Michigan Books

Dora Stockman lived her incredible life in Michigan to the fullest. She was a devoted wife, mother, farmer, business woman, politician, actress, author and more. She cared deeply about her community and it showed in the work she did both for the Grange and for education. This account of her life as a model Politician and much more is a tribute to the many women who have shaped our lives. Women like Dora Stockman paved the way for the women of the 21st century and it is important to remember how far women have progressed. This well written history about her life and accomplishments in Michigan would be a true asset to anyones library.

A great read about a woman who worked her way to prominence via good works and a sincere love for education. Well written and suitably phrased for an enjoyable read.

The book also includes useful historical references to reinforce the time in which this woman made such amazing in roads into a male dominated world.

Women's-studies courses would be well served by the content and careful vetting of research that is the basis for this book.

A meaningful addition to any library regarding the Grange, Farm culture in the 19th and 20th century, Mighigan history, Michigan politics, Michigan women, and Michigan authors.

David Deupree (included in book credits)

In a time in Michigan's History when women were in the Kitchen or at best a teacher. Dora Stockman blazed a trial of what I call the perfect Proverbs 31 Women. She was the first woman to run and win a major politcal office in Michigan. She was a poet, songtress and agriculturist all to the amazement of the culture at that time. She was not only a trail blazer of her time she is a fine example to young women and old alike that nothing is to hard if you believe and act in faith. Truly Dora Stockman was a Phenomenal Woman.

The Off-Off-Broadway theatre scene in New York City is one of the strong reasons for living in New York City, and perhaps their best times were when they were getting started in the 1960's. This was a time when social changes were afoot in our country. The pill had freed up female sexuality, for most of the decade the Vietnam war was underway, and everything came together in New York. No one knows when it really began, but it came alive at the Cafe Cino. And while the story of Joe Cino and his cafe is told in a chapter, you may be interested in the bigger treatment given in 'Return to the Cafe Cino.'

This book then goes on to describe the growth of the Off-Off-Broadway scene after Cino, new theaters, stronger and breaking into categories, but retaining still the idea of non-commercial, far out theater, in small venues.

In Cino days, actors who were members of the union frequently performed using another name. Now there is a special category of contract and there are more actors working OOB than on the Bib B itself.

Bottoms gives shape to the marginal field of "basement theaters, cafe theaters, hole-in-the-wall theaters, and theaters thriving on rough edges, raw passion, and a fierce sense of immediacy and 'liveness' of the stage event itself and of the audience" which sprang up in the 1960s along with the experimentation in other parts of the culture as well. A Professor in the Department of Theatre, Film, and Television Studies at the U. of Glascow, Bottoms sees the connection between this "off-off-Broadway" theater of the tumultuous and quixotic 1960s and today's popular entertainment. The raucousness of rock concerts, the brazenness of Janet Jackson's "wardrobe malfunction," the provocative live performances, and rap lyrics all had precursors in the "illegitimate" theater of the 60s. Bottom's engaging work is both historical and critical. He cites the artistic and cultural sources while also bringing in the wider social milieu of the time. General themes and developments share space with activities and individuals connected with particular theaters and troupes. "Playing Underground" is a benchmark work of thorough research which goes into the social and political agendas of this theater scene while at the same time imparting its unconventional, often deliberately provocative and obscene, and in the long run, influential performance style.

This book is an epic movie about an epic movement. "Playing Underground" is a book the world has waited for without knowing it. New York's off-Off Broadway theatres in the 1960's created the styles that mark Post-Modern art--not only stage plays but films and music as well. I know. I was there. How precisely this book captures the evolution of our revolution! I am amazed by its scope and scale, and I bless its author especially for giving two greats, playwrights Paul Foster and H.M. Koutoukas,their proper, polar places, and for memorializing such unjustly forgotten masterpieces as Irene Fornes' "Molly's Dream" and Jeff Weiss' "A Funny Walk Home." Stephen Bottoms' vivid evocation of the grand adventure of Off-Off Broadway has woken and broken my heart. It is difficult to believe that he was not there alongside me to breathe the caffeine-nicotine-alkaloid-steeped air. The photographs show how we flaunted our youth and imagination in the dark, dusty, often dirty coffeehouses, churches, galleries, basements, and "black boxes" where modern theatre--and so much more--began.
Robert Patrick, author of "Kennedy's Children," "Temple Slave," and "Film Moi: Narcissus in the Dark"

This is the best kind of academic writing: direct, technically accurate and concise, yet intriguing, lively and infomative. Segal clearly has affection for his subject, yet does not hedge on Ford's notoriously disagreeable qualities. A clear-eyed look at a complex man and his ideals.

