Staff Favorites
Danica Ramgoolam
Part owner of Townie Books and Rumors, Danica is a native of Crested Butte and enjoys books with a lot of heart and spirit. She searches for stories about real life and often is drawn to books with sad endings.
Part owner of Townie Books and Rumors, Danica is a native of Crested Butte and enjoys books with a lot of heart and spirit. She searches for stories about real life and often is drawn to books with sad endings.
A Tale for the Time Being - Ruth Ozeki (hardcover)
A brilliant, unforgettable, and long-awaited novel from bestselling author Ruth Ozeki
“Atime being is someone who lives in time, and that means you, and me, and every one of us who is, or was, or ever will be.”
I loved this book!!!! So different from anything I have read before, aside from maybe Murakami, but this one had a lot of heart and a good amount of surrealism that drew me in. I would reccommend this to anyone looking for something different than the usual fiction.
“Atime being is someone who lives in time, and that means you, and me, and every one of us who is, or was, or ever will be.”
I loved this book!!!! So different from anything I have read before, aside from maybe Murakami, but this one had a lot of heart and a good amount of surrealism that drew me in. I would reccommend this to anyone looking for something different than the usual fiction.
$
28.95
Kind of Kin - By Rilla Askew (hardcover)
A richly comic yet heartfelt novel about people who want to do right and still do wrong, and people who do right in spite of themselves, as they try to help, protect, and provide for those they love most when a draconian new state law threatens an ordinary American family and throws a close-knit community into turmoil.
I loved the main character, Sweet, as she struggles to keep her family together in these trying times. This book brought to light a lot of moral, political and spiritual questions as it tackles the topic of illegal immigration and how new laws may affect tight nit communities and families. Askew has a message but she doesn't beat us over the head with it, she let's us decide for ourselves.
I loved the main character, Sweet, as she struggles to keep her family together in these trying times. This book brought to light a lot of moral, political and spiritual questions as it tackles the topic of illegal immigration and how new laws may affect tight nit communities and families. Askew has a message but she doesn't beat us over the head with it, she let's us decide for ourselves.
$
27.99
Dog Loves Books - Louise Yates (hardcover)
All of us a Townie Books LOVE THIS BOOK!!! It is a cute story of a dog who loves books so he opens a book store. At first he has no customers but then he shares the magic of books with one little girl and it all becomes worth while. Great for children, parents, book lovers and dog lovers!
$
16.99
The Art of Hearing Heartbeats - By Jan-Phillip Sendker (paperback)
This is my new favorite book. It is the story of a Burmese American who's father disappears and she goes searching for him on a journey that she doesn't expect. Through the story of his childhood and the lost love of his life she discovers that she never really knew him and rediscovers her faith in true love. I was deeply touched by this novel to the point that I missed the characters after I was finished. I would recommend this book to everyone.....It is truly one of the best books I have ever read......It is worth owning.
$
14.95
The Shoemaker's Wife - By Adriana Trigiani (paperback)
This is a beautifully written historical novel that follows two young Italians from their home in a small village in the Alps to New York City in the early 1900's. The author paints the picture of these two locales with masterful pros and the story is a heart-wrenching love saga. Couldn't put it down!
$
16.00
Out of the Easy - By Ruta Septeys (hardcover)
It’s 1950, and as the French Quarter of New Orleans simmers with secrets, seventeen-year-old Josie Moraine is silently stirring a pot of her own. Known among locals as the daughter of a brothel prostitute, Josie wants more out of life than the Big Easy has to offer.
I loved the main character of this book and really enjoyed seeing her come into her own and figure out how to make a better life for herself. A great book for young adults with some mature themes while remaining age appropriate. Great for adults too!
Ages 14 and up
I loved the main character of this book and really enjoyed seeing her come into her own and figure out how to make a better life for herself. A great book for young adults with some mature themes while remaining age appropriate. Great for adults too!
