Utah News

Western Book Roundup

Printed Page Bookshop Opens in Denver and Regional Writers Get Around

By Jenny Shank, 8-19-09

The Printed Page: "Ask about our books on paper."

One of my fellow ex-Rocky Mountain News book reviewers, Dan Danbom, recently wrote in an email, “Now, instead of reviewing books, I’ve decided that a fast route to famine is to try to sell them.” Along with his business partner, Nancy Stevens, this week the intrepid Danbom opened a new bookstore in Denver, Printed Page Bookshop, at 1416 S. Broadway.  The shop is in a Victorian house, and features contemporary and vintage books.  Printed Page’s tagline: “Ask about our books on paper.” Danbom notes that they will be “defiant and antiquated to the very end!”

To celebrate its opening, Printed Page will display a special exhibit of 50 banned books, and they invite patrons to guess which book among them has “never been the target of censorship on political, religious, social or sexual grounds.” Four people who guess the right answer will win a shopping spree at the bookshop.

Christopher Cokinos, Utah State University professor and author of The Fallen Sky: An Intimate History of Shooting Stars, recently wrote an op-ed for the New York Times in honor of the annual Perseid meteor shower.  In ”Dust in the (Cosmic) Wind,” he writes explains that “meteor showers are really comet dust” and that tiny particles of space dust filtering down to earth add a little extra crunch to everyone’s vegetables: “As Donald Brownlee, an astronomer at the University of Washington who studies cosmic dust particles, has noted, ‘If you had lettuce for lunch, you probably ate a few.’”

Cokinos will discuss his book in Tucson next month (Monday, Sept. 28, Steward Observatory, 7:30 p.m.) and in Logan, Utah on October 7 (USU’s Haight Alumni Center, 12:30 p.m.).

And a couple of other writers whose books we recently reviewed on New West have some upcoming events:

Margot Mifflin, author of the fascinating Blue Tattoo: The Life of Olive Oatman will discuss the book on the August 20 Leonard Lopate show that airs on WNYC.  (The shows are available online, too.)

David Knibb, author of Grizzly Wars: The Public Fight Over The Great Bear is going to be discussing bears in several locations during the next few months, visiting Idaho, Colorado, and Washington.  He’ll give a talk entitled “Grizzly Recovery Under the Endangered Species Act” at Idaho State University in Pocatello on August 25 (Student Union, 7 p.m.), and at the University of Colorado Boulder campus on September 15 (Benson Earth Sciences, Room 185, 7 p.m.).  Here is a complete list of appearances.

The Mountains & Plains Independent Bookseller Association recently announced their second set of Reading the West featured titles: Matt Phelan’s The Storm in the Barn for young readers, and for grown-ups, Maile Meloy’s incisive short story collection, Both Ways is the Only Way I Want It.  Watch for my interview with Meloy on Friday.

Does anyone out there have a Kindle?  If so, you can now subscribe to the New West Books & Writers blog with it here.  I’ve successfully coerced my Kindle-owning brother into becoming perhaps the only subscriber.  (I promised to reimburse him the 99-cent subscription fee.  In pennies.)

Please follow me on Twitter, and with any regional book news or events.

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