Colorado Books

Nate Liederbach's "Doing a Bit of Bleeding" is fearlessly direct, beautifully crafted, and an incredible example of storytelling at its finest. His stories take us on journeys seldom explored with such brutal honesty; rare is the talent that artfully and bravely addresses the whispered taboos of the human condition. His characters are flawed, truthful, and free. The settings flood with a history that defines each piece. Liederbach's envelope-testing style is everything but delicate; he wraps each piece together with barbed wire and squeezes. The stories in "Doing a Bit of Bleeding" comprise an uncommon sort of masterpiece, the details of which must not be overlooked in a swift read; rather, each piece should be savored individually, and revisited as part of an outstanding whole.

The power of this collection is in its details. The thought-provoking, shiver-inducing wounds of life are mined for all their humanity. Each character lives pain through the ink of every day language. It's the echo of a voice we all know, that emotional stutter of reflecting on our mistakes, of realizing our own weaknesses. Liederbrach accomplishes the difficult task of creating characters that are both fascinating and brutally real. In the end, you may not love them all, but you'll appreciate their vulnerability. Definitely a writer with great stories to come.

This is definately a collection worth owning, and I can only echo the praise already written about this book with two thumbs up. The characters draw you into their lives and you will run with them. The humor is subtle, dark at times. This book is filled with tender moments, realizations and people worth knowing. As I understand, this is Mr. Liederbach's first collection, but I definately hope to see more work from him in the future.

Reading Liederbach's work and you'll come face to face with fishermen and chicks who say one thing but mean another, Jesus-freaks and men freaked out by all the ways a heart can break. "Not Exactly a Parable" and "Moonbeams" are the collection's highlights.

Ugliness beneath the surface is brought wiggling to light in Nate Liederbach's short-story collection, "Doing a Bit of Bleeding," to be reconciled as something beautiful. Releasing the reel, Liederbach allows his audience freedom to jerk, swim, and rush head first into his subconscious pools, breathing natural dialogues of unsaid truths about life at the risk of being pulled under. In the same instance, he bleeds from the same hook, showing the world how Rainbows and dark German Browns exist in the same waters. After witnessing a child's wisdom, a sister's pain, a lover's anguish, a brother's mission, a husband's grief, and a fisherman's quest for answers, Liederbach releases his readers for the excitement of another catch and leaves his audience wondering whether he is the fish or the fisherman.

If you like white water rafting, this is a wonderful book about the birth of white water fun.

Anyone remotely interested in white water rafting will thoroughly love this book. Buz Holstrom was a true Maverick in the sport. The authors bring him to life through their wonderful narrative and easy writing style. He is truly an individual that was remarkably talented in his boat building and navigational skills. This book left me wanting more of Buzz Holstrom and wishing he were still around to tell us more about his short remarkable life.

The legendary Buzz Holmstrom was a more complex figure than I knew. His journal entries express the feeling of all who really love rivers and the famous entry that includes "the doing of the thing" should be read on every river trip.
This is the second Brad Dimock book I've read (the other on Bert Loper) and I am impressed with not only his skill as a writer, but his careful research. His handling of the tragic end to Buzz Holmstrom's life was that of a journalist with a sense of humanity.
I've already loaned this book to friends.

Even today, with rescue not so far away, few of us would have the nerve to go down the Colorado River through the Grand Canyon alone, so imagine the nerve it took when Buzz was totally alone, with no chance of help if he made a mistake. But the most amazing thing about Buzz was that in the midst of an adventure that would leave most people totally preoccupied with survival, Buzz had the soul power to look for and see the poetry in the river and the canyon. Merely knowing how to survive can be much easier than knowing how to live.

I remember years ago when I was a kid a story my father told me about an amazing river rafter and boat builder. My Dad grew up in Coquille and went to school with Buzz's younger brother. His story always ended with how Buzz had been on a rafting trip in eastern Oregon and went off and committed suicide. I could never understand how someone who had done the amazing things he did could end his life on that note. I thought about that story many times over the years and always wished I knew more. This book is incredibly well researched and documented. Even though many questions were answered, many more were raised. Such was the enigma that was Buzz Holmstrom.