Ages 14 and up
$
16.99
A Friend of the Earth - by T.C. Boyle (paperback)
Mordantly funny and inventive, this take-no-prisoners novel revolves around a few of Boyle's favorite themes: obsessive hygiene, compulsive consumerism, uneasiness in the natural world and fear of technology. As the Vonnegutishly named Tyrone "Ty" O'Shaughnessy Tierwater reminds readers, "to be a friend of the earth you have to be an enemy of the people." In the year 2025, Ty is 75, by contemporary standards a young-old man, and zookeeper for a private menagerie in Santa Ynez, Calif. Most mammals are extinct, and the environment as 20th-century humans knew it is destroyed. Besieged by floods, drought and Force 8 winds, people tramp through pestilential mud, eat farm-grown catfish and drink rice wine. In flashbacks from the frenetic 21st-century sections to Ty's past as a rabid environmentalist in the late '80s and early '90s, Boyle choreographs a syncopated dance, riffing on the mores and manias of environmental crusaders. To prove a point in their early campaign, Ty and wife Andrea spend 30 days naked and unprovisioned in the wilderness, emerging triumphant. But otherwise, Ty is subjected to a lifelong series of humiliations, and his forthrightness about them makes him sympathetic, while eco-warriors in general are skewered as relentlessly as the bulldozer-driven corporations. A bad time is had by all, most notably by Ty's daughter, the tree-sitting Sierra, who, unlike Julia Butterfly Hill (the real-life tree-sitter who surely influenced Boyle), does not descend from her perch to publishing contracts and public radio interviews. Boyle (The Tortilla Curtain) allows for a hint of redemption in the end, but his depiction of the cruel fate of humankindAthe fate of monkey wrenchers, lumber companies, the not-quite-engaged and the engaged, too is as unflinching as it is satirical.
$
16.00
A Teaspoon of Earth and Sea - By Dina Nyeri (hardcover)
A magical novel about a young Iranian woman lifted from grief by her powerful imagination and love of Western culture.
What made A Teaspoon of Earth and Sea amazing was it's depiction of the relationship of sisters and the eternal connection they share across oceans as well as death. The main character, Saba, loves American music and culture and imagines her sister who disappeared when they were children as living a life in the U.S. Set during the Iranian Revolution in the 1980's this novel is full of history but mostly full of heart.
What made A Teaspoon of Earth and Sea amazing was it's depiction of the relationship of sisters and the eternal connection they share across oceans as well as death. The main character, Saba, loves American music and culture and imagines her sister who disappeared when they were children as living a life in the U.S. Set during the Iranian Revolution in the 1980's this novel is full of history but mostly full of heart.
$
26.99
How to Get Filthy Rich in Rising Asia - By Mohsin Hamid (hardcover)
The astonishing and riveting tale of a man’s journey from impoverished rural boy to corporate tycoon, it steals its shape from the business self-help books devoured by ambitious youths all over “rising Asia.” It follows its nameless hero to the sprawling metropolis where he begins to amass an empire built on that most fluid, and increasingly scarce, of goods: water. Yet his heart remains set on something else, on the pretty girl whose star rises along with his, their paths crossing and recrossing, a lifelong affair sparked and snuffed and sparked again by the forces that careen their fates along.
A different sort of read as it is written in 2nd person present tense and astonishes us at how a character can be so deeply felt without even knowing his name. Loved the uniqueness of this novel and would love to read more of this author.
A different sort of read as it is written in 2nd person present tense and astonishes us at how a character can be so deeply felt without even knowing his name. Loved the uniqueness of this novel and would love to read more of this author.
$
26.00
Currently Reading
The Son - Philipp Meyer (hardcover)
The acclaimed author of American Rust, returns with The Son: an epic, multigenerational saga of power, blood, and land that follows the rise of one unforgettable Texas family from the Comanche raids of the 1800s to the border raids of the early 1900s to the oil booms of the 20th century.
"A gifted new writer-a writer who understands how place and personality and circumstance can converge to create the perfect storm of tragedy."-Michiko Kakutani, New York Times
Part epic of Texas, part classic coming-of-age story, part unflinching portrait of the bloody price of power, The Son is an utterly transporting novel that maps the legacy of violence in the American West through the lives of the McCulloughs, an ambitious family as resilient and dangerous as the land they claim.
