
