Michigan Books

"What is poetry?" is a question often asked and never answered, indeed unanswerable except in a personal context. I tend toward the "elevated speech" school, or "gorgeous language" persuasion, but language focussed on expressing deeply felt and perceived truth. So I find Myrna Stone's poems immensely satisfying.

Open her book at random, as I just have. "Penitential" says that on Saturday evening we went to church, perhaps for confession, perhaps for "devotions." Our religion impressed us with our guilt and need for penance. Still, walking home, we experienced the world as it was and knew that we would continue to need forgiveness. But this poem tells this ordinary tale in rich, magnificent language,

"...light has gathered,
luminous for a moment in its passage
into night, in its clear and familiar

sense of diminishing grace,
what the priests for years allowed us
from one summer Saturday to the next,
so that while feeding the dog or setting

the table, we might well look
up to find the kingdom of God suddenly
come, and ourselves, in our sparest
and smallest duties, surely wanting."

I don't think you have to be (or have been) Catholic to appreciate this poem.

There is variety in these poems, and wit, not always benign, for example, "Your Last Mistress" that begins
"Is older than I thought" and ends, after explaining that she has found a new lover,
"...She's back again
in the groove, in the saddle, back again
back on her back."

There are poems here that relate travel experiences, family difficulties and pleasures (sometimes experienced while travelling), and the pain of loss of parent - all with a very grown-up sensibility and mastery of expression to die for, or rather, to be most grateful for. To my mind and ear, these poems are a treasure.

In 'The Art of Loss' Myrna Stone starts with an ele-
giac poem to a poetry friend and ends with an elegiac poem to
her mother. Stone is doing tough and necessary work, namely:
Since we all lose in the end, how can we talk about being tri-
umphant? But in her mature, brilliant poems Myrna Stone does
triumph and bucks all of us up in the process-- with gems like
"Waiting for Daddy", "The Lost Boy", "Your Last Mistress", and
"Home Movies", to name just a few. And her poems dealing with
Van Gogh and Degas are superb ( "The Tub" is flat out aces.)
Stephen Dunn says that in Myrna Stone's poems "we
see pathos rise to the level of the sublime"-- a statement
that got me thinking of Charlie Chaplin, how he would have
loved these poems! Lucky for us, we can savor them:

And if you begin to speak to me
of what desire is like on the opposing
plane, of what extreme punishments
or pleasures await even the least of us

I would dissuade you,
I would kiss your cheek and lead you here
to this room, to this chair, this desk
and this window's suddenly luminescent view.
WORDS FOR MY MOTHER

'The Art of Loss'is one book we should keep close by as we
go through this crazy world.

Here is a poet who loves the language. Each word of each poem is finely tuned. I have followed her poems for years. Read The Art of Loss and you will not be disappointed. Her language sings and soothes. Simulacrum, From the Kitchen, My Mother's Room, Taraxacum Officinale and Words for My Mother, are just a few of my favorites. This book is a keeper!

If you are serious about studying and watching birds in Michigan this is an important book to have. It is dated (1991) but I would recommend having this and anticipate the new updated version to come out in 2009 or 2010 from the currently active atlas project.

This is an atlas, not a field guide or illustrated book. Most of the book is made up of accounts of all the species of birds that nest in Michigan with a summary of their habits, abundance, history and breeding biology with the facing page a map of Michigan townships with indications of breeding evidence for the species. For example the nearly ubiquitous American Robin has nearly every section in every Michigan Township shaded in (other than some underbirded areas)and birds that are rare or geographically limited are shown in their only areas (eg. Black Tern in coastal and large interior marshes). This helps the beginning birder to know where to search for species and illustrates graphically the need for conservation.

Two other books that are important adjuncts for this are "Birds of Michigan" by James Granlund, an illustrated natural history of birds of the state and "A Birder's Guide to Michigan" by Allen Chartier and Jerry Ziarno. "A Birder's Guide to Michigan includes 200 sites across the state for birding and additional information on bird migration through the state that complements the Michigan Breeding Bird Atlas.

In the 1980s, a thousand volunteers surveyed our entire state in an effort to record and map an atlas of the birds which breed in Michigan. This information is summarized and contained in "The Atlas of Breeding Birds in Michigan, which was published in 1991.

Starting in 2002, the Kalamazoo Nature Center began to coordinate the creation of a second Michigan Breeding Bird Atlas. The data collection portion of this process is scheduled to be completed in 2008, and I was fortunate enough to be one of the bird-watching volunteers involved in this second multi-year survey.

The 1991 edition of the atlas is a large hardcover book with a handsome dust jacket. The 594 pages are illustrated throughout with black-and-white drawings, and detailed maps of individual species locations. Each bird is described (in rather small print), along with its habitat, seasonal occurrence, and current status. There is also a conservation section included for rare, threatened, or endangered species.