The Basket Maker
Kate Niles
GreyCore Press - May 15, 2004
PB 224
ISBN# 0-97420-7-0-3
www.greycore.com
Review by Christina Francine

What is being done to our children? Will we allow this until the end of time? Niles wove a story around a real life sensitive issue and readers will not forget. They can't for sometimes monsters rise from close by and from the most unlikely places.

This story offers a blend of luminous prose, thought-provoking issues, and incredible story telling. Powerful, timely, and sure to haunt. Niles takes a look at an unspeakable end to innocence.

Interesting arrays of characters provide moment-by-moment, first-hand accounts as the story unfolds.

These include:

Sarah - Ten-year-old girl
Maddy - An elderly woman who lives next door.
Ouray - The deceased Indian Chief
Barbara - A neighbor whose son receives severe, life- changing burns over most of his body.
Snow Geese - They add perspective and an account of time.

The story opens with a modern setting of the American West. Niles gives tremendous imagery thus teaching as well as entertaining. She's painted surroundings that generate rich images for the mind's eye and ears.

Sarah Graves and her family recently moved again for the fourth time. She and her brother, Ricky don't like sharing a bedroom in the basement with black widow spiders who're definitely the owners. Why couldn't they have the two perfectly good rooms upstairs? Why did their mother insist she have them instead?

Both of Sarah's parents were college professors, but only her father worked. Her mother stayed home, yet rarely spent time with Sarah and Ricky. She'd rather they busied themselves away from her.

Sarah wished her mother was like other mothers, wished she'd see. She also wished her mother didn't hate her. Sarah just knew she did, but why?

Another wish Sarah had was to play the blues and ragtime on the piano instead of classical. Every Wednesday she and her brother went to piano lessons in town. No matter where they lived her mother insisted. One day though Sarah is drawn to the roundhouse down at the rail yard.

The light is on again in the basement of the Grave's house. Past two a.m.? Maddy can't imagine what goes on down there night after night. What business is it of hers anyway? So what if they were neighbors? She can't sleep. Her house spooks her. If only Lars hadn't hung himself in their basement.

Maddy know Travis came home from the burn hospital and that she should call his mother. After all Barbara used to be her Sunday school student years ago. So many years had past since they'd last spoke, yet...
Sarah visits her son. She is the only child not to turn away after seeing Travis' distorted skin. Barbara marvels at the girl's courage and tenderness. Still, something bothers her about Sarah. There's a certain look in her eyes, a stare like Barbara had when her father died.

Some life events cannot be forgotten even after death. Chief Ouray still beats himself up over his five-year-old son being stolen by the enemy. It was his fault and so he couldn't go to the spirit world. His anger held with the white man too leading him to haunt. One man he appeared to was Lars, Maddy's husband. Again, regret filtered into the Chief for Lars may have did what he did because of Ouray.

One night Ouray had to find out and decides to visit Maddy. They talk deeply, and later decide to peek into the neighbor's basement window, for it shown bright late at night again. What they see, discover, horrifies their souls.

Story Excerpt:

Sarah - "Napalm. Fire. I am not here. How could-?"
Like being operated on while she's still awake.
"I am not here."
Up on the ceiling where he can't get to her.

He can't know that but he must see something hollow in her because he says, "It's important to think of others, Sarah."

"I have made it again. My jaw says: you won't get to me."

Ouray - "I am Chief Ouray. Here I am, a skeleton since
1880, dead ninety some winters up this hillside.
I started haunting a long time ago.

I'm going to make him sweat the biggest sweat of his life.

Until all that evil drips out of him and scorches the ground beneath his feet."


