Local History Thursday: Rural School Shenanigans

In the old days of rural schoolhouse education in Mesa County and the Western Slope, most kids simply withstood the smacked wrists and hits they received from teachers, and understood it was the price for bad behavior. Farm and ranch kids, the boys especially, were thought to be wild by nature, and they often simply […]

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Time to sew

Everyone needs a quiet place of their own when they can pout, lurk, or snivel quietly. I’m lucky to have a sewing room to hide in, and when I want to escape from the hurly-burly of everyday life, I turn to my trusted sewing machine. I can’t claim any great sewing expertise, but I like doing […]

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Iceberg

Who Wants to Go Ice Swimming?

Crank up those swamp coolers and chug frosty pitchers of lemonade: it’s (still) extremely hot outside.  If you’re feeling drained from the summer heat, it may appease you to sprawl out in front of a fan with a mentally cooling read! The following titles are about swimming in abnormally cold waters for competition, thrills, health […]

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Reading Attica Locke

Attica Locke’s new book, Bluebird, Bluebird, deals about race and justice, and the way they work in rural East Texas. When a black man from Chicago and a local white woman are found murdered in the tiny town of Lark, Texas, Darren Matthews wants to look into it. As a suspended Texas ranger, he has […]

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Kids Read Picks

Kids Read Picks presents book reviews and recommendations from kids in Mesa County. Don’t be surprised if you can’t find some of these books at the library or in stores: kids who attend Kids Read Book Club on Tuesdays at 4:00 at the Central Library have access to books before they are officially published. Rating […]

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Graphic: Mesa County Libraries logo

New and fun ways to read noir

What is noir? It’s fiction loaded with amoral, nihilistic creeps on the run from the consequences of their morally bankrupt actions. At its best and most noir-y, it’s pretty hard to take. Here are some examples:             The thing about real noir fiction is, there are no happy endings, nobody […]

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Place Names from the Dominguez-Escalante Expedition

In 1776 Atanasio Dominguez and Silvestre Vélez de Escalante set out on an expedition to find a route from Santa Fe, New Mexico to the coast of northern California. Dominguez and Escalante were Franciscan priests who were traveling along with 9 other companions. Part of their expedition took them from northward from New Mexico through […]

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