Happy Colorado Sunday, friends.
Is it June already? It seems like it was just April and I was planning a vacation by (very belatedly) committing to read a shamefully low number of books (I read all day at work, people!) for the Goodreads 2024 Reading Challenge. I’m terrible at recordkeeping, so I’ll never know whether I actually met my goal. But I do the exercise because it offers me a look at other people’s reading lists and shifts my gaze to authors and subject matter I have not considered before.
I could have waited for this week’s cover story. The 20 book recommendations assembled by SunLit editor Kevin Simpson have changed my want-to-read list all over again.
Senior Editor
The Cover Story
When it comes to recommending great reads, we try to cover all the bases
Suggesting books to friends can be tricky business. You want to share something that you found interesting or enjoyable or both, but there’s no telling how well that will translate to their own personal tastes. You may get an enthusiastic response. You may get a disappointingly half-hearted, “Oh yeah, I’ll have to check that out some day.”
You’ve probably received — and given — both responses. So when those of us at the home office of SunLit decided that each year we’d offer suggestions for holiday gift books and, now, great summer reads, we decided to cast a wide net. First, we gathered 10 of Colorado’s celebrated authors — every one of them a finalist for the 2024 Colorado Book Awards. Then we asked them to put forward two favorites from their chosen genre — 20 in all.
And that’s what we’re presenting on this first Sunday in June, in that sweet spot between summer’s unofficial Memorial Day weekend arrival and its actual arrival, to get you in the mood for anything from a warm, romantic beach read to a psychological thriller in the chill of your A/C. These authors graciously point you toward fiction, nonfiction, historical fiction, fantasy, biography — you get the idea.
There’s something here to pique the interest of almost any literary taste. And if for some reason you don’t find it here, take a look back at our holiday guide for even more ideas from a different set of Colorado’s award-winning authors. Pick as many as you like. Enjoy all you want. It’s an all-you-can-read buffet.
READ THIS WEEK’S COLORADO SUNDAY FEATURE
Section by Kevin Simpson | Writer
The Colorado Lens
From the plains to the mountains, there are paths to walk in Colorado, personally and professionally. Sun photojournalists follow along, catching incredible moments in time, whether high or low, for us to ponder. Here are a few of our recent favorites:
Section by Hugh Carey | Photographer
Flavor of the Week
Where have all the flowers gone?
Were you one of the 4,444 people stopping by Colorado State University last Sunday to witness the beauty of Cosmo, a corpse flower said to smell like rotting flesh when it blooms? Me neither.
Seeing images of people standing in line for more than an hour for the chance to peek — only for a moment — at something rare and unusual made me think about other places in Colorado where you can spend an hour and get a little horticultural rush. Here are three not far at all from where Cosmo made its brief appearance:
Colorado State University Annual Flower Trial Garden: Located at the corner of College Avenue and Lake Street in Fort Collins, this large formal garden planted around a white pergola is where Plant Select varieties of bedding plants are tested for vigor while offering a lovely, free stroll.
Always open. Find details at flowertrials.coloradostate.edu and a list of other public Plant Select test gardens statewide at plantselect.org
The Gardens on Spring Creek: Gardening can be a critical element of environmental stewardship, and the concept is fully explored on 12 acres of gardens cultivated just south of the CSU campus by Friends of the Gardens on Spring Creek and the city of Fort Collins. Start with the Welcome Garden, stuffed with more than 200 plant, tree and shrub species and designed to hint at each of the dazzling speciality gardens that await beyond.
Free. Open 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. daily. Details at focogov.com/gardens
High Plains Environmental Center: Tucked into a subdivision at the edge of Houts Reservoir and Equalizer Lake in Loveland, this is a native plant nursery and nature trail with interesting demonstration gardens that capitalize on its location at the point where the prairie meets wetlands. The Medicine Wheel Garden is especially interesting, featuring native plants Plains tribes used for food, medicine and ceremony.
