Colorado Books

David Lavender is a historian whose personal account of growing up in Telluride and Ouray, Colorado is captivating. Mr Lavender documents the arrival of the 1950's "modern age" to western Colorado and Utah. During his youth, the open desert and mountain lands evolve from a setting for silver mines, lone cowboys, and vast cattle ranches into the garden of the atomic age. He documents the arrival of uranium prospectors, the departure of independent cowboy spirits, and finally, the eventual return of the nuclear boom towns to dust. It is fascinating to read him today and to see what the southern Utah desert was like 50 years ago. If you visit these areas, I recommend that you read "One Man's West" as you pass through them. It will give significance to the sight of decaying farm or mining equipment by the roadside, and fill you with appreciation for those who make an effort to preserve the wilderness. I buy this book in multiple copies and give them to my friends. It has no particular bent for environmentalism or even "wise use" in the wilderness, but gives you some historical insight. I have never met Mr. Lavender, but I admire him as an author and historian. He has authored several other books incouding and account of the Lewis and Clark expedition which, I have heard, is quite good."One Man's West" was written in the 1940's then updated in the 1950's. The New York Times published a glowing review of the book in the mid 1940's or 1950's. Its age has only helped to enhance its significance to a contemporary reader of western history.

An excellent book! Ranching and mining, rich history, not to be missed.

Mr. Lavender recently died (April '03)and his obituary in the Los Angeles Times prompted me to go out and buy this book. I could not put it down...just as the Times stated, Lavender is a wonderful writer who knows how to describe the west. This book has it all, mountains, mining, cowboys and history with a nice personal touch. I would recommend it highly. It is an "easy" read and one that will leave you feeling satisfied once you complete the book. I am going to search out more of Mr. Lavender's works.

This woman's life is an example for us all about how to fulfill our dreams through hard work and determination. She let nothing stand in the way of what she wanted, and she had major obstacles to overcome. Every young person -- and adult -- will be inspired by Clara Brown's simple, but incredible, life -- a life that I'm sure many a slave was forced to endure in this country.

This is the little known story of an extraordinarily brave and determined woman that influenced the lives of many people. Against all odds, Clara Brown bought her freedom out of slavery, successfully established herself in the west, and assisted other ex-slaves in the same difficult journey. The life of Clara Brown, told by Linda Lowery, proves to be an amazing story of heroism and compassion. I highly recommend sharing this story with your children, as it is beautifully written and historically important.

From Martin Luther King, Jr. and Rosa Parks to George Washington Carver and Harriet Tubman, there are scores of African-Americans who were and are genuinely heroes. However, after reading this tale, I can't think of a single individual who possessed the drive, determination and sheer guts of Clara Brown. Lowery has uncovered a slice of both American and African-American history that's exciting and inspirational. My young daughter loved this book, as did I, and the author's fluid writing style really keeps the tale tantalizing and emotionally moving. Black or white, young or old, I highly recommend this book. Though largely unknown today, Clara Brown's life story is one that really should be told, and Lowery's book is an excellent introduction to this amazing woman.

We live locally and use this book whenever we head up to Ouray. It is very accurate and we never feel like we have been led astray by Kelvin! We have found some beautiful places because of this book. A must for anybody hiking in this amazing area of the country!

I needed hiking information for the San Juan mountains of Colorado and picked this book, partly because it was authored by a local. The first time I used it, I was about 4 miles into a particular hike and came across two people and a dog along the trail. It was the author, his wife and his dog, Angie. They were checking the trail for any necessary changes in the Guide. Have used the guide for many of his hikes and found it accurate on difficulty and points of interest and presented in a very readable style.

We live locally and use this book whenever we head up to Ouray. It is very accurate and we never feel like we have been led astray by Kelvin! We have found some beautiful places because of this book. A must for anybody hiking in this amazing area of the country!

I read only a few novels a year carefully chosen
I enjoy good ones and Milofsky's kept me engaged all the way. Music, illness, family, hardships dealt with realistically, voices human and distinctive. University town (Madison); string quartet; multiple sclerosis--not met with often in fiction.

and if I could find a copy,would read it again!

What a lovely book.... Milofsky's characters are human and whole. While the reader may not always like the way they behave we cannot deny how real they feel. I sobbed like a baby at the end. I knew what was coming, I just didn't know how and it was touching, sad, and beautiful. Please, support fiction not published by the major crank 'em out houses--buy and read this book.

If you're house-hunting anywhere in the Denver-Metro area (or even Boulder county), this mapbook is the best one to get. It is the one ALL Realtors refer to when listing properties for sale. Each property is indexed by what page & section of the Streetfinder it is on. No need to scramble through the index each time you look for a home for sale. Really convenient! Every house-hunter should have one!

This is the mapbook all Realtors refer to when listing property in the Denver-Metro, Boulder, Longmont, and Mountain areas. It is very convenient using this book as opposed to any other mapbook.

