Michigan Books

I just finished reading Companions for the Passage, and would like to offer my thoughts. The recent publication of this book was quite a coincidence, since my mother passed away a couple of months ago. She had Parkinson's Disease and could no longer swallow. She and the family declined a feeding tube, and she was brought home for her final days.

Hospice got involved, and I can't say enough good things about what they do. I can't imagine getting through all that we did without their help.

I found Marjorie Ryerson's book to be a great source of insight and in some ways comfort in dealing with my feelings. It made me realize what a momentous thing we had witnessed, and that we were not alone or unique in our experience. None of the individual stories were identical to our experience, but I found that there were aspects of each story that I could relate to.

I would think that this book would be on Hospice's highly recommended reading list.

This book was given to me about six weeks after my wife of 47 years had passed away. She had a horrific 14 week battle against lung cancer, which had spread to her spine, pelvis and ribs. I had been a primary caregiver for her both at home and during her time in the hospital and hospice. I was with her when she passed. Nearly every interview in this book contained something to which I could relate or which I had experienced. Many lines triggered memories with all the resultant emotion and feelings. Reading the similar experiences of others was consoling and supportive during this time of my grieving. This book should be on every hospice book shelf. It is excellent for anyone dealing with terminal illness or the grief of the loss of a loved one.

What a great book for adults and children. It is so nice to learn the history of the Petoskey stone. Gives you ideas of where to go and find them. I highly recommended this book to anyone who visits Lake Michigan and Lake Huron( I'v found many of these fossils in Lake Huron as well) and enjoys to look at the rocks and pick up a few along your travels on the shore.Reading this makes me wish I was a geologist myself!

rock collector, both novice and experienced. Detailed information on all aspects of the Petoskey stone are presented in a enjoyable and straightforward manner. The origin, history, location, finishing techniques [shaping, polishing] and craft uses of Michigan's state stone are all covered. To say Bruce Mueller & William Wilde's book will increase your knowledge and enjoyment of this beautiful stone is a understatement. This book provides readers with the precise location of sites in which one is likely to find Petoskey stones. On my first visit to a location described in "The Complete Guide to Petoskey Stones", I found more & larger Petoskey stones [around 30] in 2 hours than I'd found in the past four years.

In August, I had the privilege of meeting author Bruce Mueller at his rock shop, C & M Rock Shop, which is just outside of Honor, Michigan. Mr Mueller was warm, friendly and willing to answer questions concerning the Petoskey Stone. Bruce Mueller was also kind enough to sign my copy of "Complete Guide to Petoskey Stones" and "Lake Michigan Rock Pickers Guide". Both of Bruce Mueller's wonderful books have been invaluable in enhancing my understanding of, ability to locate and uses for the treasures lying along Lake Michigan's beaches.

At long last, an important, substantive book on one of Detroit's great treasures, Tyree Guyton's Heidelberg Project, has appeared in print. The book's editor, Jenenne Whitfield, is to be congratulated for compiling a varied and provocative set of essays and Wayne State University Press has spared no expense in setting very high production standards for this book. For beginners who have just found their way to Heidelberg Street and want to know more or for those of us who teach the Heidelberg Project in university level undergraduate classes, there is much to engage.

The Heidelberg Project is fascinating for the multiple layers of meaning to be derived and for a complex visual aesthetic that grabs you by the collar and insists on being addressed. Each of the contributors to the volume investigates a piece of a very large whole--intent, autobiography, community reception, the role of the artist in society, legal challenges, building community, the role of the city government and Detroit's churches in the work's fortunes, the project's social and artistic agendas, etc. That the complexities of the Project are given full voice adds to the volume's richness and gives the mind something to consider long after the book's end is reached.

Traveling to the Heidelberg Project has been a life-changing experience for hundreds of my students at the University of Michigan. The arrival of this provocative book provides the best road map I could have hoped for to lead them further down a journey that begins with Tyree Guyton's masterful work on Heidelberg Street.

Connecting the Dots: Tyree Guyton's Heidelberg Project is the first thorough assembly of writings concerning this Detroit art installation, first created in 1986 by Tyree Guyton with the aim of transforming a decaying neighborhood scarred by crime, prostitution and gangs. With the ordinary materials around him (used toys, car parts, and debris) and his trademark affection for colorful polka dots, Guyton completely metamorphosed several homes and vacant lots on Heidelberg Street into a stunning art environment and one of the city's most well-known tourist attractions. Illustrated with full-color photographs. The transformation did not happen overnight; at first, some of Guyton's staunchest opponents were Detroit's leaders, who bulldozed his art on the claim that the buildings it decorated were safety hazards. Full color photographs illustrate this amazing tour of the power of art and one man's dedication to peacefully fight for a better neighborhood. Highly recommended as an inspirational addition to both public library and private artbook collections.

