Michigan Books

The scene: Birmingham, England, in the steamy, sooty grip of the Industrial Revolution. George Selgin tells the "riveting" tale of a group of eccentric entrepreneurs who take on not only each other, but the Royal Mint and the British Crown in their bids to supply a burgeoning working class with desperately needed copper and silver coins. The result: a yarn as colorfully amusing as one of Dickens' more ambitious novels, but entirely true, and one that offers up an economics lesson to boot: namely, that good money really does drive out bad--that is, as long as governments stay out of it (as soon as they don't Gersham's Law kicks in). If you love a great story, if you adore larger-than-life characters, if you put a premium on fine prose, do yourself a favor and buy Good Money. It will be well worth yours.

Despite it's seemingly specialized, historical subject, Good Money is really both very topical and very important. The story it tells--of private coinage during the Industrial Revolution--directly challenges the conventional wisdom that's at the foundation of all modern monetary systems, namely, the belief that only government's are fit to supply coins and paper money. Selgin shows that this was far from being the case in 18th-century England. There the government proved itself perfectly unfit to coin money, until private mints showed it how to do its job right! The story of how they designed the world's first successful industrial-scale coinage system, and of how the government ultimately put them out of business, is absolutely spellbinding! No one who reads it can ever look at a central bank or government-run mint without wondering how much better off the world might have been without it!

This was the collection of stories that helped me find my voice as a writer. While reading Grass Fires, it became clear to me how important it is to tell your story in a patient and relaxed manner. Let the reader quietly observe the story's characters as the events unfold; nothing dramatic or spectacular or shocking needs to occur to hook the reader, so long as your voice is honest and observant. I was amazed, and still am, at Mr. Gerber's ability to tell a simple story that, I know as a writer, is extremely difficult to pull off. These are simple stories about everyday people, going about their everyday lives, while dealing with those little complications that keep us reading.

I have read, re-read, and re-read Grass Fires. It is one of the few short-story collections where I have savored every sentence. Each story captures you from the first paragraph, drawing you deeper and deeper into each character as Dan Gerber peels away the layers. The descriptions are crisp and unique. Dan Gerber, I am sorry to say, is one of America's best kept secrets.

P.S. Grass Fires is currently out of print, but well worth the search. And, no, I will not sell my copy!

I think the people that will like this book will be people that like to hunt. This book talks about how people got their deer and what happened when they did. If you don't like to hunt, then you won't really like this book.
One of the best parts of the book is the pictures, and the hunters showing and telling how they got their deer. There were many different hunters and their roles were to hunt deer and kill deer to get big bucks.

I think the people that will like this book will be people that like to hunt. This book talks about how people got their deer and what happened when they did. If you don't like to hunt, then you won't really like this book.
One of the best parts of the book is the pictures, and the hunters showing and telling how they got their deer. There were many different hunters and their roles were to hunt deer and kill deer to get big bucks.

I am Public Relations Manager for GreaterGR.com, the Greater Grand Rapids area website. As such, I am often asked which publications about history and life in Grand Rapids are the best. "Greater Grand Rapids: A City that Works" tops my list! It is a unique look into life in Grand Rapids as Gerald R. Ford experienced it. You will find this book in the reception area of many businesses in the Greater Grand Rapids area, most likely because the pictures are exceptionally vivid, capturing the essence of city life. It is a great coffee table book and conversation piece!

Being new to the Grand Rapids area, this book is the most effective and efficient way to get a glimsp at the Grand Rapids business and private sector as well as a view of Grand Rapids through the eyes of Gerald Ford. This is a must buy for anyone who is looking at Grand Rapids for fun and fellowship.

The quarrel of the philosophers with the myths is not that they are not true, but that they are not edifying. The opposition between science and religion was developed early in ancient Greece. Plato, the deepest thinker, was also the farthest from popular faith. The Greek religion involved a belief in a number of deities who were personifications of the powers of nature and were founders and sustainers of civil society. The harmony which was the essence of Greek civilization was a temporary compromise.