Released May 28th
"A gifted new writer-a writer who understands how place and personality and circumstance can converge to create the perfect storm of tragedy."-Michiko Kakutani, New York Times
Part epic of Texas, part classic coming-of-age story, part unflinching portrait of the bloody price of power, The Son is an utterly transporting novel that maps the legacy of violence in the American West through the lives of the McCulloughs, an ambitious family as resilient and dangerous as the land they claim.
Released May 28th
$
27.99
Arvin Ramgoolam
Part owner of Townie Books and Rumors, Arvin enjoys the classics as well as books of poetry and coming of age stories involving music and pop-culture.
Part owner of Townie Books and Rumors, Arvin enjoys the classics as well as books of poetry and coming of age stories involving music and pop-culture.
The Brief and Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao - by Junot Diaz (paperback)
Oscar is a sweet but disastrously overweight ghetto nerd who--from the New Jersey home he shares with his old world mother and rebellious sister-- dreams of becoming the Dominican J.R.R. Tolkien and, most of all, finding love. But Oscar may never get what he wants. Blame the fukú--a curse that has haunted Oscar's family for generations, following them on their epic journey from Santo Domingo to the USA. Encapsulating Dominican-American history, The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao opens our eyes to an astonishing vision of the contemporary American experience and explores the endless human capacity to persevere--and risk it all--in the name of love. The humor of this book along with harsh truths made this novel a significant book to be paid attention to.
$
15.00
The Outlaw Bible of American Poetry (paperback)
The Beat sensibility is alive and ranting in this bulky, multigenerational anthology of work by those who follow the off-road literary paths of Whitman and Ginsberg. Id-driven, political, and sexually explicit, these poems speak in the vernacular of the street, touting oppositional art as a weapon against poverty, corporate capitalism, discrimination, and violence. The roster of poets has to be among the strangest gathered in one volume; progenitors like Kerouac, Baraka, diPrima, etc., are interleaved with youthful urban slammers and complemented by the likes of Tupac Shakur, Tom Waits, Richard Pryor, Karen Finley, Janis Joplin, Che Guevara, James Dean, and other pop icons. The spirit of the whole affair might best be summarized by Pedro Pietri's "Telephone booth number 542": "the only way/ i know how/ to wash dishes/ is by smashing them/ against the wall!" Though this collection holds some historical and documentary interest and a few harrowing moments courtesy of Sapphire and Gerry Gomez Pearlberg, many poems are by turns obvious, self-important, tedious, and indulgent--just like Open Mic Night down at the local tavern.
$
24.95
The Sun Also Rises - by Ernest Hemingway (paperback)
The Sun Also Rises first appeared in 1926, and yet it's as fresh and clean and fine as it ever was, maybe finer. Hemingway's famously plain declarative sentences linger in the mind like poetry: "Brett was damned good-looking. She wore a slipover jersey sweater and a tweed skirt, and her hair was brushed back like a boy's. She started all that." His cast of thirtysomething dissolute expatriates--Brett and her drunken fiancé, Mike Campbell, the unhappy Princeton Jewish boxer Robert Cohn, the sardonic novelist Bill Gorton--are as familiar as the "cool crowd" we all once knew. No wonder this quintessential lost-generation novel has inspired several generations of imitators, in style as well as lifestyle.
$
15.00
Love is a Mix Tape - by Rob Sheffield (paperback)
Music critic Sheffield's touching and poignant memoir of love and death will strike a chord in anyone who has used a hand-selected set of songs to try to express something that can't be put into words. A socially awkward adolescent, Sheffield finds true love as a college student in the late '80s with Renée, a "hell-raising Appalachian punk-rock girl." They're brought together by their love of music, get married and spend eight years together before Renée suddenly dies of a pulmonary embolism. Sheffield's delivery is not that of the typical actor/ reader. We come to know Rob as this geeky, lanky guy, and his reading is characteristically a little bit uncoordinated, yet it is tender and heartfelt enough to win us over. Each chapter opens with a song list from a mix tape made at the time. Listeners may wish that, as with Nick Hornby's essay collection Songbook, there had been an audio component that would allow the music to take us back or would introduce us to new songs that helped Sheffield press on into an uncertain but hopeful future.