Free. Open daily dawn to dusk. Find maps and details at suburbitat.org
Section by Dana Coffield | Senior Editor
SunLit: Sneak Peek
“Children of the Storm” began their day in the deceptive warmth of a Colorado spring
EXCERPT: Twenty children would be stranded in their school bus for 33 hours during a sudden, massive snowstorm on Colorado’s Eastern Plains near the Kansas border. But in this excerpt, we’re introduced to unsuspecting individuals who awoke that morning to weather that carried the promise of springtime. Co-authors Ariana Harner and Clark Secrest spoke with survivors of the tragedy and, with “Children of the Storm,” offered a course correction for a narrative that was long distorted by media hype and other agendas. First published in 2001, this re-release celebrated the 40th anniversary of Colorado’s Fulcrum Publishing.
THE SUNLIT INTERVIEW: Both Harner and Secrest, who worked with what then was called the Colorado Historical Society, felt they needed to tell the story of survivors who were just kids at the time of the tragedy — and whose perspectives were largely ignored as the narrative gained national attention. Here’s a slice of the Q&A with Harner:
SunLit: Tell us about creating this book. What influences and/or experiences informed the project before you sat down to write?
Harner: We felt very strongly that the story belongs to the people who experienced it. As children, they were not asked about their experiences or encouraged to share their unique perspectives. They were treated as objects upon which others laid their own agendas — which, of course, forms the second half of the book.
We saw our job as finding all the available facts and perspectives and shining a spotlight where it belongs: on the survivors.
READ THE INTERVIEW WITH CO-AUTHOR ARIANA HARNER
Section by Kevin Simpson | Writer
Sunday Reading List
A curated list of what you may have missed from The Colorado Sun this week.
🌞 The heavy weather season has arrived in Colorado in the worst way, announcing its arrival with roiling skies dropping dangerous hail and deadly lightning. After reporting on a horrible storm that killed a Grand County rancher and at least 32 cows and calves with a single lightning strike, Jennifer Brown learned that Colorado records an outsized number of lightning deaths and found out how to stay safe in a storm.
🌞 Your primary ballots should be showing up anytime now (watch for a story launching Monday morning). Our politics team has been reporting on where candidates stand on key issues in key races. Along the way, Jesse Paul and Sandra Fish looked hard at the intention behind a Democratic group’s big spending to prop up an election denier in the 3rd Congressional District GOP primary.
🌞 People behind a move to change the way Coloradans are elected haven’t even started collecting signatures for their proposed ballot measure. Still, lawmakers worried about the implications of switching to ranked choice voting slipped some rules into a bill late in the session that makes it unlikely that the new system could take effect if it is OK’d by voters. Yeah, it’s confusing. But as Jesse Paul reports, it’s also an important story about power, influence and political pressure.
🌞 Very little snowpack remains high in the southwestern Colorado mountains because of a large, quick and unusual melt back in April, Shannon Mullane reports. And even though the conditions worsened last week, irrigators aren’t too worried because there still is plenty of water in reservoirs.
🌞 Kids who age out of foster care without being adopted or returning to their families experience a higher rate of homelessness than their peers. Colorado hopes to change that trend with a program that will cover the rent for 100 former foster kids each year. Jennifer Brown explains how it will work.
🌞 It takes an army of volunteers and an extraordinary amount of work, but the cremains of some veterans abandoned at Colorado funeral homes are finally getting burials with military honors. Kevin Simpson caught up with the people looking for survivors and stepping up when none are found.
Section by Dana Coffield | Senior Editor
Thanks for checking in today. We are grateful that you continue to trust us as a source for news in Colorado, particularly as we jump right into the deep end of the political season.
We believe trustworthy journalism is crucial to a healthy democracy, and that’s why we’ve launched a Democracy Days fundraising campaign for The Sun, hoping to raise $30,000 by June 26. We’re nearly halfway to that goal. If you’re one of the readers who has already contributed, thank you for supporting our mission. If you haven’t yet chipped in, you can make a tax-deductible donation of any size at coloradosun.com/donate.
With your help, we’ll be back here again next Colorado Sunday.
— Dana & the whole staff of The Sun
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