In the Greek conception the citizen was an aristocrat. In the majority of the Greek states slaves were a greater part of the population. The states Crete and Sparta were practically military garrisons. The majority of the Greek states were in a constant state of flux. The Peloponnesian War represented a contest between democratic and oligarchic states. Plato based his REPUBLIC chiefly on Sparta. The constitution of Athens was political equality imposed on social inequality. The Greek states were not well-organized.

The fusian of the idea of the beautiful and the good is the control point in the Greek theory of art. Primarily, Greek sculpture was an expression of the national religion. Music was the center of Greek education. Music is a union of melody and rhythm and poetry. Poetry was viewed as a storehouse of practical wisdom. To represent suffering as the punishment of sin is the constant bent of Aeschylus. To justify the law of God against the presumption of man is the central idea of Sophocles. In Greek tragedy the general point of view predominates. The Greeks sought to create and maintain essential harmony.

Textbooks on the history of philosophy tend to be remotely dry. They just summarize the text in arid words, and then skip to the next philosopher in the chronicle order. Writers of those textbook seem to think that we should rever the philopophers, do not understand them. Reading through them only gives us the superficial impression and worse, the knowledge we¡¯ve got is likely to be evaporated to the oblivion. We can¡¯t imagine that those philosophers lived their own life and breathed the air just like us. But the texts they left to us have what to say. And it¡¯s closely related to its own time. To understand those texts, we need to know their worlds, for the text says about the world it¡¯s written. Greek philosophy and literature also should be apprehended with such background knowledge. For example, there were no professional philosophers isolated from the rest of the society in Archaic Greek world, like professors of philosophy we could see in our Universities. Greek philosophers told about their worldly affairs. So Aristotle was mastered that much various fields from political sciences, ethics, aesthetics, cosmology to botany. In other word, we should know their life to figure out what they say at all. Greek philosophy was not isolated from the society unlike contemporary philosophy. This book should be definitely helpful to know their time. As the title of the book implies, this deals with how the Greek saw their world. Each chapter describes the way they see elements of their world from the religion, the state, the individual, to the art. With closing the last page of the book, I bet you could illustrate what was the life of the Greek in your mind.

Growing up in the Detroit suburb of Troy, I was always told that Coleman Young is responsible for the downfall of the city. It was his fault that white families fled from the city. He hated whites and would do whatever he could to screw them over.

Reading his autobiography gave me a complete 180 on Mayor Young. Young clearly and honestly lays out his pre-mayor days and his mayoral days. He spares no punches, including his disdain for "pansy ass liberals", Walter Ruether, the white suburban media, the FBI, and the federal government as a whole.

This is more than just the story of a single man - this is the story of an entire city. Young was born in the "Black Bottom" neighborhood of Detroit. A neighborhood that was leveled to build I-75. He served in the civil rights movements of Pre and Post World War II. He served a role in building Detroit's union movement. He was one of the first people to fight against McCarthyism and the 1950s red scare - long before Murrow took the case on. Finally, he was elected the first black mayor of Detroit in 1974. He ran a city that had been falling apart long before 1974 because of industrial flight, white flight, and financial flight. He successfully kept city services running amidst these challenges and managed to "scale back" a city services for a city of 2,000,000 people to a city of under 1,000,000.

Young's writing is easy to read and captivating. He lays out his case very systematically and clearly. I have read many books and studies about 20th century Detroit, and this book is one of the best. The first 9 or 10 chapters lays out his life. He spends the last two chapters making his case against the local media, racism, and making a case for affirmative action.

Prior to reading this, I would have told you that naming the City Building in Detroit the Coleman A Young Building was a travesty. Now, I couldn't think of a more appropriate person to name it after.

I've had this book for a couple years now but only recently found the time to read it. Once I started, I couldn't put it down. Hard Stuff is great as a history of Detroit, a sociology of racism, and an analysis of tense urban/suburban relations. I think it is an extremely valuable resource for its honest look at the problems besetting Detroit and probably many other urban areas. Young's understandable rage with the Reagan/Bush adminstration's evisceration of urban policy comes through strongly, and is rather enlightening. If America is to truly rebuild its "Detroits", as Young notes, serious attention must be given to rapid transit, economic empowerment, and community policing. There are many great ideas in this book, and it should be required reading for urban planners, journalists, historians, and city officials everywhere. Young fought the establishment his whole life because he insisted that things could be better. Now gone from us, his book should help continue his efforts to force a reluctant system to address horrible problems which, in their continued existence, lower everyone's quality of life.

