Each week as part of SunLit — The Sun’s literature section — we feature staff recommendations from book stores across Colorado. This week, the staff from Explore Booksellers in Aspen recommends a novel about freedom, a meditation on shepherding and a tale exploring the nature of contentment.
Eastbound
By Maylis De Kerangal, Translated by Jessica Moore
Archipelago
$18
February 2023
Purchase
From the publisher: In this gripping tale, a Russian conscript and a French woman cross paths on the Trans-Siberian railroad, each fleeing to the east for their own reasons. “Eastbound” is both an adventure story and a duet of two vibrant inner worlds.
In mysterious, winding sentences gorgeously translated by Jessica Moore, De Kerangal gives us the story of two unlikely souls entwined in a quest for freedom with a striking sense of tenderness, sharply contrasting the brutality of the surrounding world. Racing toward Vladivostok, we meet the young Aliocha, packed onto a Trans-Siberian train with other Russian conscripts. Soon after boarding, he decides to desert and over a midnight smoke in a dark corridor of the train, he encounters an older French woman, Hélène, for whom he feels an uncanny trust.
A complicity quickly grows between the two when he manages to urgently ask — through a pantomime and basic Russian that Hélène must decipher — for her help to hide him. They hurry from the filth of his third-class carriage to Hélène’s first-class sleeping car. Aliocha is now a hunted deserter, and Hélène his accomplice with her own inner landscape of recent memories to contend with.
From Mo Kirk, membership coordinator: Having loved Maylis De Kerangal’s “The Heart” earlier this year, I devoured her novella “Eastbound” as soon as I received it. It is a wild ride on the Trans-Siberian Railroad with characters who are fleeing grim circumstances. The pace and language are thrilling and fraught. I was impressed she could do so much storytelling and play with my emotions in the span of so few pages.
The Salt Stones: Seasons of a Shepherd’s Life
By Helen Whybrow
Milkweed Editions
$26
June 2025
Purchase
From the publisher: In the heart of Vermont’s Green Mountains, Helen Whybrow and her partner set out to restore an old 200-acre farm. Knowing that “belonging more than anything requires participation,” they begin to intertwine their lives with the land. But soon after releasing a flock of Icelandic sheep onto the worn-out fields, Whybrow realizes that the art of shepherding extends far beyond the flock and fences of Knoll Farm.
In prose both vivid and lean, “The Salt Stones” offers an intimate and profoundly moving story of what it means to care for a flock and truly inhabit a piece of land. The shepherd’s life unfolds for Whybrow in the seasons and cycles of farming and family — birthing lambs, fending off coyotes, rescuing lost sheep in a storm, and raising children while witnessing her mother’s decline. Exploring the interdependence of animals, as well as of the earth and ourselves, Whybrow reflects on the ways sheep connect her to place and to the ancient practice of shepherding.
From Clare Pearson, buyer: The primary joy of this book is allowing yourself to fall into the seasons and rhythms of the natural cycles on Helen Whybrow’s sheep farm. Her writing, like the natural world, asks us to slow down and notice the beauty in the stewardship of land, animals and the people that sustain us. It describes a way of living that is both foreign and comforting.
A Psalm for the Wild-Built
By Becky Chambers
Tordotcom, MacMillian
$24.99
July 2021
Purchase
From the publisher: It’s been centuries since the robots of Panga gained self-awareness and laid down their tools; centuries since they wandered, en masse, into the wilderness, never to be seen again; centuries since they faded into myth and urban legend.
One day, the life of a tea monk is upended by the arrival of a robot, there to honor the old promise of checking in. The robot cannot go back until the question of “what do people need?” is answered. But the answer to that question depends on whom you ask, and how.
They’re going to need to ask it a lot. Becky Chambers’s new series asks: In a world where people have what they want, does having more matter?
From Lisa Frank, staff: This book takes place in a future utopia, centuries after humans gave 50% of the Earth back to nature, abandoning factories and automation after robots gained consciousness and were allowed to go free. Cities are built with sustainable, biodegradable materials. Tiny windmills and solar panels adorn buildings, appliances, and modes of transport. Food is plentiful. But one monk isn’t content.
Dex abandons their vocation at the monastery to travel the countryside offering tea and comfort to people in various small towns. A friendship with a visiting robot prompts questions about finding meaning and purpose in a frictionless utopia. This was a cozy read that encourages readers to find contentment and reward in the simple pleasures of existence.
THIS WEEK’S BOOK RECS COME FROM:
Explore Booksellers
221 E. Main St., Aspen
(970) 925-5336
As part of The Colorado Sun’s literature section — SunLit — we’re featuring staff picks from book stores across the state. Read more.
Type of Story: Review
An assessment or critique of a service, product, or creative endeavor such as art, literature or a performance.