All of the Realtors refer to what page of THIS book a home is on. No need to wast time in the index looking up each individual address.

When Logan, a half-breed, finds his way to Rosalie's doorstep carrying his dying mother in his arms, she can hardly refuse, and she's drawn to him even then. Later, when he arrives at her door bloody and beaten by a Adam Cahill's henchmen, she cares for him. Logan was resigned to living alone, his indian blood made him a target, but Rosalie found her way into his heart, and was determined to stay by his side, no matter what the townspeople said. With unwavering courage and a group of loyal friends, Rosalie and Logan would face the challenge of their lives when he's accused of attacking Adam Cahill's beautiful, deceitful stepdaughter, Della. I really enjoyed this book more than the following stories Wayward Wind and Wind of Promise. The author showed how people can come together in the face of prejudice and injustice. I especially liked the fiesty Minnie, one of the supporting characters.

Yummy. Absolutely yummy. I sat down one day with a blanket and coffe and just didn't stop reading. I maneged to fall in love with Logan while I was at it. Wonderful charactors, wonderful book.

Pride and prejudice would also have been a fitting name for this story. Poor Logan spent his entire life being shunned by the white people, because of his Indian blood. Labeled a half-breed, he's constantly given a cruel reception everywhere he goes. Then one rainy night he shows up at Rosalee's home, needing shelter for his dying mother.

From then on, the two are drawn to each other... and Logan finds the one person in his life that didn't even consider his heritage or the consequences of their romance.

As much as Logan wants to give into the love he has for Rosalee, he doesn't want her to live to resent him, when she is surely shunned by the white people. Rosalee must fight through the stubborness of Logan, and show him he does want to give into his feelings.

In addition, Logan and Rosalee - along with Rosalee's siblings and father, are suddenly facing serious danger by the huge landowner of the town. Logan has his own reasons for taunting this landowner and purchasing the land bordering his, that he so desperately wants for himself. Mr. Clayhill, the landowner, will stop at nothing to get what he wants... and the townspeople simply look away, not wanting to get involved and endanger their own family.

From beginning to end, it's almost impossible to see a way out for Logan and Rosalee... each small victory is overshadowed by a much bigger price. Along the way, they make some unlikely friends... including Cooper Parnell, who will prove to be much more to them by the end.

Rosalee and Logan are wonderful characters, and I loved reading this story. Rosalee Spurlock is sweet and beautiful and loving. Logan Horn is strong and handsome, but emotionally vulnerable under the surface.

I was thrilled to see the next book in this trilogy will be the story of Cooper Parnell.

This book is definitely worth every bit of 5 stars. David Muench's photographs are astounding. There are many pictures from Colorado, and his photos of wildflowers in Yankee Boy Basin are great. The pictures of Glacier National Park actually do an amazing justice to the beauty of that park. Also, the pictures of the Canadian Rockies, especially in Banff, are wonderful. It makes a great coffee table book or a gift. You will want to go through the book page-by-page because every picture, and there are too many to count, is intriguing. Definitely worth buying!

I've got an entire shelf of Colorado photo books, and this is one of the best. The pictures are fantastic - often taken at rare times and filters used to give them an almost "better than real" appearance. The brief text is also interesting, and each picture location is identified.

This book is FABULOUS!!! Since my visit to the Canadian Rockies over two years ago, I have searched for a book which could capture the spectacular images I remember. David and Marc Muench's amazing landscape photographs are magnificent. J. Udall's essay on this region is equally captivating, amusing and above all reminds me that I must return there soon! In a world of overhype and hyperbole, this book is truly matchless.

I rate cookbooks not on how they look, or even on how difficult they are to follow, but on how good the recipes taste. In this category, Mr. Stein excells. The food is delicious. His recipe for Tom Yam Gung is one of the easiest and best tasting recipes for this classic Thai soup that I have ever tasted. The wonderful blend of fresh seafood and asian spice is unbeatable. Highly recommended.

Rick Stein is not only a superb chef but his writing is clear, simple and enthusiastic - like his food. He gives plenty of tips from what utensils to buy, to how to store fish and how to make excellant stocks. All the way through the book he carries you along with his passion and almost cooly, simplistic aproach. If you like fish - or even if you don't - I am sure you will find this book rewarding, not only for the food but also the interesting little tit bits he incorporates.

Ideal for anyone who wants to cook fish but is either worried about how difficult it might be - or bored with the same old same old.Rick's passion and enthisiasm is contageous.

If you are like me - love seafood, and always eat it in restaurants, but not sure about tackling it at home - this is ideal.

Its a good read even if you dont want to cook!

" 'I can't do it anymore,' he [Buyer's then husband] says. 'Not the physical work. I could still cripple by with that. It's just the mental work, the worry, and the stress. I just can't do it anymore.'

" 'I know' is all I can think to say. When he adds nothing further, I say, 'I'll help you. Whatever you need to do.'

"I do not try to hug him or touch him or console him. I know better. He prefers being alone with his own suffering."

Ranch life is dirt, labor, wind, drought, deaths, births, wants, sacrifices, uncertainty, exhaustion. Why choose it? Because it is also stars, peace, calves, kittens, satisfaction, love, spring--"a meadowlark trills notes as sweet and soft as homemade ice cream. The song breaks my heart and then mends it back."

Read SPRING'S EDGE. Experience the poetry of ranch existence.

Laurie Wagner Buyer's memoir about one key spring when her life and marriage were on a precipice and yet the calves kept being born and the snow kept falling is beautiful and affecting. Her powerful feel for the legacy of the past, her keen observation about the color of the sky or the dimension of the stars, and even her desire to create art by keeping notebooks full of the details of days that seem never to change, yet must; all this adds up to a book you won't want to put down. This would be a perfect book club selection--plenty of material to discuss, cry over, and rejoice in. University of New Mexico Press should be commended for bringing this book to life.

Sometimes a story wraps itself around you and won't let you go. For me, Laurie Wagner Buyer's memoir, Spring's Edge, is one of those stories. Her book offers a rare insight into her life as a rancher's wife, a way of living that is at once remarkably sturdy and frighteningly fragile.

Buyer and her husband Mick--he in his mid-sixties, she some twenty years younger--raised cattle on six hundred acres in the mountains of Colorado. It's a tough life, made more difficult for Buyer by the realization that her husband is fast reaching the point where he can no longer manage the physical work. Since he intends to leave the ranch to the children of his first marriage, she has essentially no stake in the ranch to which she has contributed so much. What will she do--what will they do--when her husband can no longer live the life on the land that keeps him going? What will happen to their marriage if their work on the ranch no longer holds it together? On top of this, Buyer's father develops cancer. It is a situation that would bring most of us--those used to more comfortable, more predictable circumstances--to the brink.

But the Buyers soldier on, doing every day what must be done to keep the ranch going, the new calves alive, their fragile relationship in one piece. Buyer's journal of four difficult months in 1997 is a quietly compelling story of a doomed marriage and a ranch life under pressure from rising land taxes and encroaching developments. "We're on top of the mountain looking down at the wreckage of the times," she writes. "Age, inability, financial impossibilities, an anti-ag attitude in the community..." As local ranchers sell out, hay prices rise, and local agricultural businesses fail, the people who stay on the land demonstrate a tenacious heroism, although they pay a very high personal price.

Through all these challenges, it is the land itself that sustains and endures. Buyer's lyrical descriptions of the earth's coming alive with spring are full of hope and promise. "More snow, some rain, lots of sun, and our world will dance a greening jig," she writes. Later: "Snipe song ripples through the sky. Spring comes again fresh-faced and welcoming." Still later: "I sense the atmosphere hanging on life's balanced scale, ready to tip into full spring with the weight of one more robin, one more blooming pasqueflower."

But while winter is long ("A remember-winter wind cartwheels off the peaks with chilled intent"), the people are strong, and Buyer revels in their strengths. Her husband is "a man born to the land, bonded to earth by his birthright and by his stubborn, even zealous, dedication to a way of life." Her friend Gail loses her front teeth when she's helping check cows for pregnancy: "The fiftieth cow flung her massive head and hit Gail smack in the face. Teeth and hat went flying...[S]he grabbed her hat, stuffed a couple of tissues in her mouth, and went back to work because there were still ten cows to go." It is as if these men and women both draw their strength from the land and develop it in opposition to the land's brutal hardships.

A prizewinning poet, Buyer tells her story skillfully, working from journal notes (sixteen legal tablets) gathered, assembled, and polished. She focuses on the present, but also gives us intriguing glimpses of a puzzling past, enough to give us a sense of the development of this marriage but not enough to answer all our questions. (A remark on her website, that she "came west from Chicago as a mail order bride," compounds the mystery.) The book's epilogue, written some ten years after the events documented in the journal, brings the reader up to date with events in the Buyers' lives.

Spring's Edge tells a remarkable story. I won't forget it, and I don't think you will, either.

by Susan Wittig Albert
for Story Circle Book Reviews
reviewing books by, for, and about women

If you like a good book to read you should buy Sweet Uncertainty it keep me from getting any sleep because I couldn't put the book down.

A great book that reminds us of the vitality of the myths of the old west. I recommend it to anyone interested in history and Native American lore. Rodeo fans will enjoy this book.

Sweet Uncertainty is an engaging fantasy about a boy, his rodeo-loving family, a winged horse, and two friends from another dimension. Hazard Stiles grows up quickly, as he saves his father from certain death, locates a stolen horse and confronts the thieves. With the help of his new friends--Polytumba and Ashalla--Hazard learns patience and grows in wisdom; and, the entire family learns about death--is it final? ... Or not? The characters in this book are so clearly drawn that they remained with me for a long, long time. I recommend this book to those who enjoy "losing themselves" in a good story, and especially to those who like horses, ranches and the American West.