Kate Niles is a college writing instructor and holds a degree in Anthropology, Archeology and Creative Writing. The Basket Maker was a finalist in the Heekin Group Foundation Awards for a novel-in-progress. Her books of poems, Geographies Of The Heart, was published by Blue Heron Press in 1997, and her poetry, short-stories and essays have appeared in library journals and have been broadcast on public radio. Kate is also the recipient of the Colorado Council of the Arts Individual Artist Fellowship for Creative Writing in 2003.

The Basket Maker drew the mother lioness out in me. Nile's reinforces that children require protection - be it our own or our neighbor's. Children are our greatest resource and need to be watched over, nurtured, and disciplined. They are not miniature adults with adult understanding, bodies, or abilities, and shouldn't be treated as such or given adult responsibilities.

I recommend this book for everyone because we were all children once struggling to learn how to survive in an adult world.

I just finished reading The Basket Maker. I literally could not put it down. What a very powerful, intense book. It held my interest from start to finish. Very interesting how all the character's lives blended together. Full of geography, history and psychological drama. I would recommend this book highly. Bravo to Kate Niles !!!!!!

One of the many things Kate Niles does beautifully in The Basket Maker is create a voice with the setting. In the Southwest, the land is not just a backdrop, the land is a character, and Kate brings it to life by having the Peaks tell pieces of the story. The rest of the characters are vivid and real, and reading about the town makes me homesick for the real one it's based on! This is an amazing first novel by one of my favorite professors and I'm anxiously awaiting the next one!

The Basket Maker is a smoothly written and deftly woven story of Sarah Graves, a young woman with a dark secret who encounters Trent, a boy at school who has suffered burns over most of his body. With a memorable roster of supporting characters, this unique and compassionate novel is presented with intelligence, delicacy, and reader-engaging passion set against the background of the American southwest. Kate Niles is the recipient of the Colorado Council of the Arts Individual Artist Fellowship for Creative Writing for 2003. An accomplished writer of essays and short stories, The Basket Maker now documents her as having mastered the novel with a literary style and elegance rarely achieved and never surpassed.

The Basket Maker has a couple of elements that made it a super read for me. First getting into the story is like working a jig saw puzzle. Except this is not a flat puzzle with one point of view, us looking down on a picture. This is a multidimensional puzzle, presented from the points of view of four main characters in the middle of it. One by one, each views a series of events that join them to each other. That makes a complex read, guaranteed to keep anyone paying attention. The second neat thing is this: by the time we see how everybody thinks and fits together in the plot, author Kate Niles has given us the story of a litle girl facing life for the first time, and of grownups working through that life just a little ahed of her. Together they help each other face and work through problems. The Basket Maker offers a simple message: we are all community and we all support each other. We are all interrelated. We all face tough issues, but together we will find a way to manage them. Some we will actually solve. How life affirming

Although the Great San Dunes National Park is the draw, the San Luis Valley has much more to offer than a slide down the dunes or wade in Medano Creek, and the Wingers tell you where to go and how to get there. They also give you the cultural and historical context, flora, fauna and place name translations. Well written and beautifully photographed, this guide is essential for those who come to experience the place as well as the sand. They even suggest renting the classic Japanese film, Woman in the Dunes. Thanks, Charlie and Diane!

Excellent book...as a avid backpacker i was very impressed with the hiking/trail descriptions included...there a TONS of them...very good educational information about the dunes and the surrounding areas as well...I highly recommend this book to anyone wanting to get a little more out of there dunes trip than a trip to the visitors center...while your there try and catch a sunset from atop the dunes!

This new guidebook covers ALL aspects of the Great Sand Dunes. There is something for everyone interested in this beautiful, unique ecosystem in Colorado: natural and cultural history, hiking and climbing and other recreational activities, and local events and attractions . . . this book has it all. Want to know about the eolian (wind) geology that formed the dunes? Want to know which picnic spots are the best? Want to know what rock pro you can leave at home when climbing The Prow route on Kit Carson Mountain? The Wingers seem to provide information and resources about everything! Their easy, conversational style draws you into the delights of the dunes and echoes the small-town friendliness of the surrounding area. And this is a guidebook that can travel with you - its quality binding and sturdy pages will hold up to frequent use, which is inevitable once you experience this special area of Colorado.

