Colorado Parks & Wildlife Research Library

In 1941, at seventeen years old, Meridian begins her ornithology studies at the University of Chicago. She is soon drawn to Alden Whetstone, a brilliant, complicated physics professor who opens her eyes to the fundamentals and poetry of his field, the beauty of motion, space and time, the delicate balance of force and energy that allows a bird to fly. Entranced and in love, Meridian defers her own career path and follows Alden west to Los Alamos,...

Haunted after helping her father on his ghost-themed Chicago bus tour, twelve-year-old Claire must discover what the spectral boy from the bus wants before it is too late.

"After Tova Sullivan’s husband died, she began working the night shift at the Sowell Bay Aquarium, mopping floors and tidying up. Keeping busy has always helped her cope, which she’s been doing since her eighteen-year-old son, Erik, mysteriously vanished on a boat in Puget Sound over thirty years ago. Tova becomes acquainted with curmudgeonly Marcellus, a giant Pacific octopus living at the aquarium. Marcellus knows more than anyone can imagine...

"Adrift in a raft after a deadly ship explosion, nine people struggle for survival at sea. Three days pass. Short on water, food and hope, they spot a man floating in the waves. They pull him in. 'Thank the Lord we found you,' a passenger says. 'I am the Lord,' the man whispers....In The Stranger in the Lifeboat, Albom keeps us guessing until the end: Is this strange and quiet man really who he claims to be? What actually happened to cause the explosion?...

After his eleven-year-old son dies, guitarist Quinn Porter does yard work for an aged Lithuanian immigrant, Ona Vitkus, whom his son had often visited and comes to a resolution about his son's death as Ona discusses his son's capacity to listen and learn.

Named a Best Book of the Year by: The New York Times * New York Magazine * Lit Hub * TIME * O, the Oprah Magazine * Good Housekeeping Two generations of an American family come of age-one before 9/11, one after-in this moving and original novel from the "intellectually restless, uniquely funny" (New York Times Book Review) mind of Nell Zink Pam, Daniel, and Joe might be the worst punk band on the Lower East Side. Struggling to scrape together...

Returning to Ogunquit, Maine, for an extended visit, successful businesswoman Maggie Weldon reunites with her best friend growing up, native Mainer Delphine Crandall, and together they reflect on their choices and compromises, the girls they were and the women they've become.

Women can be heroes. When twenty-year-old nursing student Frances "Frankie" McGrath hears these unexpected words, it is a revelation. Raised on idyllic Coronado Island and sheltered by her conservative parents, she has always prided herself on doing the right thing, being a good girl. But in 1965 the world is changing, and she suddenly imagines a different choice for her life. When her brother ships out to serve in Vietnam, she impulsively joins the...

Envisioning a summer vacation in the humble Singapore home of a boy she hopes to marry, Chinese American Rachel Chu is unexpectedly introduced to a rich and scheming clan that strongly opposes their son's relationship with an American girl.

When Cobble Court Quilts character Mary Dell Templeton and her twin sister Lydia Dale were children, their Aunt Velvet warned them away from local boys. This is the story of Mary Dell and her journey from a Texas ranch to becoming a wife, mother, and celebrated quilter.