Powder-Day Paperbacks

Books to get you through the season. 

Longmire Series
If you can’t get enough of the Netflix original series Longmire, pick up the latest installments of Craig Johnson’s written versions: The Western Star (Penguin Random House, $16) and Depth of Winter (Penguin Random House, $28).

In the Wyoming-based railroad mystery The Western Star, Sheriff Walt Longmire re-lives the murder case of a fellow comrade while challenging the suitability of a parole hearing for a terminally ill prisoner; Longmire's seeming lack of sympathy has all parties involved questioning his motives. Depth of Winter takes place in the rural cartel-inhabited landscape of northern Mexico, where Longmire must rescue his daughter from longtime foe Tomás Bidarte, Liam Neeson–style.

In these books, the author gives the reader a vivid experience of the dangers a character such as Longmire endures. Whether it's an adventure a little closer to home, or one south of the border, Johnson delivers much-needed entertainment on those rainy days. 

Time It Was
Hippies, love, the ‘70s, and liberation: that’s what you’ll find in local author Nonnie Thompson’s Time It Was: Memoir of a Modern Pioneer (Bay Tree Publishing, $18). Thompson’s book offers a warm look at her personal journey of self-discovery through independence and freedom away from home. Coming of age in the hazy winter of 1971, Thompson finds kindred spirits in strangers who soon become her new family. And within those relationships, she tells a powerful tale about growing up.

Time It Was is a comfort for those who feel alone, but hope that their journey will leave them full of love and with a strong belief in themselves. Hippies know how to love and how to spread love—Thompson’s journey reminds us to keep our hearts open and motivates us to take that first step, however scary it may feel.