Michigan Books

Steve Addy's look back at the history of the Detroit Pistons is sure to warm the heart of any true Pistons fan. It contains a multiplicity of photos, anecdotes and history sure to interest anyone who loves professional basketball. Addy's writing style has a unique rhythm, not unlike that of a basketball dribbling. It borders on poetry.

This book belongs on the shelf of every Detroit Tigers fan. Tom Stanton, who wrote the superb Tiger Stadium memoir The Final Season, did a fine job selecting stories on legends like Ty Cobb, Al Kaline, Hank Greenberg, and The Bird. What I liked best is that the stories were from the time period -- not written decades later by journalists who never saw the men play. There are articles by Grantland Rice, Damon Runyon, and other famous scribes, but some of my favorites are by writers I never heard of. This is a fun read. On these pages, at least, the Tigers once again contend and even play in the World Series.

I have three books in this series. As a history buff and amateur genealogist, these have given me an insight to Detroit's past as well as some family members who were also described. The scope is somewhat limited as it must be as ALL graves cannot be covered. Nonetheless, it is a good investment to get a small glimpse into the past.

This book is more than a pictorial record. It tells a story. It nicely documents the creation and evolution of the New Center area of downtown Detroit. Its provides insight into the forces driving urban planning in the Motor City. It chronicals the city's arrival on the scene as an industrial powerhouse, through the effects of the industry's maturation on urban development, all the way up to current efforts to continue developing the area post-the maturation of its major corporate sponsors (and without a range of other sponsors of that scale filling in the gap).

Full of well researched historical photos (some, I believe, which ever never been available outside of archives). The text below the photos are more than captions explaining the photos. They actually tell the story, succintly but effectively. The photos highlight the narrative. And they are a lot of fun to look it.

If this is your scene, and your area of interest, I definitely recommend this book.

Being a person of limited intellect when it comes to fuel cell technology and its' applications, I found Ms. Koval's issue paper to be not only informative, but at the same time I was able to follow the complex issues that this 21st century technology brings to the fore. Ms. Koval seems to have command of the subject matter and has exhaustively researched this topic so as to write a fair and accurate analysis of fuel cell technology.

Dialogues On Cultural Studies: Interviews With Contemporary Critics is an essential dialogue which poses a set of questions to a panel of North America' leading cultural critics, resulting in interviews which survey a range of modern issues, from gender and political conflicts to sources of modernity and globalization issues. Virtually anything having to do with modern cultural issues and studies is debated by scholars who know their stuff. Highly recommended for a college-level readership.

This book written by Karl Kautsky in the summer of 1918 was the opening shot in a duel of articles between Kautsky and Lenin and Trotsky which went on until 1921.

Although Kautsky had not followed Bernstein and the Second International all the way down the path of the Marxist revisionism, he was disturbed by what he saw as the violent excesses of the Russian Revolution in 1917 and the formation of the dictatorship of the proletariat by Lenin and the Bolsheviks.

This book was written to set forth his criticsims in print. Lenin responded to this book with an article of his own--the famous "Proletraian Revolution and the Renegade Kautsky" written in October 1918. Kautsky then replied with "Terrorism and Communism" in June of 1919. Leon Traosky then answered this book with an article of the same name in 1920--to which Kautsky once again replied in an article called "From Democracy to Statism" which has yet to be translated into English. This series of books relates much about early Soviet ideology and their relations with Marxist parties of rest of Europe.

If you are interested in anything relating to the Hubinger family in the United States, and in Michigan in particular, or if you are doing research on German-American immigration, this is the book for you. It is a one-stop tour of the influence and prosperity that the Hubinger family brought to the small missionary community of Frankenmuth Michigan, with a deep Lutheran devotion and a ernest desire to better themselves.

Complete with hundreds of photos and copies of primary sources, most also in English translation from the original German.

If you would like to order a copy, please email me and I will contact the author.

For anyone who has ever been fascinated with Diego Rivera and his works, this is a wonderfully detailed guide to the Detroit Industry Murals. Readible either from cover-to-cover or in chapters, this book is filled throughout with photos, historic background, interviews and amazingly interesting details to all that went into the Detroit Industry Murals. Starting with other Rivera murals located across the United States, Downs leads into the situation of Henry Ford wanting a depiction of Detroit and the auto industry for a neglected garden gallery. A chapter details the fresco process used by Rivera during this immense project, and is skippable for those not interested in art technique. Another chapter details how Rivera and his wife, artist Fridah Kahlo, spend their time in the Motor City. The especially amazing introduction tells the story of how in 1979 Detroit Institute of Art staff found in a dusty closet the original "cartoons" (full size pencil sketches) that Diego Rivera had made during the planning and layout of the murals. Downs ends the book with reactions to the finished project, which ranged from churches outrage to extreme pride for the city's auto workers, which the work most positively depicted. Because of the artist's political convictions (Mexican communist) the murals were almost destroyed during the Cold War and had to be protected under armed guard. Detroit is the last place you would expect to find the masterpiece of the Mexican muralist movement's greatest son. Just like it's topic, this book is an amazing and unexpected masterpiece.

Jackson is a real find, and this is where to start. These novels, mostly police procedurals, are concisely and wittily written, and as the books continue, we really get to know Fang Mulheisen and his city, Detroit. Later, in books like "Hit on the House" and "Deadman," we meet recurring characters such as likeable assassin Joe Service and his on-again off-again love interest (and Mafia princess) Helen Sedlacek. These are "real" people with foibles and weaknesses-- some are unapologetic killers, but we get to know them and, yes, like them. Fang tracks them down, and sometimes even catches them. If you like Elmore Leonard, if you like Carl Hiaasen, if you like Thomas Perry-- read these too. You'll become a fan, I guarantee it.