$
13.00
We the Animals - By Justin Torres (paperback)
An exquisite, blistering debut novel.
Three brothers tear their way through childhood—smashing tomatoes all over each other, building kites from trash, hiding out when their parents do battle, tiptoeing around the house as their mother sleeps off her graveyard shift. Paps and Ma are from Brooklyn—he’s Puerto Rican, she’s white—and their love is a serious, dangerous thing that makes and unmakes a family many times.
Three brothers tear their way through childhood—smashing tomatoes all over each other, building kites from trash, hiding out when their parents do battle, tiptoeing around the house as their mother sleeps off her graveyard shift. Paps and Ma are from Brooklyn—he’s Puerto Rican, she’s white—and their love is a serious, dangerous thing that makes and unmakes a family many times.
$
12.00
My Life in Heavy Metal - By Steve Almond (paperback)
Steve Almond's collection My Life in Heavy Metal features twelve powerful stories that take a clear-eyed view of relationships between young men and women who have come of age in an era without innocence. In the title story, an El Paso newspaper clerk assigned to review the heavy metal bands that play the local arenas is drawn in by the primal music, which fuels a torrid affair with a Chicana woman that will change him forever. In "Geek Player, Love Slayer," a thirty-three-year-old woman harbors a secret, desperate crush on the young computer repairman in her office — until her ardor is unleashed at an after-work party, with unexpected consequences. In "Valentino," two teenagers spending their last summer together before heading off to college experience a sexual awakening inspired by the legend of a long-dead movie star. By turns tender and raw, visceral and otherworldly, the stories of My Life in Heavy Metal capture the moments when the fires of passion burn over and subside into embers of pain and longing. It is a dazzling debut by an exciting and vibrant new voice in American fiction.
$
12.00
Everything Bad is Good for You - By Steven Johnson (paperback)
Forget everything you've read about the age of dumbed-down, instant-gratification culture. In this provocative, intelligent, and convincing endorsement of today's mass entertainment, national bestselling author Steven Johnson argues that the pop culture we soak in every day-fromThe Lord of the Rings to Grand Theft Auto to The Simpsons-has been growing more and more sophisticated and, far from rotting our brains, is actually posing new cognitive challenges that are making our minds measurably sharper. You will never regard the glow of the video game or television screen the same way again
$
15.00
Sutton - By J.R. Moehringer (paperback)
Willie Sutton was born in the squalid Irish slums of Brooklyn, in the first year of the twentieth century, and came of age at a time when banks were out of control. If they weren't failing outright, causing countless Americans to lose their jobs and homes, they were being propped up with emergency bailouts. Trapped in a cycle of panics, depressions and soaring unemployment, Sutton saw only one way out, only one way to win the girl of his dreams.
$
16.99
Currently Reading
Unchangeable Spots of Leopards - By Kristopher Jansma (hardcover)
An inventive and witty debut about a young man’s quest to become a writer and the misadventures in life and love that take him around the globe
$
26.99
Nichole Reycraft
Manager of Townie Books, Nichole is a native of Crested Butte who enjoys historical fiction, humor and classic literature.
Manager of Townie Books, Nichole is a native of Crested Butte who enjoys historical fiction, humor and classic literature.
The Sisters Brothers- By Patrick DeWitt (paperback)
Hermann Kermit Warm is going to die. The enigmatic and powerful man known only as the Commodore has ordered it, and his henchmen, Eli and Charlie Sisters, will make sure of it. Though Eli doesn't share his brother's appetite for whiskey and killing, he's never known anything else. But their prey isn't an easy mark, and on the road from Oregon City to Warm's gold-mining claim outside Sacramento, Eli begins to question what he does for a living - and whom he does it for.
Filled with a remarkable cast of characters - losers, cheaters, and ne'er-do-wells from all stripes of life - and told by a complex and compelling narrator, it is a violent, lustful odyssey through the underworld of the 1850s frontier that beautifully captures the humor, melancholy, and grit of the Old West and two brothers bound by blood, violence, and love.