Great book! Easy read! I poured over this book when I was a kid. I read it 2 or 3 times a year every year until I was about 14. This isn't a kids book, however.. but its good for kids who are interested in the metaphysical because it is written simply and paints pictures clearly. Great book for anyone who lives in the GR area. Especially if you've lived in Heritage Hill!

My husband a I just bought the home on Madison Avenue in 2005 that supposedly has been haunted for many years. I have had friends who 'supposedly' have said they know my ghost's name, or have seen a wet dog run through. I have always considered that to be a little quackish and silly.

There was one time, when I was sitting here at the computer as I am now and directly behind me I heard a noise that lasted over a span of 5 minutes. It was a noise that resembled sweeping, over and over and over. If I hear anything else I'll post it....until til then, let's wait and see.

~Jessica (Heritage Hill, Grand Rapids Michigan)

I own both of the High Fit - Low Fat cookbooks (regular and vegetarian). The books are good for both novice and experienced chefs. Although I own many cookbooks, I do the majority of my cooking from the High Fit - Low Fat recipes. The recipes call for healthy ingredients. The recipes are created in such a way that my family can't tell the healthy version from the less-than-healthy version, except that mine tastes better! Cooking has never been so easy or nutritious. (The cookbooks make great gifts too, I bought 10 as gifts for family members)!

I own both of the High Fit - Low Fat cookbooks (regular and vegetarian). The books are good for both novice and experienced chefs. Although I own many cookbooks, I do the majority of my cooking from the High Fit - Low Fat recipes.

The recipes call for healthy ingredients. The recipes are created in such a way that my family can't tell the healthy version from the less-than-healthy version, except that mine tastes better. Cooking has never been so easy and nutritious.

The cookbooks make great gifts too (I bought 10 as gifts for family members)!

This work illustrates a particular culture of oppression at a high-tech company. The author shows action by action how management creates an environment where workers will not be likely to organize. Management actions include faulty and frequent time studies, line supervisors who punished everyone when one geller fell asleep, supervisors who started racial rumors to pit one employee against another, telling employees they were laid off due to a business slowdown but bringing in new recruits and not telling the "laid off" employees that they would never be called back, just to name a few things.

My favorite characters were the Assyrian gellers; I can still envision them diligently working, although their grit was never fully tested. I really liked them. The Latino gellers were as close to heroes as any characters in the book.

This book is instructive and revealing in unexpected ways. It is a compelling story and an easy to read book.

High-Tech Betrayal is a book that many different audiences will find attractive. While it is founded on academic premises, it does not read like an academic book. It is easy to read, describing the author's experiences when he attempted to form a union in a high-tech factory. The experiences are richly described, allowing readers to understand specifically the circumstances and issues faced by the author.

The book lays out the scenario up-front, so that the reader has a clear understanding of the situation at the time of the experience. Additionally, the individuals referred to throughout the book are clearly described, so that their comments and actions can be readily understood.

Finally, this book does an exceptional job of portraying the workplace that the average American does not think exists in this country, but in reality is more common that most would admit. Described are the struggles facing a group of individuals, attempting to better the lives of themselves and their families. This book reminds me of the classic The Jungle by Upton Sinclair. The major difference is the era of the book. The similarity is that this book demonstrates that organizations in some cases today still attempt to keep workers down, while the organization itself might be thriving.

Jack L. Howard, Ph.D.

I was born in Detroit in the 1950s before my family moved to Wayne, Michigan in 1958. We moved back for a year in 1962 and I attended third grade at Bow Elementary School. It was a thriving city with streets full of cared for homes with neat lawns. After decades of decline, it appears that Detroit is making a comeback and I find that encouraging. Nevertheless, Detroit has hundreds of years of rich history. This book covers a bit more than a century of that history through nearly two hundred beautifully presented photographs.

