Cheap Land Colorado

June 1, 2022

Award-winning Danish author/critic Andersen tells The LEGO Story, plumbing company archives and interviewing third-generation Kjeld Kirk Kristiansen to discover how his family turned those cute interlocking plastic rectangles into international toy stars (75,000-copy first printing). With The Last Campaign, Pulitzer Prize finalist Brands chronicles the battle between Apache leader, warrior, and medicine man Geronimo and U.S. general William Tecumseh Sherman that would determine the shape of the United States and the fate of Indigenous peoples beyond the Mississippi River. The New York Times best-selling Brinkley chronicles the Silent Spring Revolution of the Sixties, when environmental activists pushed first for legislation aimed at protecting the wilderness, then expanded to fighting the pollutants despoiling Earth and risking public health (200,000-copy first printing). Pulitzer Prize finalist Conover (Newjack) takes us to Cheap Land Colorado, chronicling an off-the-grid community in San Luis Valley where he lived on and off for four years so that he could get close to people who traded security for freedom or had nothing left to lose. A senior writer at the Wall Street Journal, Hilsenrath tracks the career of U.S. Secretary of the Treasury Janet Yellen (35,000-copy first printing). Soros Fellow and chair of the Freelance Taskforce for the National Association of Black Journalists, Hubbard argues that hip-hop ignores or demeans Black women in Ride-or-Die (30,000-copy first printing). In Number One Is Walking, Martin recaps his remarkable acting career in a graphic memoir featuring the artwork of New Yorker cartoonist Harry Bliss (300,000-copy first printing). With The World Record Book of Racist Stories, comedian Ruffin and big sister Lamar join forces to repeat the success of their New York Times best-selling You'll Never Believe What Happened to Lacey, detailing the absurdist aspects of everyday racism (75,000-copy first printing). In Control, geneticist Rutherford (A Brief History of Everyone Who Ever Lived) revisits the rise of eugenics from its origins in Victorian England to its awful apotheosis in Nazi Germany and its ongoing legacy today. What's the impact on our psyches of knowing that the universe originated 14 billion years ago and is still expanding? Ask Swimme, author of Cosmogenesis and host and cocreator of PBS's Journey of the Universe. Wrongly accused of drug dealing in New Jersey and sentenced to a life behind bars, Wright (Marked for Life) studied law in the prison library, helped overturn the convictions of numerous fellow inmates, then won his own release and now practices law in the same courtroom where he was convicted (125,000-copy first printing).

Copyright 2022 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

October 1, 2022
After the election of Donald Trump in 2016, Conover (The Routes of Man, 2010) observed that "the American firmament was shifting in ways I needed to understand,"" and ""empty, forgotten places seemed an important part of that."" This book, a deep study of people living on the prairies of Colorado, is the result of Conover's attempts to understand such empty, forgotten places. Conover continues his own brand of immersion journalism, embedding himself with the "outcasts" who came to this remote land seeking something better, going so far as to buy land and live by himself in this desolate region. Danger comes from all angles on the prairie, from exposure to the elements to serial killers and even cannibals, but Conover pays particular attention to the isolation he and others feel there, a place that ""almost invited it in." Conover's ability to depict all characters he encounters with grace and dignity shows a restraint that makes this a work to be devoured by readers from empty, forgotten places and beyond.

COPYRIGHT(2022) Booklist, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

October 17, 2022
In this impressively detailed if somewhat diffuse account, journalist Conover (Rolling Nowhere) embeds among homesteaders living off the grid in Colorado’s remote San Luis Valley. In the 1970s, developers lured land buyers to the region with promises of “Western Worlds... filled with spectacular sports and outdoor adventure,” and laid out a dusty grid of subdivisions on the prairie, but the developments never took off and power and other utilities weren’t hooked up. And so “into the great openness of the flats flowed not only those seeking freedom in a good way but those seeking freedom from their bad deeds of the past—or even freedom to do more bad.” Conover, who first visited the valley’s “prairie dwellers” in 2017 as a volunteer delivering firewood and other necessities, eventually bought his own plot of land, and draws intriguing profiles of his neighbors and acquaintances, including military veterans, marijuana growers, and a Black woman from Chicago who came to the valley to join an African nationalist group but ended up moving into town and falling in love with a white man. Vivid biographical sketches fascinate, but several narrative threads are left hanging, including the tensions between the off-gridders and longtime Hispanic residents of the valley’s towns. Readers will wish this intriguing snapshot had a sharper focus. Photos.

November 1, 2022

In 2017, Pulitzer Prize finalist and National Book Critics Circle Award winner Conover (Newjack: Guarding Sing Sing) traveled to Colorado as a volunteer, helping to prevent people from living without housing, especially during the winter months. He ended up, however, buying five acres of cheap land and writing this book about the off-grid lifestyle along the San Luis Valley. This book chronicles his four-year study and firsthand experience with the challenges of living a life removed from society, which yielded surprising, and not-so-surprising, truths. He met some interesting folks, most of whom wish to live freely and independently, despite the hardships of living without basic necessities. The atmosphere can be intimidating, but there is also a sense of community within the cold and unforgiving landscape. For many, a lifestyle like this is the best chance they'll ever have to own their own land and is a point of pride. It can be a rewarding life, but the author shows that it can be a hard and sometimes hazardous one as well. VERDICT A raw, revealing, and effective look at life on the rural perimeters of society.--Julie Whiteley

Copyright 2022 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Starred review from September 15, 2022
An exploration of living off the grid in Colorado's San Luis Valley. Growing up in Colorado, Conover, who won the National Book Critics Circle Award for Newjack: Guarding Sing Sing, was fascinated by "flats dwellers" in the San Luis Valley, and he wanted to learn what would drive people to live in such remote areas. In 2017, he began volunteering for La Puente, which provides services to rural residents through its outreach initiative. What he discovered were residents from various walks of life. Many of them were attracted to the valley by the offer of cheap land as well as the ability to grow marijuana legally. Most, however, were merely seeking a different lifestyle than mainstream America offered. Some were virulently anti-government and pro-gun; some tried life in the city and hated it. Others were hoping to escape their pasts, while others, disillusioned by "turmoil in the outside world," believed they "needed to prepare for total anarchy." As Conover shows in his sharp, balanced profiles, some were unprepared for the region's harsh environment. While remote regions offer residents solitude, isolation can also lead to loneliness, and the winters in the region, which is "beautiful, wild, and mysterious," can be brutal. Furthermore, most residents are impoverished and have limited job options. The area, writes the author, combines "the soaring beauty of the Mountain West and resonances of the pioneers with the hard-bitten realities of life on a shoestring." Over the course of several years, Conover split his time between his home in New York and Colorado. With each trip, he learned more about the region's history and its people, and he eventually purchased his own plot of land. With empathy, compassion, and skillful storytelling, Conover engagingly shares the dreams and realities of those he met and befriended, offering a window into a community that few readers will ever experience. A captivating portrait of a community on the fringes.

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