This atlas begins with a detailed discussion of Michigan ecology, plus a chapter on "The Original Avifauna and Postsettlement Changes." It ends with a huge bibliography, appendices, a list of contributors, and an index of common and Latin bird names. It is absolutely the most detailed reference atlas of Michigan birds on the market. The only thing it lacks is color photographs of each bird species, so it needs to be supplemented by a good field guide.

For more information on this atlas, go to www.michiganbirds.org/bba/

This is an excellent bird book. It itemizes observed breeding evidence of birds by township. It is very detailed and very well done. Excellent descriptions of each species. I also liked the intro. It provides bird habitat information such forest, wet lands, fields. Good history of the changes in bird species over time. Only weakness- it was written in 1991. In the past decade, several birds have expanded their territory (i.e. turkeys and bald eagles). If you live in Michigan and watch birds, this is the book to buy.

This is a coffee table size book. It is a little large to take in the field. Book uses drawings not photographics. The drawings are well done be do not replace color photos.

What a phenomenal read. It was as if you were actually in the room. Rita's ability to so vividly describe her surroundings is uncanny. I highly recommend this book to those who enjoy a good personal story. Kudos to author Rita Bunton for exercising her creative license to produce a well writen, vivid depcition of a young black girl's struggle to find strength, peace and happiness within.

Bunton's narrative gives the reader an inside look at mid-western small town life in the 1950s and 60s. Through her story the reader can view the issues of race, gender and class in their full complexity, as they were lived. Through the story of this resilient woman one sees hope, ambition and determination.

Mrs. Bunton, I was just informed that you have completed your first book and I toss my hat off to you for your accomplishments. I cannot wait to finish reading this book. I'm not sure if you are aware, but hopefully this year I'll have a published novel as well as a series of books that are in the works. I cannot wait to tell all friends and family to go out and buy your work. You have given me more inspiration than ever to keep pursuing my dream of becoming a published author. I can't wait to see results of your labor. Oprah hasn't seen nothing yet. Jackson, Michigan will be on the map once and for all. Thanks again for the inspiration

Wendy Little, member of Motown Writers
(hometown: Jackson, Michigan);
Lansing, Michigan 1984-2003;
Presently Residing in Livonia, Michian

Being a chronic pain sufferer, this book has helped me cope with the debilitating pain. Very well written in layman terms. The writer demonstrates that there is hope for the future.

"Beyond Pain" is an informative and important book for any person in chronic pain. Well-written, readable, sensible, and up-to-date, it illuminates general aspects of pain theory and treatment while providing fascinating case studies / anecdotes. The mind and the body are shown to be not only interrelated but inseparable. And the qualifications of Dr. Mailis-Gagnon are indisputably impeccable.
I suffer from chronic pain myself. I have read a lot of books on chronic pain of various types, even a couple of medical texts, but I found this book newly informative and mind-expanding. This book is aimed to a general reader; no prior medical knowledge is assumed.
This book will be useful for anyone in chronic pain, including sufferers of fibromyalgia, myofascial or muscle pain, neuropathic or nerve pain, back pain; women, men, Canadians, whomever. It will even give you a few good laughs.
Three words: READ THIS BOOK!

Beyond Pain: Making The Mind-body Connection isn't a scholarly analysis of pain management but a set of firsthand stories of patients and problems which are used to illustrate the condition of chronic pain and the complexities surrounding its management. Case studies from the authors' own practices and experiences describes options, techniques to block pain, lasting effects of chronic pain, and how pain experiences differ between patients. A fine study which outlines many different causes, experiences, and solutions surrounding pain.

This is a large beautiful edition of Michigan birds written by many of Michigan's ornithologists and most knowledgable birders. The illustrations and artwork are superb and I wish I could have them as artwork in my home without tearing them out of the book.

This is not a field guide or identification book but a resource of most of the knowledge about each species of bird seen in Michigan up to the publication date of the book.

I refer to this often when I wish to get more information on a birds history of occurance in the state or its population status or biology.

More recent information on species status and sightings can be found on the Michigan Bird Records Committee website.

Anyone that is interested in the birds of Michigan would treasure this book.

The Natural History of Michigan avifauna presented includes population fluctuation, habitat changes, current status; historical records verified from as far back as the 19th c. in some cases. Reasons for decline or increase in numbers and range are usually well known or theorized by ornithologists (there are a few unsolved mysteries) A less pedestrian look at these details: " Maurice Gibbs in 1879 reports the Cardinal or 'Red Bird' as an "accidental visitor"

Artwork: Full sized color plates = full page layouts featuring the male and female set amongst their preferred habitats or a vegetaional sample. A Bobolink chortles in his mellow hay field, The Towhees scratch leaves under the brambles and the Great Gray Owl is caught in the act of enchanting his Northern starlit forest.

