Past Events

December 9, 2022: Author Reading with R.E. Burrillo – The Backwoods of Everywhere

After an upstate New York childhood and a bartending stint in New Orleans’ French Quarter, seasonal resort work led R. E. Burrillo to the desert Southwest, whose redrock landscapes were a source of stability through mental and physical illness. In The Backwoods of Everywhere, archaeologist Burrillo excavates his past, examining Indigenous and tourist cultures, the complexities of American archaeology, and what it means to be a local. In the vein of Bill Bryson, Tim Cahill, and Ellen Meloy, Burrillo’s is a fresh voice in humor-spiked nature writing and cultural commentary.

November 15, 2022: Book Release Celebration of Craig Childs’ Stone Desert

Originally published over twenty-five years ago, Stone Desert brings the wonder and wildness of one of our nation’s most geologically and culturally unique national parks to readers everywhere. With a new introduction by the author, this edition includes Craig Childs’s original journal—written over a winter in Canyonlands National Park and complete with pen-and-ink sketches—from which Stone Desert originated. Join Childs as he hikes the high mesas, navigates the winding canyons, and witnesses the ancient rock art of Utah’s most inscrutable and remote slickrock desert.

October 14, 2022: Suzanne Roberts in Conversation with Amy Irvine

Suzanne Roberts is the author of the award-winning essay collection Animal Bodies: On Death, Desire, and Other Difficulties (March 2022), the award-winning travel memoir in essays Bad Tourist: Misadventures in Love and Travel (2020), and the memoir Almost Somewhere: Twenty-Eight Days on the John Muir Trail (Winner of the National Outdoor Book Award), as well as four books of poems. Named “The Next Great Travel Writer” by National Geographic’s Traveler, Suzanne’s work has been listed as notable in Best American Essays and included in The Best Women’s Travel Writing. Suzanne holds a doctorate in literature and the environment from the University of Nevada-Reno, teaches in the low residency MFA program in creative writing at UNR-Tahoe, and splits her time between South Lake Tahoe, California and an old green van named Shrek.

Amy Irvine is the author of numerous essays and four nonfiction books addressing environmental, Indigenous and feminist concerns. She is a contributing editor for Orion Magazine, her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Outside, Orion, Pacific Standard, Best American Science & Nature Writing, and Best American Food Writing. Her first memoir, Trespass, received the Orion Book Award, and the Ellen Meloy Desert Writers Award. Her second memoir, Almost Animal, is forthcoming by Spiegel & Grau in Spring 2023. Irvine, a Mountainview MFA alumnus, lives, writes, and teaches off-grid on a remote mesa in southwest Colorado.

✨Have you dreamed of being encapsulated by the sounds 🎼 of bliss in a cozy little bookstore 📙 in the middle of nowhere🏜? 

Celebrate with us TOMORROW NIGHT @ 7PM 🥳 LIVE MUSIC 🎤 in the back of BACK OF BEYOND BOOKS 📕 with D Jean-Baptiste 🙌

👇Take a gander at whats upcoming throughout the lusty month of May here👇
https://backofbeyondbooks.com/happenings/

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My Friends by beloved author Fredrik Backman is a new work of fiction about 4 teenagers on a pier.  One day, one of the boys will paint a picture of them on this pier that will be called "The One of the Sea", and it will hang in a museum, but the majority of the story is about their lives at that particular bittersweet time. Loneliness, loss, and physical and emotional abuse are all central themes, which is why their hardscrabble gang holds so close to one another, laughing and fitting into each other's lives like missing pieces in the puzzle of Home.  Children and adults can parent and nurture one another through life at any stage, and we see that back and forth happening as well in a parallel story experienced by a young homeless foster child who collides in the present day with one of the teenagers now grown up.  Her chaos melts some of his adult anguish, and an unexpected friendship forms. Backman is known for drawing upon such themes, creating characters whose lives intersect so that life becomes more bearable, more joyful, and more hopeful amid dark days, garnering him a huge following of loyal readers internationally.  Who better to write about humanity right now?  It is certainly one of the most beautiful books I've ever read; I always say you will cry harder and laugh louder and longer while reading a Backman book than any other out there. My Friends will remind you of your oldest bonds and oldest wounds, and the force of friendship when you need it most!

✨Review by Julia Buckwalter✨

reddirtpainter 

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SIMPLY CLICK THE LINK PROVIDED OR COPY AND PASTE URL 👇
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✨Join us on an exploration of wildness, wilderness, darkness and light✨

As we move from inner and outer exploration to a deeper dive into wilderness and what it means to still be wild, we will be highlighting books and authors that have spent their lives witnessing wildness. 

✨First up Craig Childs’ literal and figurative journey from the light to the dark✨

"The Wild Dark: Finding the Night Sky in the Age of Light"

"At a time when most people on Earth live in regions of acute light pollution, Craig Childs takes us on a journey to rediscover the awesome power of night itself.

Seeking not the absence of light, but the presence of the universe, master storyteller Craig Childs sets out to bike from the blinding lights of the Las Vegas Strip to one of the darkest spots in North America. A fearless explorer of both the natural world and the human imagination, Childs guides us on a quest to rediscover the heavens and to ask: "What does it do to us to not see the night sky?" The Wild Dark is at once an adventure story, a field guide, and a celebration of the awesome power of night itself, inviting us to look up and to look inward, eyes wide and sparkling with stars." 
~Source from Torrey House Press

Pre-order your copy directly from us here 👇
https://shop.backofbeyondbooks.com/book/9798890920188

And...

See what's happening Friday, May 30th at Star Hall with Craig Childs, Mark Sundeen and Amy Irvine here 👇
https://backofbeyondbooks.com/happenings/

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