Charlie & Diane have surprised the hiking public once again with their great new guide to the Sand Dunes. Soon to be declared a National Park, this full color book is set up in easy to understand color-coded sections, a first that I have seen. It is focused on a small area, so understandably goes into great detail, something many guidebooks can not do as they pretend to cover a huge aray of peaks, or trails, or entire state or regional hiking concepts. If you like getting every last bit of info on a cool place like Sand Dunes, well, this is your book. You will probably wake up with some grit in your teeth, but that's OK, sand is the name of the game here.

This is an excellent guidebook. Most importantly, the maps and descriptions are very accurate yet still entertaining to read.

The guidebook encompasses short family appropriate hikes such as the Visitor Center Interpretive trail (.5 miles) to the more strenuous bushwhacking ascent of Carbonate Mountain (9.2 miles and 4,580 feet). A resource guide at the back of the book summarizes hikes by destination, difficulty, distance, and duration.

I have to not only recommend the guidebook, but the Great Sand Dunes area as well. I have spent many days hiking in Colorado (as well as other states and countries), and the Sand Dunes is truly a wonderful place for its unique beauty and ruggedness.

Last July 4th weekend, I hiked up Tijeras Peak which rises to 13,600 feet. The trail took me trough alpine meadows to an open expanse of lakes surrounded by peaks up a steep snow chute and eventually to the summit of Tijeras with awesome views that truly have to be experienced to be understood. And I had the summit all to myself.

I look forward to many more days in the Sand Dunes with this guidebook.

This series gets better and better. As always, Kristen Heitzmann has a lovely way with words. Her characters are deep and lifelike. Things finally seemed ready to settle down and Cole's up and kidnapped by bounty hunters haulin' him in for a murder, of a harlot of all things. Of course, Abbie's gotta hitch up her skirts and tear off after him like heat on a summer day and of course, she finds and frees him. That's where the fun begins. Cole's still determined to walk towards danger for honor's sake.

Abbie is fearless, a loving wife, a devoted mother. She's a good daughter and friend. She has many qualities most ladies aspire to.

I love the series, and I cannot wait to see what happens next. I love the narration by Kate Forbes. I can't wait for the 2nd series when Janette gets married, and Eliot finds his true love as well; and even how Marci's daughter turns out.

Kristen keep writing,

Julia

I think this is the best book,but I realy wish monte did not die. I think she should write another book to the series, and have monte not realy be dead,and have it turn out that he realy was just badly injured and before they put him in the dirt a native american came and grabbed him and patched him up but lost his memory.So Abbie falls in love with cole and gets married, and so monte comes home after a few months they've been married, with his memory back,and abbie has to choose between them........you could finish the rest kristen if you decide to use my idea in another rocky mountian legacy. Keep up the good work,and GOD BLESS YOU! P.S Keep me informed please!

I think this is the best book,but I realy wish monte did not die. I think she should write another book to the series, and have monte not realy be dead,and have it turn out that he realy was just badly injured and before they put him in the dirt a native american came and grabbed him and patched him up but lost his memory.So Abbie falls in love with cole and gets married, and so monte comes home after a few months they've been married, with his memory back,and abbie has to choose between them........you could finish the rest kristen if you decide to use my idea in another rocky mountian legacy. Keep up the good work,and GOD BLESS YOU! P.S Keep me informed please!

Cole has returned to Abbie's ranch as foreman, but Abbie is not about to let down her guard to love again, until -- could it be happening? Just as she begins to wonder, a stranger rides onto the ranch and beats Cole severely immediately before bounty hunters come and violently take Cole away for the murder of an El Paso woman, a lady of the night with whom Cole's brother, Sam was in love.