This book is fabulous! It captures this topic better than any I've ever read. It's very interesting to me, and I'm not in the least way associated with Ford. Great book and enjoyable read!!

Henry Ford is famous for setting up the basic concepts of mass production. And some of his factories Highland Park, River Rouge and Willow Run to name three were truly huge facilities producing huge numbers of vehicles, even aircraft. Yet at the same time he was concerned about the social aspects of the businesses.

In the early 1920's he was instrumental in Ford setting up nineteen smaller 'village industries.' Each of these industries were set up to provide some kind of easily specified component that would be used in Ford vehicles or manufacturing. These included things like voltage regulators, twist drills, manufacturing test equipment, etc.

After his death, in the late 1940's and early 1950's these nineteen was shut down, usually merged into a large factory in the newly formed parts division. This effort cannot be considered a failure. All in all, the nineteen plants were too small, too hard to manage.

Now similar outside suppliers provide such sub component manufacturing, but they are larger, and independently owned. This same concept is also followed closely in Japan where smaller independent suppliers make components for automobiles and other products.

Many books and articles have been written about the poetry of Robert Frost, but this book, astonishingly, makes almost all of them obsolete. Frost's critics have found him haunted by a dark vision but they have been hard pressed to say exactly what it was. They have struggled to find the real context of his thinking, but the poems, in spite of many melancholy readings, have remained elusive. What are these elegant meditations really about? Where does the impetus for these disturbing dramatic monologues and stark dialogues come from? Faggen's brilliantly researched and forcefully written book finally tells us the answer: Frost was obsessed with Darwin and his vision of the natural world. He said so many times (though none of his critics was willing to listen). And once you have recognized this fact, the grave, witty, tender, and frightful poems acquire a new clarity and force. Frost was no "spiritual drifter," no vague perveyor of "metaphysical terror," as earlier writers have thought, but the most sophisticated and tough-minded poet of science that modern culture has produced--the nearest thing we have to a Lucretius. This book takes a figure who has seemed conservative or even backward to his readers and shows him to be the most forward-looking artist of his generation. And it accomplishes this task with an easy mastery of detail that removes all doubt. "Never again would bird's song be the same," Frost wrote--never the same after reading Darwin, that is, nor will this poem be the same after reading Faggen. The romantic Frost is dead, and a new Frost is afoot. Some will mourn, some will rejoice at the news, but scholarship is seldom as conclusive as this and hardly ever as exciting.

This book helped me see Frost in a new light, as a thinker grappling with the problems science poses to religion and to poetry. There is an enormous amount of scholarship brought to many poems, and we see the ways Frost thought not only about Darwin but about Lucretius, Milton, James, Bergson, Emerson, and Thoreau. The Frost that emerges is both dark and complex--a subversive and subtle pastoralist. Though the book is written in clear prose with very little jargon, it is a heavy read. But well worth it.

Professor Faggen has written a remarkable book. We might have considered Frost a sentimental, a provincial poet, but in this volume we discover that Frost (far from the potato-hoeing grandpa of our collective memories) is a poet of the first order and among the most challenging of the moderns. Frost's revaluations of the Romantic and the Miltonic myths in Darwinian terms place him as our chief poet of the scientific, the skeptical turn of mind. The evidence amassed for his argument is daunting and Faggen has contributed to our understanding of the place of Darwin--biological and social--in modern poetry. Faggen's individual readings are acute and original. We will from now on see "The Road Not Taken," "The Oven Bird," and "The Need of Being Versed in Country Things," in a different way. We will see them not as melancholy mood poems, but as tough and riddling explorations of human and animal existence. We may now begin to see Frost's place in American literature, and that a high position indeed! We may thank Robert Faggen for deepening our understanding and broadening our view.

"Roses for Michigan" has everything in it that you need to know, to grow fantastic roses in colder climates. I can't say enough about this great book...other than if you don't have it....you better get it!!

Thanks for the great book!!

If you live in any zone 5 or colder state and you're interested in growing roses this should be on your book shelf. Toss most guides which concentrate on tender Hybrid Teas and floribundas. This book will give you good information for growing roses in our weather, from selecting varieties to planting, to care.

The book includes a huge section of rose variety information including a photograph of each rose, hardiness information, disease resistance, etc.

The title says Michigan but really anyone living in zone 5 or colder will get great advice from this book.

"Roses for Michigan" was a real eye-opener for me. The only kinds of roses I'd previously had any luck with were war horses like Bonica and Blaze. Now I'm emboldened by this book to try some of my catalogue favorites: the lilac floribunda "Blueberry Hill," the beautiful red climber "Dublin Bay," and the hybrid tea rose "Dainty Bess" with her strong scent of cloves and unusual burgundy stamens.