Filled with a remarkable cast of characters - losers, cheaters, and ne'er-do-wells from all stripes of life - and told by a complex and compelling narrator, it is a violent, lustful odyssey through the underworld of the 1850s frontier that beautifully captures the humor, melancholy, and grit of the Old West and two brothers bound by blood, violence, and love.
$
16.00
The Enchanted Life of Adam Hope - By Rhonda Riley (paperback)
During WWII, teenager Evelyn Roe is sent to manage the family farm in rural North Carolina, where she finds what she takes to be a badly burned soldier on their property. She rescues him, and it quickly becomes clear he is not a man...and not one of us. The rescued body recovers at an unnatural speed, and just as fast, Evelyn and Adam fall deeply in love.
The Enchanted Life of Adam Hope is an unconventional and passionately romantic love story that is as breathtaking and wondrous as The Time Traveler's Wife and The Story of Edgar Sawtelle.
Released April 28th
The Enchanted Life of Adam Hope is an unconventional and passionately romantic love story that is as breathtaking and wondrous as The Time Traveler's Wife and The Story of Edgar Sawtelle.
Released April 28th
$
15.99
Lamb - By Christopher Moore (paperback)
While the Bible may be the word of God, transcribed by divinely inspired men, it does not provide a full (or even partial) account of the life of Jesus Christ. Lucky for us that Christopher Moore presents a funny, lighthearted satire of the life of Christ--from his childhood days up to his crucifixion--in Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ's Childhood Pal. This clever novel is surely blasphemy to some, but to others it's a coming-of-age story of the highest order
$
14.99
Night Circus - Erin Morgenstern (paperback)
The circus arrives without warning. No announcements precede it. It is simply there, when yesterday it was not. Within the black-and-white striped canvas tents is an utterly unique experience full of breathtaking amazements. It is called "Le Cirque des Reves," and it is only open at night.
But behind the scenes, a fierce competition is underway: a duel between two young magicians, Celia and Marco, who have been trained since childhood expressly for this purpose by their mercurial instructors. Unbeknownst to them both, this is a game in which only one can be left standing. Despite the high stakes, Celia and Marco soon tumble headfirst into love, setting off a domino effect of dangerous consequences, and leaving the lives of everyone, from the performers to the patrons, hanging in the balance.
But behind the scenes, a fierce competition is underway: a duel between two young magicians, Celia and Marco, who have been trained since childhood expressly for this purpose by their mercurial instructors. Unbeknownst to them both, this is a game in which only one can be left standing. Despite the high stakes, Celia and Marco soon tumble headfirst into love, setting off a domino effect of dangerous consequences, and leaving the lives of everyone, from the performers to the patrons, hanging in the balance.
$
15.00
The Promise of Stardust- By Priscille Sibley (paperback)
Filled with grace, sensitivity and compassion, The Promise of Stardust is an emotionally resonant and thought-provoking tale that raises profound questions about life and death, faith and medicine, and illuminates the power of love to divide and heal a family in the wake of unexpected tragedy
$
15.99
The Dovekeepers- By Alice Hoffman (paperback)
Blends mythology, magic, archaeology and women. Traces four women, their path to the Masada massacre. In 70 CE, nine hundred Jews held out for months against armies of Romans on a mountain in the Judean desert, Masada. According to the ancient historian Josephus, two women and five children survived.
The four womens' lives intersect in the desperate days of the siege, as the Romans draw near. All are dovekeepers, and all are also keeping secrets — about who they are, where they come from, who fathered them, and whom they love.
The four womens' lives intersect in the desperate days of the siege, as the Romans draw near. All are dovekeepers, and all are also keeping secrets — about who they are, where they come from, who fathered them, and whom they love.
$
16.00
The Swerve- By Stephan Greenblatt (paperback)
Nearly six hundred years ago, a short, genial, cannily alert man in his late thirties took a very old manuscript off a library shelf, saw with excitement what he had discovered, and ordered that it be copied. That book was the last surviving manuscript of an ancient Roman philosophical epic, On the Nature of Things, by Lucretius—a beautiful poem of the most dangerous ideas: that the universe functioned without the aid of gods, that religious fear was damaging to human life, and that matter was made up of very small particles in eternal motion, colliding and swerving in new directions.