Consuming a good portion of the whole book is the long journeys most of the main characters are making to El Paso and back, leaving the children, 7 and 4 behind in the care of Abbie's parents. The journey is long and hard, unlikely characters from past books appear and one surprise after another lands Abbie in El Paso, visiting Cole in jail. She has a hard time really knowing if he is innocent or guilty, but someone does know, and Abbie feels she owes it to Cole to find out the truth. After all, he has saved her life on several occasions. Her faithful young stable hand, Will, is by her side, helping in every way he can.

A circuit rider preacher has accompanied Cole part of the way on this trip and Cole has decided he needs to know God. However, Abbie has a hard time believing he really has changed. The author throws in some difficult situations with Cole's past and his family's tragedies and some real surprises in this book which features mainly, the life, the hanging charges and the changes which take place in the lives of Abbie Farrell and Cole Jasper.

I already have the next book ready to start. Thanks Kristen, for this wonderful, historical Christian fiction series!

This is a book you'll want to keep! Buy an extra for a friend. It's supurb!!!

One of the best books ever. Great writing, authentic, entertaining. You won't want to put it down.

I also recommend "The Ozark Clan of Elkhead Creek" - about growing up on a ranch and VERY good.

I've read some of the stories in this book 4 or 5 times. It's simply as authentic and well-written as it gets. I'm not an old-West fan at all, but a friend let me borrow their copy and now I'm hooked. I'm on my way to Colorado to visit some of the places FitzPatrick writes about. This book is a real treat! And it's beautifully done also - wonderful cover!

I also just finished FitzPatrick's other book, "Red Twilight." It's about his experiences with the Ute Indians. Also high quality and well-written - highly recommend.

Here's a book with atmosphere. You can almost smell the campfire and the Arbuckles' Coffee brewing over it, right alongside the scent of horses, cattle, and sage. "The Arbuckle Cafe: Classic Cowboy Stories" creates its own setting and Val FitzPatrick's style is such that you almost hear the cowboys swapping the yarns around the fire. However, there's far more truth to the tales than the title suggests. Although FitzPatrick, a Colorado native born in 1886, missed trailing the big herds, he began cowboying at age 13 for the K Diamond Cattle Company. At age 14 he began working for the Two-Bar Cattle Company, which was "the goal of nearly every young man in the area." Cowboying left its mark: FitzPatrick learned to appreciate a good tale and how to tell it.

Written by a genuine turn-of-the-century cowpuncher, The Arbuckle Cafe: Classic Cowboy Stories offers modern readers an informative and entertaining window in time to the great roundups, trail drives, humor and hardships of handling cattle in the American west of yesteryear. Also included are pioneer anecdotes of northwest Colorado told with all the drama of tales around a campfire. The stories include: Dogies, Dust, and the Drink; Hired Killers and Winter Underwear; The Great Elk Migration; The Hermit of Yampa Canyon, Riding with Butch Cassidy; Buzzards Don't Talk; The Wild Horse Man; Dirty Cattle Thieves; Tom Horn; Queen Ann Bassett, and more. Of special note is the epilogue: The Demise of the Two-Bar Rooster. The Arbuckle Cafe is highly recommended reading for students of western lore and literature, and anyone who has ever day dreamed of what it would have really been like to punch cows on one of the last frontiers of the American west.

One of the few cookbooks you can pick up and count on a great meal (appetizer, dessert. etc)without testing it first. You can try a recipe the first time and serve it for company without fear. Recipes are diverse and delicious. I've owned this cookbook for nearly 30 years. The one I recently purchased was a gift for a new friend. The rest of my friends already have it!! It makes a great gift.

