It’s the week before Christmas. And Hanukkah. And the annual rush on bookstores has begun.
If the crowded shelves and the volumes stacked precariously high on tables seem overwhelming, we’re here to offer some expert guidance.
Nicole Sullivan owns The Bookies, specializing in children’s literature, in Denver. Emily Sinclair owns Paonia Books on the Western Slope. They offered Colorado Matters host Ryan Warner some suggestions for good reads with Colorado connections.
Adult Fantasy
“Navola,” a fantasy novel by Hugo and Nebula award winner Paolo Bacigalupi, who lives in Paonia.
It’s a coming-of-age story set in a city-state reminiscent of Florence or Venice during The Renaissance.
Emily Sinclair: “It was a delight. It was the kind of book that I couldn’t stop turning the pages, and I got to the end and I turned into one of those people who says ‘when’s the next one coming out?’”
Adult Nonfiction
“Losing Music: A Memoir of Art, Pain and Transformation” by John Cotter.
This 1994 Colorado Book Award winner explores Cotter’s battle with Ménière's disease, a chronic inner ear disorder.
Nicole Sullivan: “The way he writes you feel like you’ve entered into his head space and that you can feel every swaying of the room and every challenge that he has just to get through his life. It’s heartbreaking, it’s sweet, it’s hopeful.”
Young Children’s Fiction
“A New Friend for Dragon,’’ by Bianca Schulze with illustrator Samara Hardy.
Schulze, who lives near Boulder, is the founder and editor of The Children’s Book Review and this is the latest in her “Dragon” series. It’s about Dragon’s not-so-welcome attempts to befriend the new knight who comes to town.
Nicole Sullivan: “It’s all about stereotypes and friendships that overcome those stereotypes. It’s a fun, interactive adventure. It’s great for read-alouds.”
Nonfiction For Middle Grade readers (8 to 12 years old)
“Do You Believe in Magic?” by Laura Krantz of Denver.
Nicole Sullivan: “This is a great book about the intersection between science and magic and seeks to debunk superstitions, old wives’ tales and mythologies without spoiling any of the magic that is in there.”
Poetry
“The Unfolding” by Western Slope poet Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer, was written after the deaths of her son and father.
Emily Sinclair: “There’s a line in one of her poems, the poem is “Though I Knew Love Before,” and the line really encapsulates for me so much of this collection: ‘I will never love the loss, never, but I love the life that rushes in after.’"
Climate Literature
“Terrible Beauty: Reckoning with Climate Complicity and Rediscovering Our Soul,’’ by climate activist and writer Auden Schendler of Aspen.
Emily Sinclair: “He’s talking about the ways we need to be working at scale on climate change. The small individual moves we make, the grocery bags, the things like that, that’s fine – but we really need to find ways to get involved in civic and corporate life in ways that really move the needle in a profound way, and this book is full of those kinds of ideas.”
Anthology
“We Can See Into Another Place,” by 20 Colorado authors.
The book looks at social justice through a variety of lenses, including reproductive rights, health care and gun violence.
Nicole Sullivan: “It covers a wide array of themes. It’s multi-genre. So we have short stories, essays, poems, plays. It’s just a beautiful piece of very thought-provoking works.”