The copying and translation of this ancient book—the greatest discovery of the greatest book-hunter of his age—fueled the Renaissance, inspiring artists such as Botticelli and thinkers such as Giordano Bruno; shaped the thought of Galileo and Freud, Darwin and Einstein; and had a revolutionary influence on writers such as Montaigne and Shakespeare and even Thomas Jefferson.
The copying and translation of this ancient book—the greatest discovery of the greatest book-hunter of his age—fueled the Renaissance, inspiring artists such as Botticelli and thinkers such as Giordano Bruno; shaped the thought of Galileo and Freud, Darwin and Einstein; and had a revolutionary influence on writers such as Montaigne and Shakespeare and even Thomas Jefferson.
$
13.50
A Long Way Gone - By Ishmael Beah (paperback)
This is how wars are fought now: by children, hopped-up on drugs and wielding AK-47s. Children have become soldiers of choice. In the more than fifty conflicts going on worldwide, it is estimated that there are some 300,000 child soldiers. Ishmael Beah used to be one of them.
What is war like through the eyes of a child soldier? How does one become a killer? How does one stop? Child soldiers have been profiled by journalists, and novelists have struggled to imagine their lives. But until now, there has not been a first-person account from someone who came through this hell and survived.
In A Long Way Gone, Beah, now twenty-five years old, tells a riveting story: how at the age of twelve, he fled attacking rebels and wandered a land rendered unrecognizable by violence. By thirteen, he'd been picked up by the government army, and Beah, at heart a gentle boy, found that he was capable of truly terrible acts. This is a rare and mesmerizing account, told with real literary force and heartbreaking honesty.
What is war like through the eyes of a child soldier? How does one become a killer? How does one stop? Child soldiers have been profiled by journalists, and novelists have struggled to imagine their lives. But until now, there has not been a first-person account from someone who came through this hell and survived.
In A Long Way Gone, Beah, now twenty-five years old, tells a riveting story: how at the age of twelve, he fled attacking rebels and wandered a land rendered unrecognizable by violence. By thirteen, he'd been picked up by the government army, and Beah, at heart a gentle boy, found that he was capable of truly terrible acts. This is a rare and mesmerizing account, told with real literary force and heartbreaking honesty.
$
12.00
House of Rain - By Craig Childs (paperback)
In Craig Child's breathtaking account, House of Rain, the reader travels through the world of the Anasazi from Chaco Canyon to Mexico unraveling the mystery of an entire extinction of the desert people. The many controversial theories of what could have possibly happened to such a peaceful tribe are explained in thorough, riveting detail. The book includes compelling facts about the culture and lifestyle of the Anasazi that aren't well known to society today.
$
14.99
Currently Reading
Lady and Her Monsters - By Roseanne Montillo (hardcover)
The macabre meets art in this startling blend of grotesque nineteenth-century science and fascinating literary creation that examines the actual Victor Frankenstein's and the real-life horrors behind Mary Shelley's Gothic masterpiece, Frankenstein
A highly entertaining blend of literary analysis, lore, and scientific history, told with the verve and ghoulish fun of a Tim Burton film, The Lady and Her Monsters traces the origins of the greatest horror story of all time-Mary Shelley's Frankenstein-using the novel as a centerpiece from which to explore the frightful milieu in which it was written. Roseanne Montillo recounts how Shelley's Victor Frankenstein mirrored actual scientists of the period-curious and daring iconoclasts, influenced by their predecessors in the scientific age, who were obsessed with the inner workings of the human body and how it could be reanimated after death.
A highly entertaining blend of literary analysis, lore, and scientific history, told with the verve and ghoulish fun of a Tim Burton film, The Lady and Her Monsters traces the origins of the greatest horror story of all time-Mary Shelley's Frankenstein-using the novel as a centerpiece from which to explore the frightful milieu in which it was written. Roseanne Montillo recounts how Shelley's Victor Frankenstein mirrored actual scientists of the period-curious and daring iconoclasts, influenced by their predecessors in the scientific age, who were obsessed with the inner workings of the human body and how it could be reanimated after death.
$
26.99