I used to live in Denver, and I bought this cookbook for myself, as well as for family and friends. My original cookbook fell apart, so I ordered a new one. Needless to say, I Love this cookbook. Thank you. Karen Gould Stuart, Florida

Junior League cookbooks can be a mixed bag. But generally keep in mind that they represent a community's best cooks showing off for attention.
Southern cookbooks should reflect Southern cooking traditions and so on.
Colorado Cache is a very inviting collection of newer cooking traditions, often new twists on older recipes. Great gift for newlyweds, as it reflects more recent but dependable trends in cuisine. Always keep in mind that a Jr. League cookbook has earned its price if it only generates 4 to 6 favorite recipes for you! Colorado Cache provides wonderful Denver summer and winter favorites.

and is the only Denver Junior League cookbook that features original art, easy to use recipes, and is truly a classic.

I grew up eating many meals made from this cook book! And now I use it for my own family. There are great recipes that are not difficult, not time consuming, and use all the basics you already have in your kitchen. Healthy cooking too! I like the Chicken Spagetti-great for potluck dinners!

Bob Horn has obviously gone to every one of these areas, or gathered info from other climbers and detailed them well in this book. His line drawings and sketches are better then usual and are easy to find and follow.
My only gripe is that a lot of the southern front range bouldering classics are on private property and no directions are given to several areas. I think when a climber is accessing private property, a simple stop at the owners residence will often gain you legal access to these precious gems.
From and ex-greenhorn valley dweller, enjoy!

This book offers easy to read maps and drawings with a personal touch not seen in other guides of this type. A wealth of information has been gathered and revealed within the text. This just one of a series of books that has a unique handcrafted touch were value will increase with time. In Front Range Bouldering texts the author has obviously taken the time to walk around and observe each individual boulder by drawing them and notating their features. Great bargain.

This book offers easy to read maps and drawings with a personal touch not seen in other guides of this type. A wealth of information has been gathered and revealed within the text. This just one of a series of books that has a unique handcrafted touch were value will increase with time. In Front Range Bouldering texts the author has obviously taken the time to walk around and observe each individual boulder by drawing them and notating their features. Great bargain.

This book offers easy to read maps and drawings with a personal touch not seen in other guides of this type. A wealth of information has been gathered and revealed within the text. This just one of a series of books that has a unique handcrafted touch were value will increase with time. In Front Range Bouldering texts the author has obviously taken the time to walk around and observe each individual boulder by drawing them and notating their features. Great bargain.

This book offers easy to read maps and drawings with a personal touch not seen in other guides of this type. A wealth of information has been gathered and revealed within the text. This just one of a series of books that has a unique handcrafted touch were value will increase with time. In Front Range Bouldering texts the author has obviously taken the time to walk around and observe each individual boulder by drawing them and notating their features. Great bargain.

This was a great book for a begining Colorado gardener like myself. The majority of the book is organized by month so you can work on what needs to be done at a specific time of year. The rest has very helpful charts and how-to guides for all the basic gardening techniques referred to in the book. Also plenty of room for notes to personalize. I really loved it.

This book is a quick and easy read -- great for summertime when you want to actually be gardening, not reading! The tips are wonderful, as are the "best" and "worst" plant lists. Many people *will* appreciate the space left for writing down your own ideas or information -- for the cost of the book I personally would rather have more tips in the book itself and jot down my gardening log in a cheap notebook.

Month-To-Month Gardening Colorado is the best book I've read yet on successful gardening in Colorado. The books offers hundreds of tips on things you can be doing to create a beautiful garden. I especially love the journal provided throughout the book. By journaling facts about my own garden, the book has become my own personal gardening guide. I love this book and would recommend it to anyone interested in successful Colorado gardening.

"Month-to-Month Gardening: Colorado" is an attractive, well-organized and helpful beginner gardening guide to Colorado. It is one of the few Colorado books that recognize gardening in the Colorado mountains is vastly different from Colorado high plains gardening. This is not an exhaustive book although the variation and the brief format of the tips makes for easy absorption. Included are helpful lists of recommended plants including lists of xeriscape plants, mountain plants, and others. Local landscapers and gardeners have contributed garden designs that help tweak the imagination. If you are starting out in Colorado gardening, this easy to use book will get you pointed in the right direction.

