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July 3rd, 2006
12:06 pm - Summer Reading - Week 3
What makes us feel like little kids again? Carousels, circuses, parades, carnivals, amusement parks - those wonderful traditional summer fun events that may travel to us, or that we might travel to.
There are five historic wooden carousels operating in Colorado. Sunset Magazine has a very brief article listing all five:
- Elitch Gardens
- Lakeside Amusement Park
- Cheyenne Mountain Zoo
- Kit Carson County
- Pueblo City Park
Two of these carousels are in or near zoos, another beloved family tradition. And besides the permanent facilities like zoos, amusement parks, museums and libraries and neighborhood parks and playgrounds, there are almost too many seasonal festivals to count - fifty-seven in the sumer months alone. From the Colorado State Fair to local and specialized small festivals like our own Black Diamond Days and Celtic Music Festival, there's something going on almost every weekend of the year.
Of course, it's not all fun and games - or is it? Being creeped out by clowns and dark, idle amusement park rides can be part of the fun, or it can be genuinely scary. Maybe that's why so many authors, from Ray Bradbury to Stephen King to Michael Crichton, have used these festive backdrops to explore dark themes. So our suggested reading list for this week ranges from the light and fanciful to the dark and horrific:
The Bartholomew Fair Murders / Leonard Tourney PBK MYS Tou – cozy mystery
The Beet Fields: Memoirs of a Sixteenth Summer / Gary Paulsen
YAF Pau – coming of age stories, carnival workers
Buffalo Girls / Larry McMurtry
WES Mcm – fiction, Wild West shows
The Circus in Winter / Cathy Day
NEW F Day –fiction, circus workers
A Corner of the Universe / Ann Martin
YAF Mar- coming of age stories, disabilities
The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic, and Madness, and the Fair that Changed America / Erik Larson
AC 364.15 Lar – Chicago World’s Fair 1893, true crime
Don’t Stop the Carnival / Herman Wouk
NEW F Wou – fiction, Carnivale
Fat Tuesday / Sandra Brown
PBK F Bro – mystery, Mardi Gras
The Five People You Meet in Heaven / Mitch Albom F Alb – carnival workers, inspirational
The Funhouse / Dean Koontz
PBK F Koo – carnival workers, horror
The Heartsong of Charging Elk / James Welch
F Wel – fiction, Wild West shows
Josser: the Secret Life of a Circus Girl / Nell Stroud NEW 791.3092 Str – circus workers
Jurassic Park / Michael Crichton
F Cri – amusement parks, technothriller
The Latino Holiday Book: From Cinco de Mayo to Dia De Los Muertos, the Celebrations and Traditions / Valerie Menard
394.26 Men - festivals
Learning to Fly / Sam Keen
791.3 Kee – circus performers
Masters of Illusion: a Novel of the Connecticut Circus Fire / Mary-Ann Tirone Smith
LPF Smi – fiction, circus workers
New Orleans Mourning / Julie Smith
MYS Smi – mystery, Mardi Gras
Nothing to Lose / Alexandra Flynn
YAF Fly – coming of age stories, carnival workers
Rio Grande Fall / Rudolfo Anaya
MYS Ana – mystery, local festivals
Seduction by Design / Sandra Brown
F Bro – romance, amusement parks
Something Wicked This Way Comes / Ray Bradbury FAN Bra – carnival workers, horror
A Son of the Circus / John Irving
F Irv – fiction, circus workers
Under the Big Top: a Season with the Circus / Bruce Feiler
791.3 Fei – circus workers
Utopia: A Novel / Lincoln Child
F Chi – amusement parks, technothriller
The Way to Bright Star / Dee Brown
PBK WES Bro – fiction, Wild West shows
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June 26th, 2006
11:52 am - Summer Reading - Week 2
Tunnels and bridges, skyscrapers, canals and dams, and roadways - the human impact on land can be huge, awe-inspiring, and disturbing. Throughout Colorado's history, our mountains and deserts have inspired and challenged engineers and developers - and environmentalists. Colorado is home to some of the most ambitious projects in American history... from the famous (Royal Gorge , the higest suspension bridge in the world) to the obscure (the 50+ square mile Transportation Technology Center, the largest railroad research and development site in the U.S.), from the ultrasecret (Cheyenne Mountain) to the notorious (Rocky Flats).
The Center for Land Use Interpretation has an interesting list of civil engineering projects in Colorado and elsewhere. What exactly is "civil engineering"? Wikipedia has a concise and well-written definition.
