The most recommended books about Utah

I love escaping into a story, and if it is historical fiction, I want it to be historically accurate. By telling the story in both the present day and in the past, I was intrigued and this kept me reading. The novel is based on the experiences of a real woman living in polygamy but tells the story of what happened then and how it affects the lives of others later. It may be fictional, but the historical accuracy made the story come to life. I could feel her angst with being part of her family, but also knowing she didn’t want this life.

Nora Kelly, assistant professor at the Santa Fe Archaeological Institute, assembles an expedition to find the lost city of Quivira—Coronado’s City of Gold. Their footsteps are dogged by a pair of murderous, pelt-covered creatures. After unimaginable horrors, they at last discover the pueblo city and its treasure—but in an ironic twist, it isn’t gold at all.

I recommend every single one of Preston and Child’s thrillers. Superbly written and, though fantastic, they never lack a good grounding in science. Thunderhead is particularly alluring to me because of the descriptions of the sere landscape of the slot canyons and high desert of southwest Utah.

Here, I veer off into nonfiction, but only because nobody would believe any novelist who conjured up the likes of the real-life people Betsy Gaines Quammen talks to in constructing this portrait of how things got so fraught out West.

In my view, it takes a writer of particular skill and empathy to honestly get at the thoughts and motivations of folks with whom she likely disagrees on fundamental questions. Further, it takes a writer of inherent fairness to call balls and strikes on all sides of contentious issues. Quammen, for my money, is such a writer.

This was the first Western I read when I was young. It made an impression on me, not only as a Western, but as a classic story of good and evil with sharply drawn characters that make it come alive to the reader. Grey’s writing puts the reader right in the middle of every scene. And it has an ending you don’t see coming, but one that fits perfectly.

The book, which I first read as an assignment in a college class, was my first introduction to both personal narrative and nature writing, and I was hooked. I decided right then and there that I wanted to explore the natural world and write about it when I grew up.

I was—and still am—enamored by Williams’s descriptions of wild birds, the desert landscape around Great Salt Lake, and the solace she derived from the natural world as she faced her mother’s and grandmother’s illnesses. Williams’ lyrical writing and deep knowledge of and love for her home landscape are a constant source of inspiration for my own writing and living.

When I got divorced, I kept my ex-partner’s last name. It felt shameful in some ways, but it also felt like the best option financially and career-wise. I was so relieved to read a memoir of a woman who confidently and decisively kept her ex’s last name even as she blazed a brand-new path for herself while the relationships around her blew up.

From the outside, my life can look easy and happy. But, of course, I deal with challenges that feel unsurmountable at the time, with critics who make me second-guess my work and with the expectations of how a woman should look and speak. In this book Brianna breaks down her own journey of rebuilding a life that looked shiny on the outside but had major struggles that she could no longer ignore.

I’ve struggled at work, in marriage, and in my identity. To read a memoir from… show more.

Rebecca Leavitt is seeking herself—in the Northwest Territories of Canada during the late 1800s.

I had a visceral memory of this spirited protagonist, because I’d heard Martine, who is my friend and writer colleague, read from drafts at residencies where we both taught at the time. I found that same spirit in these pages, carrying its sparkle all the way through.

Here is a YA novel that captures what it means to be a young person with dreams and yearnings. It speaks at once to past and present, which is exactly what I long for in historical fiction.

From this bracing and brilliant biography, I learned about how John Wesley Powell went on an epic Western discovery adventure and became inspired to challenge thousands of years of Anglo dogma about rain, rivers, land, and how humankind must live with them.

Basic conservation is such a part of American life today that, like gravity, which Newton gets credit for discovering, we forget the genius it first took to conceptualize it. No one is more foundational to conservation than one-armed Grand Canyon explorer Powell. His story is here told by an admiring author, Wallace Stegner, who understood that genius because he was one. 

Mailer’s opus dramatizes the cursed life of Gary Gilmore. In 1976, he robbed and killed two strangers. After being tried and sentenced to death, Gilmore insisted on being executed, to the disagreement of the justice system, who wanted him to remain alive. Written simply and with great compassion, the novel is disturbing, yet ultimately thought-provoking and redemptive.

Sonic Memories makes the best use of a compact space without losing any of the narrative depth and emotional impact. This small collection of essays uses sound and music as its top note all the while using the silence in between to showcase a rich memoir-like exploration of Black girlhood growing into Black womanhood.