We were delighted with the thorough directions and monthly prompting.
The spiral binding, design drawing and colorful pictuures are a real asset.
The space for journaling will be a help in planning next year.

A poigniant first-person memoire of life in the mining camps at the turn of the 20th Century. Excellent prose. Very clear, descriptive, and engrossing writing. The theme is a surprising brush with the notable politically, socially, and historically famous folks in a most unexpected place: an isolated, mostly poverty ridden mining camp at very high elevation in one of the richest gold mining areas. The author's father played an important role in the exploration and development of the gold and silver discoveries there. Chronicles her childhood and flowering as a woman of distinction who knew tradgedy and trauma, yet grew into a very wholesome adult.

A candid look into the hardships of life in a mining camp, through the eyes of a young girl growing up there. This book was an eye opening account of what it was really like in a rugged mining camp and how families coped with hardships. I also found this book extremely entertaining and full of historical accounts that I was unaware of. It definitely paints a vivid picture of Cripple Creek's hay day and makes it a place that is not to be forgotten.

What I Liked: The author's love of her adopted hometown comes through very well. Her descriptions of people and places are vivid enough that one can almost see them when they close their eyes while reading, between passages. I also liked how a lot of clichés and stereotypes about the Colorado Gold Rush era are avoided. Yes, some characters do talk and act the way we've seen them act in Western films since many actually did, but this book doesn't act as though they made up the entirety of the region. We meet people in this book who are articulate, people who are more cynical and jaded than "frontiersman" like, who are religious, but don't proselytize. Another aspect of this book is the period correct dialogue. The languages and attitudes of the people of the day isn't toned down or made politically correct to avoid offending anyone. Yes, some of the people in the story, even the likeable ones, use words and phrases we of 21st century Colorado recognize as racist and/or stereotypical, but that is simply how people talked in that time. Overall, reading this book reminds me in some ways of how I enjoyed the film Little Big Man, another period piece set in roughly in the same timeframe.

What I Didn't Like: The author doesn't always do a good job of conveying time in the book. More than once, I actually got lost and couldn't figure out what year an event was occurring in, or how old she was. Transitions aren't always smooth, such as when her brother goes from newborn to whiny toddler in a matter of a few pages. It can be jarring, but is not uncommon for first time authors. Granted, I don't actually know if this was Mabel Barbee Lee's first book, but if it was, it shows. Another negative aspect is the description on the back of my copy of the book, which spoils the book somewhat by listing nearly every major event from the first half of the story except for the death of the author's younger sister, the incident involving bandits where she tried to hide a silver dollar in her mouth, and the boxing match described by her father as "the fight of the century."

This is a brilliant novel which engages the reader fully. The plot twists and turns as if this were a work of fiction rather than a biography. The characters are vivid, unique and unforgettable ... and they were real people. Ms. Barbee Lee was a keen observer and her descriptions are fascinating. Most of all, I liked how she tells us interesting gossip about some of the powerful people involved in the Cripple Creek gold rush and then, explains how things turned out and why. Some of these explanations needed enough time to pass in order to be told. While reading this page-turner, I felt like I was watching the events unfold through a window. I have recommended it to friends just because it is a really good book. The fact that it is true and will give the reader more insight into the past and into Colorado's mining history is just a bonus.

This book captivates a sense of innocence and honesty that is palpable on each page. Mable Lee Barby wrote the book I always wanted to read about the district that as a child I wandered and wondered endlessly. Mable is buried between "Jonce" and "Kate" overlooking the town. Cripple Creek has mostly disappeared from what I knew. There are no more "old timers" sitting on chairs in front of screen doors of dusty old shops holding so many individual memories of the characters that made Cripple Creek such an special place. The wheel house is almost gone from the surrounding hills but there is a spiritual core of a history that will never die.

Frank Waters did a wonderful job with his two books and there have been others but when I see Bennett St. or even pass the front steps of the old stone building of Colorado College I think of Mable Lee Barbee. In this book she left a record of her and others lives that will never be equaled. There is a sweet fragrance!