Colorado Parks & Wildlife Research Library

In this story for both children and adults, kindergartner Gracie decides to find out just what beer is and why her father likes it so much. Along the way she discovers more than she probably expected.

Harry Arno was grossing six to seven thousand dollars a week running a South Miami Beach gambling operation. To protect his position, he was forced to cut a deal with the local muscle, Jimmy Capotorto (Jimmy Cap to the likes of Harry), an even fifty-fifty split. For years Harry had been padding his own stake by skimming a grand a week off the top. A couple of local detectives wise to sticky fingers try to bag Jimmy the Cap by putting the squeeze on...

"Sarah is the story of the prodigal son recast in the carnivalesque world of the highway truck stop and its environs. The narrator, an androgynous twelve year old boy, idolizes his mother Sarah, a 'lot lizard,' or truck-stop whore. He leaves the safety of the lot-a perversely idyllic kingdom ruled by Gladening Grateful Etc., a benevolent pimp who sent one of his boys to chef's school to cook gourmet meals at the truckstop diner-on a quest to become...

"Mister Monkey--a screwball children's musical about a playfully larcenous pet chimpanzee--is the kind of family favorite that survives far past its prime. Margot, who plays the chimp's lawyer, knows the production is dreadful and bemoans the failure of her acting career. She's settled into the drudgery of playing a humiliating part--until the day she receives a mysterious letter from an anonymous admirer, and later, in the middle of a performance,...

Matt Prior is losing his job, his wife, and his house, and he's about to lose his mind--until he discovers a way that he might possibly be able to save it all: a Web site devoted to financial journalism in the form of blank verse.

Jen Beagins funny, moving, fearless debut novel introduces an unforgettable character, Monaalmost 24, cleaning houses to get by, emotionally adrift. Handing out clean needles to drug addicts, she falls for a recipient who proceeds to break her heart in unimaginable ways. She decamps to Taos, New Mexico, for a fresh start, where she finds a community of seekers and cast-offs. But they all have one or two things to teach herthe pajama-wearing, blissed-out...

"In December 1992, three groups of teenagers head to the theater to see the movie version of the famed Eons & Empires comic books. For Adam it's a last ditch effort to connect with something (actually, someone, the girl he's had a crush on for years) in his sleepy Florida town before he leaves for good. Passionate fan Sharon skips school in Cincinnati so she can fully appreciate the flick without interruption from her vapid almost-friends a seemingly...

"Mona is twenty-six and cleans houses for a living in Taos, New Mexico. She moved there mostly because of a bad boyfriend—a junkie named Mr. Disgusting, long story—and her efforts to restart her life since haven’t exactly gone as planned. For one thing, she’s got another bad boyfriend. This one she calls Dark, and he happens to be married to one of Mona’s clients. He also might be a little unstable. Dark and his wife aren’t the only complicated...

Kenneth Trachtenberg, the witty and eccentric narrator of More Die of Heartbreak, has left his native Paris for the Midwest. He has come to be near his beloved uncle, the world-renowned botanist Benn Crader, self-described "plant visionary." While his studies take him around the world, Benn, a restless spirit, has not been able to satisfy his longings after his first marriage and lives from affair to affair and from "bliss to breakdown." Imagining...