I live out in the boonies, so I order my roses through catalogues and the web. The authors of "Roses for Michigan" admonish me to be cautious when ordering from southern and western rose growers, as their roses "may be grafted onto Dr. Huey rootstock, which is not well-suited, in the long term, to Michigan."

Maybe that's been my problem all along with grafted roses, because "Bonica" and "Blaze" are own-root.

I checked out my favorite California catalogue, and they do not specify their root stock. I also wonder whether local nurseries get their roses from California.

At any rate, the authors recommend buying grafted roses on "Rosa Multiflora" rootstock for Michigan gardens, or better yet, buy own-root plants.

As with all of the Lone Pine garden books for Michigan, all aspects of buying and caring for roses are discussed, including a very useful chapter on planting roses. As I read through this chapter I began to realize why most of my attempts at introducing new roses were failures. Did you know that the recommended depth for the bud graft to be buried in colder areas (such as our state) is three to four inches?

At the back of this book is a list of resources for Michigan rosarians: gardens to visit; rose societies and clubs; garden centers and suppliers; websites; and books.

I just wish there could have been more advice in "Roses for Michigan" on how to prevent critters like deer, ground hogs, and rabbits from nibbling on my roses.

For those serious about growing in the spiritual life, Walter Hilton is a must. Not everything will speak to every person but there is much to be gained from a slow, careful, and prayerful reading.

Author Peter Ackroyd (The Life of Thomas More) says that Hitlton's "Scale of Perfection" and Kempas'"Imitation of Christ" are part of the broad tradition of late medieval Christian piety. Both books played a central part of Thomas More's life. Scale of Perfection is concerend with the active Chrictian life in the world. Hilton also wrote a volume entitled "The Mixed Life."

Walter Hilton's massive undertaking (the first thorough treatment of ascetic theology in the English language) is as rewarding for those today as in his own era - and a careful reading makes one realise that he was treating many of the same difficulties we would find in our own time. This is by no means light reading, but the lawyer's mind, theologian's precision, and pastoral father's homely charm are a winning combination. (How can anyone resist one who, after giving an explanation of sin so with the lawyer's accuracy that one nearly searches for the section on plea bargaining, then tenderly reassures his reader that God is most generous with forgiveness or "heaven would be much too empty?)I would recommend it (if not require it) of anyone with an interest either in ascetic theology or fourteenth century England.

I'm in a constant search for writers with mental illness.
Gerard de Nerval fits the bill and as a 19th Century
French writer bent on eccentricities and called bousingos or
'rowdies' known for their orgies, eating ice cream out of skulls,
nudity at seminars. Nerval went insane and spent the rest of
his life in and out of an asylum and eventually killed himself......the end
of his considered greatest work Aurelia was in his pocket was found
in his pocket when he hung himself. Aurelia is his account of his
fall into madness. I'm going to read it again. I read everything only
once, i'll start re-reading with this book.

Nerval was the Mother of All Bohemians, a romantic eccentric who set the stage for latter-day zanies from Arthur Rimbaud to John Wieners. His most famous stunt was parading through Paris with a lobster, explaining to his friends: "He does not bark, and he knows the secrets of the deep." With the beautiful, dense, enigmatic poems in 'The Chimeras' he virtually invented literary Modernism, while 'Aurelia' is one of the most touching accounts of schizophrenia ever written (the book is worth it for these two pieces alone, along with the proto-Proustian 'Sylvie'). Nerval's tragic disintegration, ending in suicide in 1855, seems to mark the point where Romanticism turned from fantasy and Nature to madness and derangement, a pattern that still plays out in our culture in a hundred different ways. Sieburth's a little intrusive with the prefaces and footnotes--he seems anxious you might not 'get' Nerval without his help. The sections are also arranged thematically instead of chronologically, which makes it hard to trace his development as a writer. But the notes include plenty of useful biographical information, and for the money it's easily the best selection of Nerval's writings in English. A great intro to a fascinating writer.

I came upon this volume by chance, after it won a translation prize from PEN, but was glad I did. Nerval seems to take up a curious position in literary history, and though is something of an eccentric, he was loved by later writers (Proust) and by artists (Joseph Cornell). The stories are strange and fantastic, travel narratives which are more journeys of the mind than actual travels. Anyone with an interest in the surreal, or in the fabular fictions of Calvino or Borges, will find these stories a delight. The stories raise questions about identity, sanity and madness, and linguisticly are truly alluring.

Also included are a number of poems and letters, which combined with the prose pieces present a great picture of the author's whole work. It seems like the best place to start for anyone who has not read Nerval before, but I'm sure that dedicated enthusiasts will find new pleasure in the excellent translation and the lucid editorial expositions that Richard Sieburth provides throughout the text.

