The first presidential debate is tonight at the University of Colorado in Denver at 8:00–9:30 p.m. CT. President Barack Obama and Governor Mitt Romney will debate domestic policy. But Colorado is more important to this election than just the location of the first debate. It’s a swing state with many undecided voters. According to NPR, one-third of the state's voters are Republican, one-third are Democrat and one-third are unaffiliated, and that unaffiliated vote has “…the presidential candidates returning to the state again and again.” In Colorado Politics and Policy: Governing a Purple State by Thomas E. Cronin and Robert D. … Continue reading Colorado: Presidential election hotspot

Today Tom Osborne announced his plan to retire. Effective Jan. 1, 2013, Osborne will become athletic director emeritus. Read more at Huskers.com.  The back-to-back championships in 1994 and 1995 prompted more fans and media to take notice of the football program at the University of Nebraska–Lincoln. For Tom Osborne, then head coach of the Nebraska Cornhuskers, the added scrutiny was at times flattering and at other times problematic.   On Solid Ground, new in paperback this month, Osborne presents not only an accurate portrayal of what happened to the team during those championship seasons but also his personal philosophy of … Continue reading Tom Osborne: Nebraska legend

At Mesa’s Edge by Eugenia Bone

Although Eugenia Bone was perfectly happy with her life as a New York City food writer, she knew that her husband, a transplanted westerner, was filled with a discontent he couldn’t explain. So when he returned from a fishing trip in the Rockies one day and announced that he wanted to buy a forty-five-acre ranch in Crawford, Colorado (population 404), she reluctantly said yes…

Part cookbook, part memoir about a transplanted New Yorker learning to cook, live, and even enjoy herself on a ranch in Colorado.

 

The Life of Glückel Hameln edited by Beth-Zion Abrahams

Glückel of Hameln was a marvel of her time: an accomplished businesswoman as well as the mother of twelve. Devastated by the death of her beloved husband in 1689, she proceeded to write the riveting memoir that would become a timeless classic, revealing much about Jewish life in seventeenth-century Germany…

This volume also features an introduction by translator Beth-Zion Abrahams that provides a fuller background of the author's life and tells how Glückel came to write the memoir that would provide insight for centuries to come into Jewish, European, and women’s history.

 

Continue reading “New in paperback next week!”

Mark Liebenow, author of Mountains of Light: Seasons of Reflection in Yosemite, won First Prize in the 2011 Literal Latte Essay Award for his work titled, “Tinkering with Grief in the Woods.” Below he shares what to do if you only have one day in Yosemite.

Readers have been asking, “If I have one day in Yosemite, what should I do?”  This is what I recommend.

If it’s summer, stand in Leidig Meadow at 5:30 a.m. and watch the stars in the night’s darkness give way to the orange and yellow colors of dawn.  You will see deer and a few coyotes.  As soon as it’s light enough to see the trail, head for the top of Upper Yosemite Fall, pausing at Columbia Rock halfway up to take in the view and to catch your breath.  Arriving at the top two hours after starting off, walk over to the bridge that crosses the creek, look up the river to see what channels the water down, walk to the overlook, notice the Lost Arrow to your left and the Sierra Nevada range along the horizon.  Head back down, arriving on the valley floor around 10:00 a.m.

Continue reading “From the desk of Mark Liebenow”

This afternoon, author Eric Goodman will be on Write the Book on 105.9 FM WOMM-LP in Vermont. You can stream the interview live or hear the podcast afterward here. Goodman is the author of Twelfth and Race, a story of an interracial relationship, set against the backdrop of race riots in a midwestern City. Continue reading Write the Book interview