Some of the most dramatic engineering feats in the state are also some of the most popular tourist sites - the Royal Gorge bridge; the many railroads, including the recently launched Rio Grande Scenic Railroad; the mines and mining towns that fed a century of gold, silver, coal, and other industries.
Some suggestions to help you get started:
Blackout / John Nance F Nan - technothriller
Cadillac Desert / Marc Reisner 333.91 Rei - civil engineering, water rights
The Control of Nature / John McPhee 304.2 Mcp - general engineering, essays
Dead Aim / Iris Johansen F Joh / thriller, disaster
The Door Into Summer / Robert Heinlein PBK SCI Hei - time travel, revenge
Flight: My Life in Mission Control / Chris Kraft 629.4 Kra - spaceflight history, autobiography, aerospace engineering
Earth / David Brin PBK SCI Bri - near future, technological innovation
The First Men in the Moon / H. G. Wells PBK SCI Wel - classic literature, space travel
Have Spacesuit, Will Travel / Robert Heinlein PBK SCI Hei - adventure, young adult
Heechee Rendezvous / Frederick Pohl PBK SCI Poh - alien technologies, adventure
The Hunt for Zero Point / Nick Cook 629.13 Coo - military technology, research
Inviting Disaster: Lessons from the Edge of Technology / James Chiles 363.1 Chi - disasters
Lindbergh / A. Scott Berg 629.13 Ber - biography, aerospace engineering
Moving Mars / Greg Bear SCI Bea - technological innovation
Orbit / John Nance F Nan NEW F Nan - technothriller
Our Story: 77 Hours that Tested our Friendship and our Faith / Jeff Goodall and the Quecreek Miners 622.8 Goo - mining, survival stories, inspirational
Prey / Michael Crichton F Cri and AC Cri - technothriller
A River out of Eden / John Hockenberry F Hoc / ecological debates, dam building
Road to Riches: The Great Railroad Race to Aspen / Cathy Clamp WES Cla - railroads, Western stories
Rocket Boys (audiobook) / Homer Hickam AC 629.1 Hic - autobiography, aerospace engineering
Skyhook / John Nance F Nan F Nan - technothriller
Stormbreaker / Anthony Horowitz YAF Hor Bk. 1 - technothriller, young adult
The Terrible Hours / Peter Maas 910 Maa and AC 910 Maa - survival stories, military technology, shipwrecks
They Made America: Two Centuries of Innovators from the Steam Engine to the Search Engine / Harold Evans 609.2 Eva - history of invention
Thread of the Silkworm / Iris Chang 629.1 Cha - biography, aerospace engineering
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June 14th, 2006
11:45 am - Summer Reading Week 1
Because one of the best parts of traveling is discovering new and wonderful food and drink, we're kicking off our travel-themed program with a cuisine theme. Read any book with a cooking, restaurant, or other food-related theme, or answer the trivia question:
What is the name of a Colorado winery in the Palisades?
You might find information to help answer this question in the Vertical File, which is located in the large black file cabinet next to the Colorado Collection. The Vertical File contains a wide variety of materials that are updated too frequently to catalog, small items, quick facts, and other useful materials. Find everything from the name and address of your local state legislator to American Diabetes Association health factsheets to FAFSA applications to tourism brochures.
To find out more about vineyards, wine tasting events, winemaking, and other related topics, take a look at the links below:
The Colorado Wine Board has an excellent collection of information, including printable maps of wineries, a historic timeline of the wine industry in Colorado, a comprehensive list of wineries, and tips and recipes for grape growing and cooking with wine.
The Colorado Winefest, from September 14 to 17 in and around Grand Junction, is The Event for wine lovers in Colorado. Find out about the event, the wineries, and the sponsors.
There's a pretty technical but interesting discussion about the quality of Colorado wines on Stephen Reiss' Aspen-based wine blog.
Are you thinking about trying your hand at making your own wine? My favorite almost-local brewing supply stores are Old West Homebrew in Colorado Springs and The Brew Hut in Aurora. Beer At Home, another Denver-area brewing store, has links to more brewers' supply stores around the state.
There's more to the Grand Juction/Palisades/Glenwood Springs area than vineyards, though. The Western Colorado Museum has a great history of Palisade. Western Style Magazine has a nice community profile on Palisade, as well as on Grand Junction and Glenwood Springs. And the Palisade Chamber of Commerce has links to vineyards, orchards, hotels, and restaurants in the area.