One of the traps we fall into regarding photographs is that we tend to gravitate towards a small set of vivid photographs that become the standard for presenting the images of this event or that place or these people. This book is fresh and refreshing because it uses terrific images that are much less well known images of Detroit and its people. The author, Mary J. Wallace has made her selections from the Walter P. Reuther Library at Wayne State University and from the Burton Collection of the Detroit Public Library. She has worked as an audiovisual archivist at the Walter P. Reuther Library for several years and her familiarity with the material shows in the selections she has made.

Wallace has divided the photos into four chronological groups. The first runs from 1860 to 1899 (from the Civil War until the arrival of the automobile), from 1900 to 1919 (the birth of the auto industry through the end of World War I), from 1920 to 1941 (the early boom of the auto industry through the Depression), and from 1942 - 1969 (from World War II through the 1967 riots and the aftermath).

What I most appreciate is the balance she shows in showing us images of the development in architecture with the photos of real people at work, in their fashions, and some historical events. Even when she picks the historical events, she selects an image that gives us a different perspective on the event. We all know the images of the fight of the Battle of the Overpass at the Rouge Plant. Not many of us have seen the image she shows us here of the peaceful demonstration before the struggle began.

The author has supplied about a page of text at the beginning of each section as well as captions for each picture, but wisely lets the images do most of the speaking. The credits for the photos are given in a list at the back. These are images that are worth lingering over. They are full of captivating details that will show themselves as you spend time looking into the pictures for things beyond the obvious main object of the photograph.

If you have any interest in Detroit and its history, this is a fabulous book to own and refer to often. It is printed on great paper and bound handsomely.

I've always thought that it is very important to know the history of one's local area and have always loved to read books about regional history. One of the very best one's I've come across in sometime is "Historic Photos of Detroit" from Turner Publishing Co. Detroit was one of the most important early colonies due to its strategic location along Lake Erie and Lake St. Clair and was founded as a fort by French explorer Antoine de la Mothe Cadillac in 1701.

The book covers four periods of Detroit history, 1860 - 1899, 1900 - 1919, 1920 - 1941, and 1942 - 1969. The photos date as far back as the 1860's, less than thirty years after Michigan became the 26th state. What first surprised me is just how busy and bustling Detroit was nearly 150 years ago. We tend to think of the 1860's in terms of the dusty old west but Detroit already had numerous multi-story buildings built including the massive Old Russell House Hotel on Woodward Ave. It's fascinating to just sit back and flip pages to "building watch" all of the types of businesses that were in operation back in the mid to late 1800's...Grocers, dry goods, shoes & boots, carpets, drug stores, furniture...in other words, it really wasn't much different than today. People are out and about on the town, working, shopping, or just enjoying a walk.

These photos also serve as an important archive since most of these buildings are long gone today. For example there is the Old Federal Building, looking like a gothic French cathedral that was torn down in 1932. It's educational as well...even living my entire life in the Detroit area I never knew that Detroit once used street cars. Besides the architecture of the era one should also pay attention to the fashion of the day. Women stroll along the streets in their finest clothes: tailored dresses and their Sunday best hats, highlighting an era that was certainly more refined and cultured.

Even in 1910 the Detroit Auto Show was one of the city's most important events. A beautiful photo shows off the brand new models, accented by bright lights, at the old Wayne Gardens. The photos range from the humorous of three boys holding on to the side of a car for dear life on a flooded West Grand Blvd. in 1925, to the tragic destruction of the riots in 1967. One wonderful photo that will surely warm the hearts of all Detroiters is Santa Claus waving to a crowd of thousands at the end of Detroit's annual Thanksgiving Day parade. For many residents of SE Michigan, a trip downtown to watch the parade and look at the Christmas displays in the old J.L. Hudson's department store windows was an annual rite of winter.

It's a beautiful book from cover-to-cover highlighted by brilliant photography. I would have loved to had seen a photo or two of the old Olympia stadium but no Detroiter will be disappointed with this book. Hats off to author Mary J. Wallace for a wonderful job of research.

Reviewed by Tim Janson