Denver Parks Book Club at Mamie Eisenhower Park

The Rocky Mountain Land Library is excited to announce the Denver Parks Book Club Series' second season, where the places we meet will also have their own stories to tell. We’ve gathered some of our favorite books on nature and the West for the club to read and discuss. Our book club discussions will be held at some of the lesser-known City Parks across Denver. Throughout the book club series, we will be discovering hidden surprises along the way; parks that have stories to add to the books we’ll be reading.

There will also be an underlining theme to all of the Denver Parks Book Club discussions: our basic human need for parks and open space. With each session we’ll take a moment to explore the history of the park and neighborhoods where we meet.

Mamie Doud Eisenhower Park: Did you know that one of the classic nature-in-the-city books was written by a Denver native? Robert Michael Pyle's childhood memoir, The Thunder Tree: Lessons from an Urban Wildland captures a young naturalist's adventures along the High Line Canal. This accidental wilderness that threads its way across metro-Denver, provides nature nearby to people of all ages to this day.

Mamie Doud Eisenhower Park runs along a tree-lined stretch of the High Line Canal. A perfect place to explore the importance of nature to our everyday lives.

"The Thunder Tree is as rich in soul as it is in natural history. It tenderly evokes a man's affection for the place that shaped him and it teaches a powerful lesson: that the natural world is found not only in distant woodlands, but also in our own backyards." -- author Richard Nelson

The Denver Parks Book Club discussions are free, but space is limited. Be sure to register at the links above. You can sign up for all the books, or just one! All the discussions will be outdoors, and we’ll be sending more information to everyone registered. The Book Club’s Sunday meetings will get underway at 10:00 am and conclude at 12:00 pm, with plenty of time for everyone to explore and appreciate our host city park.

Chris Englert’s book Discovering Denver Parks was published in 2020. It quickly became one of the Land Library’s favorite pandemic books, inspiring the Denver Parks Book Club series. We highly recommend Chris’s book for anyone who wants to explore Denver’s 165 city and mountain parks.