Finally, some reading suggestions to help you get started:
Appetite for Life: The Biography of Julia Child / Noel Riley Fitch 641.5 Fit
Blackberry Wine / Joanne Harris F Har
The Callahan Chronicles / Spider Robinson SCI Rob
Catering to Nobody / Diane Mott Davidson MYS Dav
Dark Tort / Diane Mott Davidson MYS Dav
(and other Goldy Bear novels)
Chocolate Chip Cookie Murder / Joanne Fluke MYS Flu and AC Flu
Cherry Cheesecake Murder / Joanne Fluke MYS Flu and AC Flu
(and other Hannah Swenson novels)
Chocolat / Joanne Harris F Har
Colorado: A Liquid History and Tavern Guide to the Highest State / Thomas J. Noel CC 647.95788 Noe
Don’t Eat This Book: Fast Food and the Supersizing of America / Morgan Spurlock 614.593 Spu
Five Quarters of the Orange / Joanne Harris F Har
French Women Don’t Get Fat / Mirielle Giuliano 613.2 Giu
Fried Chicken: An American Story / John T. Edge 641.6 Edg
Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Café / Fannie Flagg F Fla
The Guide to Colorado Wineries / Alta and Brad Smith CC 641.2 Smi
Julie and Julia: 365 Days, 524 Recipes, 1 Tiny Apartment Kitchen / Julie Powell 641.5 Pow
Keeping the Moon / Sarah Dessen YAF Des
Much Depends on Dinner: the extraordinary history and mythology, allure and obsessions, perils and taboos, of an ordinary meal / Margaret Visser 394.1 Vis
The Omnivore’s Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals / Michael Pollan NEW 394.5 Pol
Secrets of the Tsil Café / Thomas Fox Averil F Ave
Sideways / Rex Pickett LPF Pic
Six Thousand Years of Bread / Heinrich Jacob 909 Jac
The Summer of My Greek Taverna / Tom Stone 913.8 Sto
Like Water for Chocolate / Laura Esquivel F Esq and AC Esq
A Year in the World / Frances Mayes NEW 914.04 May
Are you hungry yet?
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May 17th, 2006
02:53 pm - All the new books...
According to the computer, we have added 96 new items to the collection in the past week. 96!
Some of those aren't "new" - like the Polk Directories (the wonderful phone books with the reverse-lookup tables by phone number and street addresses. Do you know who owned your house in 1964?) They have been on the shelf for a long time, but not in the catalogue. You can find them at CC 910.25 Pol.
And some of them aren't "new", but they're new to us - thank you to all of the wonderful people who have brought in donations recently! Besides local donations, we have also recieved a bunch of items for the Colorado Collection through the aLibris Donate-A-Book program, which they have been promoting really heavily in the last few weeks. Some of them include:
Coal Resources of the Trinidad Coal Field in Huerfano and Las Animas Counties, Colorado by Ross B Johnson
Biographical sketches : Colonel John M. Francisco, Hiram Vasquez, Henry Daigre by Raymond Wilson
Christmas in the Old West: A Historical Scrapbook by Sam Travers
Cycling Colorado's Mountain Passes by Kurt Magsamen
People of the Red Earth : American Indians of Colorado by Sally Crum
At the End of the Santa Fe Trail, the 19th-century pioneer memoir of Sister Blandina Segale.
But a lot of these books are new releases. Hot new bestsellers from Mary Higgins Clark, Harlan Coben, Anne Tyler, Julia Alvarez, Steve Berry, Amanda Quick, and others are here, with more new releases coming in the next few weeks as the summer reading season heats up. The best new nonfiction is also here, including:
The Great Deluge: Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans and the Mississippi Gulf Coast by Douglas Brinkley
The Lemon Tree: An Arab, a Jew, and the Heart of the Middle East by Sandy Tolan
In Cold Blood : a True Account of a Multiple Murder and Its Consequences by Truman Capote (of course this is not new, but it's getting a lot of new attention since the movie)
Clemente : the Passion and Grace of Baseball's Last Hero by David Maraniss
Mayflower : a Story of Courage, Community and War by Nathaniel Philbrick
American theocracy : The Peril and Politics of Radical Religion, Oil, and Borrowed Money in the 21st Century by Kevin Phillips
And the book that everyone is talking about, A Strange Piece of Paradise by Terri Jentz. George Rede of the Oregonian, who wrote the original news piece for that paper, writes a touching and deeply personal review.
