Join us for the Crested Butte Library’s, “Coffee with the Community.” Our guests in June are Chris Hensley (Executive Director), Elizabeth Philbin (Assistant Program Director) and Allison Butcher (Development Director) from the Adaptive Sports Center.

Coffee with the Community is a monthly program that gives the public and local officials an opportunity to discuss community issues, learn more about local government, and build relationships. There are no formal presentations, just smooth coffee and candid talk. So, grab a cuppa, bring your questions and come get to know more about your local community.

Join us for an interactive program, with Caroline McLean, and learn about her spiritual journey to Bhutan–the country that boasts the highest gross national happiness. Caroline will share with us her inspiration, from this journey, to create a contemplative Crested Butte Prayer Wheel Park.

Caroline has a master’s degree in wetlands biology and worked as a field biologist and educator for the state of Colorado. Her family has had a second home in Crested Butte for the last 14 years and and became full time residents in CB last year after their youngest fledged the roost. In CB, she teaches yoga and meditation at the CB community coop, as well as teaching photography through her company, Oh Be Joyful Journeys and volunteering around the valley. For more information visit her website.

The Novel Tea Book Club will meet on Thursday, June 28 at 2 pm to discuss Runaway Girl by local author Anne Eliot. Anne will be joining us for today’s discussion!

Runaway Girl is book one in the “Runaway Rockstar Series.”

“Funny, emotional and the perfect rockstar, fairytale romance.” –Ginger Scott, Bestselling Author (The Falling Series/Like Us Series and The Hard Count)

“Fast paced, I laughed and cried all over this book. Love this series.” -Jennie Marts, USA TODAY Bestselling author

“A sweet, wonderful coming of age story. Different and fun, a real escape and a story that lets everyone fall in love with a rockstar while traveling all over Europe. You won’t be able to put it down.” –T. Reads

Books are available at the Library to borrow and for sale at Townie Books.

At its heart, Jane Parnell’s mountaineering memoir, Off Trail: Finding My Way Home in the Colorado Rockies published by University of Oklahoma Press, is a love story—the tale of a woman’s passion for the mountains of Colorado. Readers may know Jane Parnell as Jane Koerner, who has written for High County News, Mountain Gazette and Outdoor Adventure, among other publications. What most readers don’t know is that Parnell was the first woman to summit the hundred highest peaks in Colorado.

Parnell’s fierce, tender memoir explores the Continental Divide of her childhood with its troubled family dynamics, and a marriage that comes together and comes apart. Anchored by windswept mountains, Parnell comes to terms with her own summits and valleys, such as the loss of her only sibling to schizophrenia and a rape shortly after Parnell graduated from college.

English travel writer Isabella Bird, who in 1873 climbed Longs Peak with the fur trapper Rocky Mountain Jim, figures prominently in Parnell’s book. Through Isabella’s story, the author shows how despite the conveniences enjoyed by modern-day mountaineers, some things never change when it comes to matters of the heart.

In the tradition of Cheryl Strayed’s Wild and Tracy Ross’s The Source of All Things, Parnell’s memoir shows us how, by pushing ourselves to the limits of our physical endurance and by confronting our deepest fears, we can become whole again.

If you would like to listen to a podcast featuring Jane please indulge here: