My Reads

  • “The Mirror” by Marlys Millhiser

    This is an oldie, but a book and author I have read more than once. If you’re a fan of history, time travel, and/or body-switching, you will love this one. Millhiser published fourteen novels prior to her death in 2017 in Boulder, Colorado. This is her best-known work. I’ve also read her books The Threshold…

  • “The Escape Artist” by Jonathan Freedland

    I don’t usually read horror, but this one is a page-turner. And, unfortunately, true. The protagonist is a Slovakian Jewish teen named Walter Rosenberg, later known as Rudolf Vrba. First imprisoned during WWII as a 17-year-old, he manages to escape from at least two detention camps before being deported to Auschwitz in 1942. From his…

  • “Brave the Wild River” by Melissa L. Sevigny

    As soon as I knew about Sevigny’s book, I put it on my TBR list. It’s the true tale of two botanists, both women, who rode the Colorado River through Cataract, Glen, and Grand Canyons to document the flora of the canyons and collect specimens in 1938. Having spent much of my field biology career…

  • “All That She Carried” by Tiya Miles

    This National Book Award winner was written by an environmental historian with a focus on Black history as revealed by place and landscape. This project added many layers to her foundational grounding, building in textile history and cultural aspects of slave-owning and being enslaved. The research revolved around a seed sack passed down from an…

  • “Demon Copperhead” by Barbara Kingsolver

    I’m a devoted fan of Barbara Kingsolver, having read just about everything she’s ever written. Perhaps it’s because I identify with her as a biologist, writer, and historian. Unlike Kingsolver, though, I am not a novelist, mother, or farmer. She has talents I can only dream of. Charles Dickens’s David Copperfield served as a model…

  • “The Elements of Story” by Francis Flaherty

    This is the first of a series on my favorite books about writing. The Elements of Story: Field Notes on Nonfiction Writing tops my list. I’m currently re-reading it from cover to cover. Frank Flaherty was a story editor at the New York Times for years and is a writing professor at New York University.…

  • “Fears of a Setting Sun” by Dennis C. Rasmussen

    The subtitle of this small volume is “The Disillusionment of America’s Founders.” The creation of the United States of America has been hailed (at least in this country’s mythology) as the world’s greatest experiment in democracy. The idea that our country’s founding fathers became pessimistic about the future of the nation they created intrigued me.…

  • “Between Urban and Wild” by Andrea M. Jones

    I will say first: I love this book! The subtitle is “Reflections from Colorado,” which is my home state. Jones grew up in what is now my home town, Durango, so the sense of place in these essays resonates strongly with me. In “Love Letter to a Sewage Lagoon” I quickly discerned the lagoon to…

  • “That Old Ace in the Hole” by Annie Proulx

    Best known for her multi-award-winning novel, The Shipping News, Proulx digs deep into her quirky psyche to draw a fresh cast of characters tenaciously resolved to live and die in the Texas panhandle. The protagonist is an aimless college graduate from Denver, Bob Dollar, who takes a job for Global Pork Rind to scout out…

  • “The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek” by Kim Richardson

    Both of my book clubs selected this read for 2022, and with good reason. This is one of the best books I read all last year. Richardson is a consummate researcher who has delved into two aspects of Kentucky history (her home state) that are little known: the pack horse librarians, and the blue people.…