Terri Jentz's story of survival defies the imagination. Even more incredible than her recovery is the turn of events that saw the victim hunt down her alleged attacker. And what's downright inspiring is the upbeat approach she has taken to her mended life. When we met before her reading at Powell's, she shook my hand and, smiling, thanked me for the flowers she'd received nearly three decades earlier.
"I sent you flowers?"
"Oh, yes. You don't remember? I still have the card that came with them."
Lots and lots and lots of new stuff. Come check it out!
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April 12th, 2006
10:10 am - Starting a business in Colorado
Just this week, I've had two requests for information about starting and running a small business in Colorado. This morning, the State Library Blog has a great article on just that.
For the most complete and up-to-date legal information about small businesses, the Colorado Office of Economic Development has all of its documents online. These include:
- List of Free Business Counseling and Training Centers
- How to Start a Small Business
- Writing Your Own Business Plan
- Register for a Small, Minority- or Women-Owned Business
and many others.
Colorado Department of Revenue also offers a variety of resources, including free tax classes.
In our collection, we have:
- How to Set Up Your Own Small Business by Max Fallek (both reference and circulation)
- Start Small, Finish Big: Fifteen key lessons to start--and run--your own successful business by Fred DeLuca
- The Small Business Handbook: The comprehensive guide to starting and running your own business by Irving Burstiner
- Starting Your First Business: gain independence and love your work by Jim Sapp
- The SEED Handbook: The feminine way to create business by Lynne Franks
- Finding Money for Your Small Business by Max Fallek
- The Complete Book of Business and Legal Forms by Lynne Frasier
- Minding Her Own Business: the self-employed woman's guide to taxes and bookkeeping by Jan Zobel
We don't have anything on small business startup specific to Colorado, but we are researching the problem and will be buying an appropriate book as soon as we find it. In the meantime, the resources offered by the Office of Economic Development/Small Business Development Center and the Department of Revenue are a great starting point.
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April 10th, 2006
11:59 am - National Poetry Month
It's National Poetry Month. I've crawled the stacks and drawn out some beloved classic and contemporary poetry for a little extra exposure...
Sleep: Bedtime Reading
The Collected Works of Langston Hughes
The Collected Works of T.S. Elliot
Braided Creek: A Conversation in Poetry
Naked and Fiery Forms: Modern American Poetry by Women, a New Tradition
Selected Verse: Federico Garcia Lorca (bilingual edition)
The Prophet by Kahlil Gibran
Dylan Thomas: Collected Verses
Spoon River Anthology by Edgar Lee Masters
Bend, Don't Shatter: Poets on the Beginning of Desire
Snowbound by John Greenleaf Whittier
A Child's Garden of Verses by Robert Louis Stevenson
A Love Poem: Final Breath
While re-acquainting yourself with forgotton favorites or discovering something new, why not find out about contemporary Colorado poets or tell a story about how poetry has affected your life?
The library's a wonderful place for useful reference information. It's also a wonderful place to just set everything aside and connect with something beautiful.
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March 31st, 2006
05:39 pm - Just in time for the Health Fair...
... a huge batch of medical books. We recieved an institutional donation from Jefferson County Public Library - thanks, JeffCo folks!
Replacing older editions of core Reference items:
- The Physician Desk Reference 2005
- Consumer Reports Consumer Drug Reference 2005
- Current Medical Diagnosis and Treatment 2005
- The Essential Guide to Perscription Drugs 2005
New additions to the Reference section:
- Drug Facts and Comparisons 2005
- The Physician's Desk Reference for Non-Perscription Drugs and Dietary Supplements 2004
- Stedman's Medical Dictionary
And new additions available for checkout:
- Taking Care of Your Child: A Parent's Illustrated Guide to Complete Medical Care
- Caring for Aging Loved Ones
- Your Pregnancy Week-By-Week (replacing an older edition)
- Your Baby's First Year Week-By-Week
- Laughing Allegra: The Inspiring Story of a Mother's Struggle and Triumph Raising a Daughter with Learning Disabilities
- Conception, Pregnancy, and Birth
- Healthy Child, Whole Child: Integrating the Best of Conventional and Alternative Medicine to Keep Your Kids Healthy
- The Children's Hospital Guide to Your Child's Health and Development (adding a circulating copy to the copy we already have in Reference)
- The Complete Book of Yoga Meditation for Pregnancy
- The Encyclopedia of Deafness and Hearing Disorders
- The Complete Guide to Alzheimer's-Proofing Your Home
- Love, Laughter, and Parenting in the Precious Years From Birth to Age Six
Monica will have a bunch of these books with her at the Health Fair tomorrow - come take a look!
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