This book could be a parallel to Immanuel Goldstein's secret book in 1984. See the Soviet Union from a critical yet unbiased viewpoint for the first time and ideologically stick it to the powers that be.

This book could be a parallel to Immanuel Goldstein's secret book in 1984. See the Soviet Union from a critical yet unbiased viewpoint for the first time and ideologically stick it to the powers that be.

The Copper Country of Michigan has long been my favorite place in the world to visit, because of the matchless combination of water and mountains, unique in Michigan. And now I feel as if I know the area even more intimately.
The storytelling blends all the elements in such a way that I read the book from beginning to end at one sitting. It's a wonderful addition to my library, one I will always treasure.

Although this book is really just a family genealogy of a rather ordinary immigrant family, I found this very interesting as I was living in the Keweenaw peninsula when I read it and could imagine all the places mentioned. The mine owners are portrayed is quite over-the-top benevolent in the labor relations. The story is very well told.

I checked this book out of our library so much when I was a little girl. When my son was about 9, I read it to him during our nightly reading sessions. He loved it, too. Inspires imagination.

I grew up in Lapeer county where this story takes place. So as a child I read and loved this book. Now, as an adult I live in teh very house the story takes place in and once again have discovered the magic of this story. There is a biography of the author which contains other short stories about her father which didn't make it into Copper Toed Boots, to anyone who enjoys this book I would also suggest the biography.

Note: These are true stories about the author's father. A great way to teach children about life in the late 19th century and get them started reading at an early age. Shad's adventures are fun and the writing is mature enough that adults won't feel talked down to. Enjoy!

Mildly intrigued by the title of this book, I bought a used copy...a flea market in Lunenberg, Mass. this past fall. It turned out to be a real gem. Superbly well-written, it weaves together accounts of the author's family life in rural Michigan at the turn of the Twentieth Century with recipes of the food the family ate. The effect is very much along the lines of MFK Fisher's books about her life in France. But unlike Mrs. Fisher, Ms. Lutes is no self-conscious bohemian. Very much a woman of her time and place, she is nonetheless independent, intelligent, and very funny. That is, there is nothing genteel and Victorian about her, and nothing pretentious. She is modern, one of us. Who was Della T. Lutes? Hard to tell at this late date. My 1965 edition of "The Reader's Encyclopedia" has no entry on her. Amazon.com has only this title for sale. But she must have had a considerable following in her day. My copy of "The Country Kitchen," printed in 1948, was apparently the 22nd printing of a book originally published in 1936. The flyleaf lists four other titles by her. I gave "The Country Kitchen" to my wife, a chef, for Christmas. She has yet to stop raving about it. More than a cook book, a culinary history or a social history, "The Country Kitchen" qualifies as capital-L Literature.

This is quite an extraordinary book: a combination of "Little House on the Prairie" and one of my grandmother's old cookbooks. It was pressed on me by a friend whose reading tastes I don't normally share. I started reading "The Country Kitchen" to be polite, and ended up reading straight through to the end. Even though I wasn't even born until well after this book had gone through twenty-three editions, it had the power to evoke memories of my own childhood--at least the stories my grandfather used to tell me about his life on the farm.

Della Lutes was born in 1872 and lived on a farm near Jackson, Michigan until she was sixteen, when she left home to teach school. She eventually became the editor of "American Motherhood," "Today's Housewife," and in 1923 the "Modern Priscilla" magazine. When the publishing firm she worked for went bankrupt during the Great Depression, Della became a freelance writer and produced "The Country Kitchen," which started out as a series of articles in "The Atlantic Monthly." Her book was named "The Most Original Book" of 1936 by the American Booksellers Association and was described by Christopher Morley as a 'gastronomical autobiography.'

I don't know whether I'll ever try the recipe for "salt-risin' bread" or buy a quarter of beef to be "nicely ripened by hanging a couple of weeks or so in the woodshed," but I'll long remember the story of how Della's father entertained the Ladies' Church Aid Society by turning a baby skunk loose during their annual dinner. And then there's the story of Little Runt, who was fated to be the Thanksgiving pig, and Old Wart, the garden toad. Della's story wheels you through the complete cycle of seasons with all of the sights and smells of rural Michigan (you might not want to know what some folks used for home insulation, come late Autumn).

