Quammens on “Social Justice in Time of Pandemic,” Zoom in 6/25!

23 Jun Quammens on “Social Justice in Time of Pandemic,” Zoom in 6/25!

Telluride’s Between the Covers Bookstore and Wilkinson Public Library present another installment of their ongoing collaboration, “Authors Uncovered.” Featured are Betsy Gaines Quammen and David Quammen in a virtual conversation. The topic is “Social Justice in a Time of Pandemic.” The event takes place Thursday, June 25, 7 – 8 p.m.

The first 10 people to register get a FREE copy of either book, courtesy of the library.

The direct link to register for the Zoom talk:
https://wilkinsonpubliclibrary.evanced.info/signup/eventdetails?eventid=21237&lib=999&return=

We live in turbulent times, do we not? And such dimensions of travail call for civil discussion—including civil discussion of books and their topics—all the more urgently than usual.

The world is gripped with pandemic disease and our understanding of the crisis is befogged with conspiracy theories, anti-government fury, and misinformation — the same sorts of notions, fury, and misinformation that have poisoned our discourse about public lands in the West. But now too we are explicitly reminded of a national crises over racism, police abuse of African-Americans, and the rights of people to protest peacefully, yet with passion in the streets of our nation.

Betsy Gaines Quammen and David Quammen certainly can’t offer magical insights about how these three forms of discord may be linked. At least not in a vacuum. So you are warmly invited by Between the Covers Bookshop, Wilkinson Public Library, and Torrey House Press, to join the conversation and help them try. An hour of civil and literary discourse, at a time such as this, should prove to be very worthwhile.

The Quammens will also discuss two books that weirdly intersect at this extraordinary moment.

About “American Zion: Cliven Bundy, God & Public Lands in the West” by Betsy Gaines Quammen:

What happens when members of an American religion – one built in the 19th century on personal prophecy and land proprietorship – assert possession over western federal lands, armed with guns and a certainty that God wants them to go to war?

“American Zion” is the story of the ongoing feud between Mormon ranching family, the Bundys, the federal government, and the American public. Historian Betsy Gaines Quammen examines the roots of the Bundys’ cowboy confrontations and how history has shaped an often-dangerous mindset which today feeds the militia movement and threatens public lands, wild species, and American heritage.

“This book is like a skeleton key, unlocking so many complicated, and largely unquestioned, myths of the West.” —ANNE HELEN PETERSEN, BuzzFeed News

“American Zion provides essential background for anyone concerned about the future of open space in the western United States. It also happens to be a delight to read.” —JON KRAKAUER, author of Under the Banner of Heaven

“Brilliant and electrifying . . . Gaines Quammen’s voice is bright, engaging, and smart.” —TERRY TEMPEST WILLIAMS, author of “Erosion.”

Betsy Gaines Quammen, more:

Betsy Quammen

Betsy Gaines Quammen is a conservationist and historian. She received a doctorate in Environmental History from Montana State University in 2017, her dissertation focusing on Mormon settlement and public land conflicts. She has studied various religious traditions over the years, with particular attention to how cultures view landscape and wildlife.

Post-college in Colorado, care-taking for a bed and breakfast in Mosier, Oregon, and serving breakfasts at a café in Kanab, Utah, Betsy settled in Bozeman, Montana, where she now lives with her husband, writer David Quammen, two huge dogs, an overweight cat, and a pretty big python named Boots.

About “Spillover: Animal Infections and the Next Pandemic” by David Quammen:

The emergence of strange new diseases is a frightening problem that seems to be getting worse. In this age of speedy travel, it threatens a worldwide pandemic. We hear news reports of Ebola, SARS, AIDS, and something called Hendra killing horses and people in Australia―but those stories miss the big truth that such phenomena are part of a single pattern. The bugs that transmit these diseases share one thing: they originate in wild animals and pass to humans by a process scientists call “spillover.”

David Quammen tracks the subject around the world. He recounts adventures in the field―netting bats in China, trapping monkeys in Bangladesh, stalking gorillas in the Congo―with the world’s leading disease scientists. In “Spillover,” Quammen takes the reader along on this astonishing quest to learn how, where from, and why these diseases emerge, and he asks the terrifying question: What might the next big one be?

“An adventure-filled page-turner…told from the front lines of pandemic prevention.”- WIRED.

“David Quammen might be my favorite living science writer: amiable, erudite, understated, incredibly funny, profoundly humane.” —NEW YORK MAGAZINE.

David Quammen, more:

David. Quammen

David Quammen is the author of a dozen fiction and nonfiction books, including “Blood Line” and “The Song of the Dodo.” “Spillover,” his most recent book, was shortlisted for several major awards.

A three-time National Magazine Award winner, Quammen is a contributing writer for National Geographic. He has written also for Harper’s, Outside, Esquire, The Atlantic, Powder, and Rolling Stone. He travels widely on assignment, usually into jungles, mountains, remote islands, and swamps.

Between the Covers, Telluride’s downtown community bookstore, provides literature for the Telluride area and beyond, author events, and an expert staff to help match customers with the right reads.

Torrey House Press is an independent, nonprofit publisher promoting environmental conservation through literature.

Torrey House believes that culture is changed through conversation and that lively, contemporary literature is the cutting-edge of social change. The company strives to identify exceptional writers, nurture their work, and engage the widest possible, publishing these diverse voices and their transformative stories to illuminate important facets of our ever-changing planet and to develop literary resources for the conservation movement, educating and entertaining readers, inspiring action.