Poor Richard’s Books suggests three titles by some of our most renowned authors

Each week as part of SunLit — The Sun’s literature section — we feature staff recommendations from book stores across Colorado. This week, the staff from Poor Richard’s Books in Colorado Springs recommends an environmental history, a 30-year-old Southern classic and Erik Larson’s take on Fort Sumter.

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From the publisher: A lifelong acolyte of the natural world, Annie Proulx brings her witness and research to the subject of wetlands and the vitally important role they play in preserving the environment—by storing the carbon emissions that accelerate climate change. Fens, bogs, swamps, and marine estuaries are crucial to the earth’s survival, and in four illuminating parts, Proulx documents their systemic destruction in pursuit of profit.

From Jeffery Payne, assistant retail manager: Annie Proulx’s immense gift of creating heart-felt prose is well-known. She has the innate ability to capture the attention of the reader and lead them carefully into a story, encouraging them to lean into the world she so easily shares.

With “Fen, Bog and Swamp,” she conveys the urgency of how we are losing yet another fragile piece of our ecosystem. Proulx shows just how much we are disconnected from our natural surroundings with our thoughtless and smug attitudes towards the land we reside upon. Her wakeup call allows us to see that we are slowly smothering and strangling the very things we need to truly survive.

Where the casual passerby might see a muddy quagmire, Proulx lightly guides us to see how important and vital the soggy and sodden land is.

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From the publisher: Shots rang out in Savannah’s grandest mansion in the misty, early morning hours of May 2, 1981. Was it murder or self-defense? For nearly a decade, the shooting and its aftermath reverberated throughout this hauntingly beautiful city of moss-hung oaks and shaded squares. John Berendt’s sharply observed, suspenseful, and witty narrative reads like a thoroughly engrossing novel, and yet it is a work of nonfiction. Berendt skillfully interweaves a hugely entertaining first-person account of life in this isolated remnant of the Old South with the unpredictable twists and turns of a landmark murder case.

From Jeffery Payne, assistant retail manager: It is a challenge to comprehend that “Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil” is 30 years old. I remember picking up the book on a whim oh-so-many-years-ago – nonfiction really wasn’t my thing back then – and immediately I was hooked. And really, there isn’t anything new I can say about this marvelous book after all this time other than, if one hasn’t read the book, one must.

In honor of the book’s pivotal anniversary, I chose to read it again. A few pages in and I am lulled into a quiet place with the slow, melodic, dulcet tone of the author’s voice. It’s like sitting on the front porch, sipping sweet tea on a hot humid summer southern evening, swatting the flies, and listening to your favorite uncle share stories of his quirky neighborhood. At its heart, “Midnight” is more than the telling of a scandalous event that had the town whispering and gossiping. This seductively written account offers us a rare and candid glimpse into a time that is now lost in Savannah.

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From the publisher: On November 6, 1860, Abraham Lincoln became the fluky victor in a tight race for president. The country was bitterly at odds; Southern extremists were moving ever closer to destroying the Union, with one state after another seceding and Lincoln powerless to stop them. Slavery fueled the conflict, but somehow the passions of North and South came to focus on a lonely federal fortress in Charleston Harbor: Fort Sumter.

Master storyteller Erik Larson offers a gripping account of the chaotic months between Lincoln’s election and the Confederacy’s shelling of Sumter—a period marked by tragic errors and miscommunications, enflamed egos and craven ambitions, personal tragedies and betrayals. Lincoln himself wrote that the trials of these five months were “so great that, could I have anticipated them, I would not have believed it possible to survive them.”

From Jeffery Payne, assistant retail manager: Larson’s skill in weaving several seemingly unrelated events and people into a cohesive and engaging story is outstanding. We witness the author’s uncanny knack of presenting the stories behind the story.

In “The Demons of Unrest” we are shown how the island of Fort Sumter, in Charleston Harbor, played an important and pivotal role in the months leading up to the Civil War.

In true Larson style, the book reads like a suspense novel. He captures a time of growing anxiety and distrust. The presidential election, social upheaval and changing attitudes all add to growing discontent and unease. We are given insight into that time with details into the dynamics of the key players along with much lesser known individuals. A great exciting read for any history buff. 

Type of Story: Review

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