Recommended Reading

Learn more about the history, culture, and adventures of various rivers within the Colorado River watershed by reading the following titles (in alphabetical order by authors last name). Please consider ordering from your local bookstore.

If you have additional books regarding the Colorado River system that aren’t listed here, please send Colleen an email!

A Green River Reader edited by Alan Blackstock

Ancient Landscapes of the Colorado Plateau by Ron Blakey and Wayne Ranney

The Hidden Canyon: A River Journey by John Blaustein

Damming Grand Canyon: The 1923 USGS Colorado River Expedition by Diane E. Boyer and Robert H. Weiss

Ghosts of Glen Canyon: History Beneath Lake Powell by C. Gregory Crampton

River Notes: A Natural and Human History of the Colorado by Wade Davis

Down the Great Unknown by Edward Dolnick

The Emerald Mile by Kevin Fedarko

The Glen Canyon Country: A Personal Memoir by Don D. Fowler

Peaceful Canyon, Golden River compiled by David and Gudy Gaskill

All My Rivers are Gone by Katie Lee

Downriver: Into the Future of Water in the West by Heather Hansman

The Colorado River through Glen Canyon Before Lake Powell: Historic Photo Journal 1872 to 1964 edited by Eleanor Inskip

A Boaters Guide to Lake Powell by Michael R. Kelsey

Grand Canyon Women: Lives Shaped by Landscape by Betty Leavengood

Raven’s Exile by Ellen Meloy

The Colorado River: Flowing through Conflict by Pete McBride and Jonathan Waterman

The Colorado River: Chasing Water by Pete McBride

The Grand Canyon: Between River and Rim by Pete McBride

White Canyon: Remembering the Little Town at the Bottom of Lake Powell by Tom McCourt

Where the Water Goes: Life and Death Along the Colorado River by David Owen

Confluence: Navigating the Personal and Political On Rivers of the New West by Zak Podmore

The Place No On Knew: Glen Canyon on the Colorado by Eliot Porter

The Exploration of the Colorado River and Its Canyons by John Wesley Powell

Cadillac Desert: The American West and Its Disappearing Water by Marc Reisner

Writing Down the River: Into the Heart of the Grand Canyon produced by Kathleen Jo Ryan

There’s this River: Grand Canyon Boatman Stories edited by Christa Sadler

Brave the Wild River: The Untold Story of Two Woman Who Mapped the Botany of the Grand Canyon by Melissa Sevigny

Living River: The Promise of the Mighty Colorado by Dave Showalter

Beyond the Hundredth Meridian: John Wesley Powell and the Second Opening of the West by Wallace Stegner

The Mighty Colorado River: From the Glaciers to the Gulf by Jim Turner

Velvet Waters, Canyon Walls: A Lake Powell Adventure by Colin Warren

Run, River, Run by Ann Zwinger