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 Explore Booksellers in Aspen recommends an Irish tale, an examination of economic growth and a bear’s story.
The Colony
By Audrey MageePicador$19June 2023Purchase
From the publisher: It is the summer of 1979. An English painter travels to a small island off the west coast of Ireland. He wants the authentic experience, to be changed by this place, to let its quiet and light fill him. He doesn’t know that a Frenchman follows close behind. Jean-Pierre Masson has visited the island for many years, studying the language of those who make it their home, fiercely protective of their isolation.
But the people who live on this rock have their own views on what is being recorded, what is being taken, and what ought to be given in return. Over the summer, each of them will wrestle with their values and desires. Meanwhile, all over Ireland, violence is erupting. And there is blame enough to go around.
An expertly woven portrait of character and place and an unflinching critique of the long cost of imperialism, Audrey Magee’s “The Colony” is a novel that transports, that celebrates beauty and connection, and that reckons with the inevitable ruptures of independence.
From Mo Kirk, membership coordinator: As a tiny society on a small Irish island is mythologized and taken from, Magee changes points of view and language seamlessly, the old Gaelic always woven through. The allegory is strong with this one but beautifully woven. It was a mesmerizing read for me and a book I’ll return to.
Growth: A Reckoning and a History
By Daniel SusskindBelknap Press$29.95April 2024Purchase
From the publisher: Over the past two centuries, economic growth has freed billions from the struggle for subsistence and made our lives far healthier and longer. Yet prosperity has come at a price: environmental destruction, desolation of local cultures, the rise of vast inequalities and destabilizing technologies. Faced with such damage, many now claim that the only way forward is through “degrowth,” deliberately shrinking our economic footprint. But to abandon humanity’s progress would be folly. Instead, Daniel Susskind argues, we must keep growth but redirect it, making it better reflect what we truly value.
In a sweeping analysis full of historical insight, Susskind shows how policymaking came to revolve around a single-minded quest for greater GDP. This is a surprisingly recent development: economic growth was barely discussed until the second half of the twentieth century. And our understanding of what drives it is more recent still. Only lately have we come to see how humankind emerged from its millennia of stagnation: through the sustained discovery of powerful and productive new ideas.
From Krista Vendetti, staff: In his thorough yet accessible account, Susskind explores the evolution of economic growth — how it took humanity out of centuries of subsistence and stagnation to dizzying heights of progress in a relatively short span of time. Somewhere along the way, Susskind argues, our pursuit of growth became not just a means to valuable societal ends, but the end itself — incurring a myriad of environmental, social, and political costs. With perhaps just the right amount of naivete, Susskind paints a picture of a future in which we as a society clear-headedly and creatively engage with the growth dilemma and find a way to pursue economic growth for the betterment of humanity while establishing guardrails that keep the train safely on the track.
Pearly Everlasting
By Tammy ArmstrongHarper$28.99October 2024Purchase
From the publisher: New Brunswick, 1934. When a cook in a logging camp finds an orphaned baby bear, he brings it home to his wife, who names the cub Bruno and raises him alongside her newborn daughter, Pearly. Growing up, Pearly and Bruno share a special bond and become inseparable. While life in the camp can be perilous—loggers are regularly injured or even killed—the Everlasting family form a close-knit community with the woodsmen, who accept and embrace the tame young bear.
But all that changes when a new supervisor arrives, a ruthless profiteer who pushes the workers to their breaking point and abuses Bruno. When the man is found dead in a ditch, the blame falls on the bear; soon after, Bruno is kidnapped and sold to an animal trader. Determined to rescue the only brother she has ever known, Pearly, now a teenager, sets off alone on a hazardous journey through the forest—her first trip to “the Outside”—to find him. In the harrowing quest to bring him home through miles of ice and snow, eluding malevolent spirits and the cruelty of strange villagers, she will discover new worlds and a strength she never knew she possessed.
From Clare Pearson, book buyer: It’s obvious that this book was written by a poet. This lyrical story recalled the myths and fairytales that I loved reading as a child while offering a rewarding and engrossing hero’s journey like no other.
THIS WEEK’S BOOK RECS COME FROM:
Explore Booksellers
221 E. Main St., Aspen
(970) 925-5336
explorebooksellers.com
Twitter Instagram FacebookAs part of The Colorado Sun’s literature section — SunLit — we’re featuring staff picks from book stores across the state. Read more.
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