This author deserves a place on your shelf right next to Laura Ingalls Wilder. She has saturated this book with the tastes and smells of a late nineteenth-century rural kitchen, bringing back recollections I never knew I had. Maybe it's got something to do with ancestral remembrance, since nearly all of our folks were rural up until the early decades of the last century.

All I can urge you to do is read it and remember.

Lynn M. LoPucki has described and documented the insidious corruption that has taken hold of the U.S. bankruptcy courts. Almost no one in the bankruptcy field will talk openly about what has happened to the practice of their profession. But the corruption and prevalence of greed are very real. Lynn M. LoPucki has decoded their playbook and exposed the pattern of corruption. The "case placers" (bankruptcy lawyers and professionals) choose where to file the cases; judges compete for big cases by appealing to them. Compromised judges readily approve lucrative fees for the lawyers and bankruptcy professionals with whom they have cozy relationships, while allowing them to suppress, muzzle and trample on the rights of shareholders and creditors who dare to object. Disturbingly, corrupt bankruptcy lawyers and professionals are becoming more artful at their game. The plays are now so well understood that case placers do not need to spell out their conspiratorial actions to one another. They have mastered the quick Section 363 sale (minimum time, maximum fees). They can effectively hijack companies through their counsel to boards of directors, then be opportunely positioned to generate millions in legal and professional fees, all readily approved by the judges who reward their brethren who bring cases to their courts, even praising them for their "hard work." The U.S. Trustee's office is no help in ferreting out the abuse. Nor is the SEC. Bankruptcy fraud and corruption are not even among the SEC's priorities. So it is "businessperson beware," and especially beware of your lawyers and professional advisors, their motives, and their connections to the bankruptcy world. No serious business person can afford not to know what is happening to the bankruptcy courts. LoPucki's book is required reading.

Great book, explains how companies can abuse the bankruptcy court system. Very well written, and interesting for a general audience.

I couldn't put it down! The characters were so well written that I felt like I was losing an old friend when I finished the book. The twists and turns in plot kept me hooked, and the ending was great. But I think the best part about the book was the feel of reality to it. Its placed in a small town with people who have normal abilities, normal reactions, and regular jobs, yet they overcome great difficulties.

Overall, out of the hundreds of mysteries I read each year, this is one of the best I've read.

CPA P.J. Benson moves away from Kalamazoo into a small house she inherited from her paternal grandfather in Zenith Michigan, a farming community where nobody locks their doors. This proves to be a mistake as P.J. discovers when she is taking a walk in the woods and she hears shots ring out. She rushes home finding a blood trail that leads to her kitchen until she reaches a dead man.

Detective Wade Kingsley is put in charge of the case and feels that P.J. is a possible suspect even though she doesn't know the man. Her closest neighbors John and Julia think they know who the victim was and they believe he stole bioengineered lady bugs from a lab. They can't tell the police because John brought them home from work without permission. Several times P.J. feels someone has been in her home but the police think she is crazy (a sore spot for her because her mother is a schizophrenic) but she knows where each pf her belongings are supposed to be. When certain evidence comes to light, Wade believes her and wants her to stay at his sister's house until they can figure out what is going on. P.J. refuses and almost gets them both killed from a ghost out of her past.

Since mental illness runs in her family, P.J. ponders if the things that are happening to her are hallucinations like a jealous lesbian poisoning her food or her hearing the voice of someone dead for eighteen years over the phone. She comes to realize she is as sane as anyone else and somebody is playing mind games with her. The mystery is well constructed with different neighbors at different times coming under suspicion. THE CROWS is a creative well written psychological suspense thriller.

Harriet Klausner

This is a great introduction to the medieval Crusades with eye candy to boot! It's a very even keeled overview - without all the political biases that so often get in the way of explaining a subject objectively. This book educates the reader on the various crusades within the context of their times.

"Crusades - The Illustrated History," Thomas F. Madden, Editor, shares all the strengths of Madden's "Concise History of the Crusades." It is a refreshing and positive look at the falable but devoted knights and kings of Christendom who deeply desired to see the holy sites of Christianity delivered from the hands of their unbelieving conquerors. It is eminently fair in its approach to historical facts. It also incorporates much new knowledge of the period.

Besides being a facinating account of the period, it is a beautifully designed book. Its sections are broken up into short studies with rich colored illustrations. You can read it in short stages, and absorb the material at leisure. It also shares the strength of a perspective shared by several historians, so you are aware that the research is not just one man's ideas but the fruit of much fresh information.

This one is worth the money and time you will put into it.

Wm. H. Scarle, Jr. - BA, M.Div., Th.M - Tampa, FL