reading list

Beautiful Boy

David Sheff · 2009

The Metamorphosis

Franz Kafka · 2009

The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath

Sylvia Plath · 2000

Dead Poets Society

N.H. Kleinbaum · 1989

Migrations

Charlotte Mcconaghy · 2021

Go as a River

Shelley Read · 2023

NATIONAL BESTSELLER<br/>* Finalist for Goodreads Choice Award * Colorado Public Radio 2023 Books We Love *<br/>Set amid Colorado’s wild beauty, a heartbreaking coming-of-age story of a resilient young woman whose life is changed forever by one chance encounter. A tragic and uplifting novel of love and loss, family and survival—and hope—for readers of Great Circle, The Four Winds, and Where the Crawdads Sing.<br/>“Beautiful . . . A striking first novel of love and strength and growth, set against the forests and rivers of Colorado’s high country. Read is a gifted writer, and the book is a literary triumph.”—Denver Post<br/>“With gorgeous descriptions of the great outdoors, an illicit love story, and an unforgettable protagonist, Go as a River offers something for everyone.”—Real Simple<br/>Seventeen-year-old Victoria Nash runs the household on her family’s peach farm in the small ranch town of Iola, Colorado—the sole surviving female in a family of troubled men. Wilson Moon is a young drifter with a mysterious past, displaced from his tribal land and determined to live as he chooses.<br/>Victoria encounters Wil by chance on a street corner, a meeting that profoundly alters both of their young lives, unknowingly igniting as much passion as danger. When tragedy strikes, Victoria leaves the only life she has ever known. She flees into the surrounding mountains where she struggles to survive in the wilderness with no clear notion of what her future will bring. As the seasons change, she also charts the changes in herself, finding in the beautiful but harsh landscape the meaning and strength to move forward and rebuild all that she has lost, even as the Gunnison River threatens to submerge her homeland—its ranches, farms, and the beloved peach orchard that has been in her family for generations.<br/>Inspired by true events surrounding the destruction of the town of Iola in the 1960s, Go as a River is a story of deeply held love in the face of hardship and loss, but also of finding courage, resilience, friendship, and, finally, home—where least expected. This stunning debut explores what it means to lead your life as if it were a river—gathering and flowing, finding a way forward even when a river is dammed.

I Who Have Never Known Men

Jacqueline Harpman, Ros Schwartz · 1998

Sense and Sensibility (Penguin Classics)

Jane Austen · 2003

Persuasion, Jane Austen

Jane Austen · 1997

The Goldfinch: A Novel (Pulitzer Prize for Fiction)

Donna Tartt · 2013

The Stranger

Albert Camus · 1989

Just Kids: A National Book Award Winner

Patti Smith · 2010

<p> It was the summer Coltrane died, the summer of love and riots, and the summer when a chance encounter in Brooklyn led two young people on a path of art, devotion, and initiation. </p> <p> Patti Smith would evolve as a poet and performer, and Robert Mapplethorpe would direct his highly provocative style toward photography. Bound in innocence and enthusiasm, they traversed the city from Coney Island to Forty-second Street, and eventually to the celebrated round table of Max's Kansas City, where the Andy Warhol contingent held court. In 1969, the pair set up camp at the Hotel Chelsea and soon entered a community of the famous and infamous—the influential artists of the day and the colorful fringe. It was a time of heightened awareness, when the worlds of poetry, rock and roll, art, and sexual politics were colliding and exploding. In this milieu, two kids made a pact to take care of each other. Scrappy, romantic, committed to create, and fueled by their mutual dreams and drives, they would prod and provide for one another during the hungry years. </p> <p> <i>Just Kids</i> begins as a love story and ends as an elegy. It serves as a salute to New York City during the late sixties and seventies and to its rich and poor, its hustlers and hellions. A true fable, it is a portrait of two young artists' ascent, a prelude to fame. </p>

Little Women (Bantam Classics)

Louisa May Alcott · 1983

Ariel Poems by Sylvia Plath

Sylvia Plath · 1966

The Bell Jar

Sylvia Plath · 1966

Exquisite Corpse

Poppy Z. Brite · 1997

Girl, Interrupted.

Susanna Kaysen · 2000

The Perks of Being a Wallflower

Stephen Chbosky · 1999

Frankenstein

Mary Shelley · 2003

Pride and Prejudice (Penguin Classics

Jane Austen · 2002

Teeth

Hannah Moskowitz · 2013

Speak

Laurie Halse Anderson · 2011