When folks think of shipwrecks and nautical adventures they typically consider the Atlantic Coast or the Caribbean. But Mike Varhola takes us on an entertaining and educational voyage through 21 shipwrecks in the Great Lakes. Each engaging story of these wrecks, from the earliest European explorers to the 1970s, is told from a different perspective: a passenger awaiting a death sentence, the harried skipper, the conniving grave robber. Mike helps the reader with background information by including a geologic history of the lakes, their surface areas and depths, and weather peculiarities. The author also includes a quick reference map of the wrecks and the lakes. Mike has done a great job capturing this often overlooked area of nautical history.

MikeVarhola's Shipwrecks and Lost Treasures: Great Lakes is an engrossing and entertaining read. Anyone who grew up on the shore, as I did, or who loves ships ("boats," as they are called on the Great Lakes) will find these twenty-five stories riveting. Varhola writes with clarity and close attention to historical details about mighty vessels that came to a bad end in the vast reaches of the Great Lakes. He takes the reader on a fascinating voyage through maritime history, beginning his chronicles in 1679 with the disappearance of French explorer LaSalle's Le Griffon and sailing right up to the 1975 fabled wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald.

One of my favorite stories in Shipwrecks is the story of the Eastland, a steamship that rolled over on the Chicago River in 1915--literally less than twenty feet from downtown sidewalks--killing over 800 people. I also wrote about the Eastland (more specifically, about the ghosts of its victims) in my book, Ghosthunting Illinois, but Varhola's story is a great retelling of the grim historical details for those readers unfamiliar with the disaster.

I recommend Shipwrecks for readers who are interested in ships and the lore of the sea, or who have an interest in the history of the Great Lakes region, and I look forward to reading more of Varhola's works.

John Kachuba
Author, Ghosthunters: On the Trail of Mediums, Dowsers, Spirit Seekers, and Other Investigators of America's Paranormal World


[ASIN:1578602203 Ghosthunting Illinois (The Haunted Heartland)]]

This was an excellent read. I have always enjoyed books about shipwrecks. This book delves into shipwrecks of the Great Lakes opening the door to an area explored little by writers of this topic. Mr. Varhola takes his readers away from the warm waters of the Caribbean and recounts historical tales of lost ships in the colder waters in the American Great Lakes. The histories of the various ships were fascinating and the imagery of one or two short stories brought life to this topic. As a fan of historical fiction I hope Mr. Varhola will utilize his well researched knowledge to create a few tales that dig deeper into this subject matter.

A stroke striking someone down at the age of thirty two - it can happen, and it struck down a woman in her prime. "Shooting Star: The Amazing Life of Ann Marston" celebrates the brief yet accomplished life of Ann Marston, beauty pageant champion, archery champion, model, & early promoter of Rock N' Roll. Covering her short life, it is an inspirational yet sad tale and a cautionary tale that everyone may be struck down, so always consider the now. "Shooting Star: The Amazing Life of Ann Marston" is a must for community library biography collections.

Shooting Star tells the story of archer extraordinaire Ann Marston. Born "In the shadow of Sherwood Forest" in 1938, Ann won a local beauty contest at ten months old and soon became a popular child model, appearing in numerous print ads and catalogs throughout England. She showed an interest in archery and by the age of nine was winning archery competitions throughout England.

In 1949 the Marston family moved to Wyandotte, MI, where Ann became an international archery champion, a finalist in the Miss America pageant and a rock band promoter despite being diagnosed with diabetes at age 12, which eventually stole her sight. Ann's life ended tragically in 1971 after suffering a massive stroke.

Author Alana Paluszewski had access to Ann's personal diaries, family home movies and photographs, enabling her to accurately tell the story of the first female professional archer. Shooting Star: The Amazing Life Of Ann Marston is of interest to archery aficionados, Detroit pop history buffs and anyone interested in reading the inspirational story of a true sports pioneer.

Anyone who is into the fine sport of archery should buy this book and become familiar with this facet of history!

This is the quintessetial book about weather in the UP of Michigan. The combination of history, science, and fascinating stories makes this a book for every weather fan in and outside of Michigan.

Wonderfully written. As as lifetime "yooper", I know what they mean by the saying "only in the U.P., if you don't like the weather wait 5 minutes it will change". Great book Karl.

Written by weather forecaster Karl Bohnak, So Cold A Sky: Upper Michigan Weather Stories is a compilation of true tales of upper Michigan's extreme weather conditions, from pioneers who braved bone-chilling temperatures to settle the northern part of the state to modern snowstorms and heatwaves. Written in a straightforward narrative style and illustrated with numerous black-and-white photographs and artworks, So Cold A Sky is an enthralling chronicle of the eternal story of man versus nature. An incredible testimony to the endurance of Michigan's hardiest human inhabitants.