"For more than five decades, the Tattered Cover has been Colorado's favorite source for books. Beginning with just 950 square feet, it has grown into a multistore operation and important cultural institution, the special place where people go for all things literary. It has been a forum for ideas, with hundreds of writers visiting each year to sign books and greet readers. It has proven itself a bastion of democracy, championing the First Amendment and readers' rights to privacy. Join Denver historian and onetime Tattered Cover employee Mark A. Barnhouse as he celebrates the store's first fifty years and tells stories from the thousands of author events it has hosted over the decades. -- from back of book