Michigan Books

It is a shame this book is out of print. The photography is breath taking. The diverse subject matter spotlights each little piece of the region and offers a comprehensive glimpse of life on Great Lakes Michigan and Superior. First introduced to the Upper Penninsula as a child, I was thrilled to receive this book as a gift from my husband. Each time I look through it is a like a little vacation, whether I am in the mood for summer beaches, wild life, the awe-inspiring force of the lakes, or autumn's first snow fall. Mr. Olsenius has a real gift in capturing peoples' personalities and nature's majesty on film. A beautiful book.

Janis Scalone's book, DISTANT THUNDER: An Integrated Skills Approach to Learning Language Through Literature (Pitt Series in Esl) is compiled in such a way as to make it both informative and entertaining. Not only are the stories and poems Scalone has chosen entertaining and enriching, but the exercises for the students are likewise informative and enlightening, presented in a way that helps them experience the many and varied cultures represented in the literature chosen for inclusion in the text. I found it a delight to read for any audience.

Limited edition art catalogue, with only 1500 copies. Stiff shiny covers and glossy pages; handsome and expensive! Early famous artist/photographer. Catalogue includes an unpublished interview of several pages, chronology, list of exhibits and public collections.

Rare and recommended glimpse of this artist. 48 pp.

An excellent book of immigrant memories from first-handpioneers. Covers all Dutch settlements from the second wave ofmigration.

Modern students who struggle with essay writing tasks now have a resource to introduce them to each level of the composition process, breaking down a seemingly difficult task into a series of manageable, easy steps. From an overview of seven common rhetorical modes with examples from real student essays - both rough drafts and final forms - to essay plans and different style choices, The Easy Essay Handbook: A Writing Guide For Today's Students provides a very logical structure to what seems a complex topic.

Excellent educational resource for students who have difficulty extracting important points and explaining material from reading passages. Content is perfect for Environmental Science-HS. Walks students through the process of rewriting the material in their own words and making analogies. It is classified as ESL, but I find it useful for any student who has difficulty explaining content.

Economics In Real Time: A Theoretical Reconstruction by John McDermott (Professor Emeritus, State University of New York) offers a new and intellectually impressive paradigm to describe and encapsulize contemporary economic fluctuations that takes into account changes that have been observed since the neoclassical and Marxian microeconomic theories created over a century ago. Involving the progression of real time in its scrutiny of sales and purchases, product innovation, changing efficiency of advertising and distribution, the proliferation of consumer credit, and more, Economics In Real Time drives home a new and recommended way to examine and understand rapidly changing economic interactions.

Yeah, it rocked

No, this book will not be of interest to anyone looking for something sexy--there's nothing like that in this book. Instead, this is a social history book, and a good one.

McGinn investigates the evidence we have regarding prostition in the Roman economy.

Prostitution was a perfectly legal institution in Rome. A brothel could be located next to a temple or the house of a wealthy person and cause no comment.

Although it was legal, the workers in a brothel had a very low status in society. That's probably because most of the workers were forced into it because they were slaves. Roman law proclaimed that a slave had no rights over his body; he could be used, abused, even killed, with no one to protest.

It became standard practice for wealthy people to earn money by forcing their young slaves into brothels. The amount raised from these slaves could be significant.

One other important feature of the brothels was that the workers were young by our standards. Children of both sexes were made to serve as protitutes. For boys, their years of prostitution were usually over once they started sprouting a beard. Then they would be returned to their owner and put to another use. Women might continue to live as prostitutes until they lost their looks.

The other common manner for brothel owners to obtain workers was to take in abandoned infants and children.

This book explores an aspect of Roman life rarely delved into in other history books and should be of interest to studying ancient cultures.

Ed Bullins is one of America's best playwrights. His work from the 1960s to the present has evolved. His work is as breathtaking as it is challenging. This University of Michigan volume is the most recent addition to his work and includes his newest play, "Harlem Diva" (2005) for the first time. It contains seven more plays, "How Do You Do," "Clara's Ole Man," "The Electronic N*gger," "In the Wine Time," "The Fabulous Miss Marie," "Malcolm: '71 Or Publishing Blackness," [short] and "JoAnne."

It was long a goal of mine to be able to direct a Bullins play. With the author's permission, we tweaked the title and presented "The Electronic Fool" in a program of one acts this summer. [Reference Magnolia Arts Center] Working with the playwright's words in production is a breathtaking experience. This is said to be Bullins' most humorous play, but the humor is cutting edge -- South Park. It must have been amazingly revolutionary in 1968 when it flew from his pen. The language he gives to Carpentier goes from the inane to the insane. In an effort to create the quintessential know-it-all, the Electronic N says, "With our present cybernetic generation it is psycho-politically relevant to engage our socio-philosophical existence on a quantitatum scale, which is, of course pertinent to the outer motivated migration of our inner-oriented social compact." How many times does an actor get to say something that completely bananas that sounds like it means something? Bullins was in high gear on this play and our production shined because of the great play.

Other pieces are meant to be read like 1970's "A Short Play for a Small Theatre" where Black Man polishes a hand gun in front of a white audience and to conclude the play assassinates each member of the audience. The violence of the racial struggle is also in evidence in Bullins' brilliant "JoAnne" that follows the real life North Carolina trial of Joan Little in the early 70s. Bullins pushes the piece to the limit with the mistreatment by the jailer silhouetted behind a scrim. It is a breathtaking drama that will find few stages able to handle the depth and power, probably decades ahead of its time.

The writings at the end of book are some of Bullins' published essays and letters on the state of Black Theatre and the need to find other models besides traditional European theatre. One of my favorite Bullins' plays, "In New England Winter," is not included here; so this is not a collected anthology. However, it is an excellent overview to the frequently difficult but exceptionally rewarding work of this master playwright! Bravo!