Includes species extinct and extirpated as well as all species that have visited the State at least once on record. As an example, a McCown's Longspur is listed as a Michigan bird, a species that rarely if ever seen anywhere beyond it's breeding range in the Upper Midwest, (Colorado to Alberta), yet a verified record exists at Whitefish Point - Chippewa County in May, 1981.

What else? If anything it manages to capture the great beauty found in the details of a birds life. (The Great Horned owl female sits through yet another snowstorm on an old heron nest to keep her two eggs warm in the late winter incubation period.)

SB

"The Birds of Michigan" is more than an oversize picture book. It's a treasure. The 200 species of birds that nest in Michigan are depicted in original, full color paintings by Michigan artists, and the detailed text on over 400 birds that have been seen in the state is compulsive reading. The species accounts were written by some of the state's leading ornithologist-naturalists, including their own field observations, and I learned something new about my favorite birds on almost every page. Originally, I'd checked "The Birds of Michigan" out of the library, but once I'd read it, I had to buy a copy of my own.

The careful observations and the level of detail about each species sets a standard none of the field guides can match:

* The earliest published spring arrival date for Chimney Swifts in Detroit is 04/05/1981.
* Belted Kingfishers excavate nesting burrows in river banks, usually taking a week to dig a tunnel three to six feet long.
* Forest regeneration and winter feeding stations have extended the range of the Red-Bellied Woodpecker to the Northern Lower Peninsula.
* I'm glad I'm not the only birder in Michigan who misidentifies the Pine Warbler for a Chipping or Swamp Sparrow!

My heart-felt thanks to the artists, ornithologists, editors, and sponsors of this book: Sarett Nature Center; Kalamazoo Nature Center; and First of America Bank. It must have very expensive to produce, but the results are worth every penny spent. My only suggestion for the next edition would be the inclusion of a CD of Michigan birdsongs.

"A Black and White Case" provides a comprehensive history of affirmative action of value to anyone interested in race in America. As the subtitle ("How Affirmative Action Survived its Greatest legal Challenge") suggests, Stohr tends to favor the proponents of affirmative action. At the same time, however, he shows sympathy and insight into its opponents. For example, Stohr's portrait of Carl Cohen -- the Michigan philosophy professor who first unearthed Michigan's statistics on affirmative action -- reveals that the intellectuals behind the recent challenges come from backgrounds far from the mainstream of the conservative movement.

Stohr also presents an account of the Supreme Court that in many ways outshines that of Bob Woodward's and Carl Bernstein's in The Brethren. In contrast to Woodward and Bernstein, Stohr lacks Woodward and Bernstein's instictive hostility to the Court's right wing.

Finally, Stohr does an admirable job tying together chacters and events covering a broad scope of time and space into a book with suprisingly strong narrative force. Shelby Foote once said that in writing, plot is the last thing that a writer masters, if he masters it at all. Stohr succeeds in this important respect.

This is an excellent book.

Whether or not we choose to acknowledge it, every student who has entered an American university over the past 50 years is a product of the affirmative action and diversity policies of our nation's education system. The U. of Michigan case that is the heart of "A Black and White Case" is a landmark ruling that impacts the admission policy of every U.S. university. The issues described in this book are extremely important to each of us as citizens. Everyone interested in the American higher education system sould read this book.

Greg Stohr provides an incredibly balanced account of the highly charged issue of race-based admissions policies. Mr. Stohr also does an excellent job of taking very complicated legal facts and analysis and turning them into a fast-moving story that non-legal scholars can follow and understand. This is the most important legal book I have read in several years. It is also a terrific read. I highly recommend this new author.

Stohr's book reminded me of an old television program hosted by Walter Cronkite. It reenacted significant events in history and he always ended it by saying, "You were there." I felt as though I had been behind the scenes as those involved with the two affirmative action cases worked for victory. Stohr explains the legal terms clearly without being condescending. He delves into the personalities and the politics which determine the outcomes. I especially enjoyed his coverage of the Supreme Court. Stohr is an excellent, fair minded reporter.

I was very fortunate to read a book that gave you a feelimg that there are few football coaches out there who can coach football the old fashion way: physical discipline, honesty, and being a great motivator. For Bo to share the stories about Woody Hayes was just awesome. I feel that Bo went thru a great experince in his life time. I have read this book probably 10 times and I like what he critcizes about the NCAA making these ridiculous standards. May God bless him.

If you are a fan at all of michigan, or know anything about Bo Schembechler you will love this book. It's a great biography about a great coach. This book takes you to a small family in Ohio to a assistant coach under Woody Hays then to Ann Arbor to become one of the most famous coaches in NCAA history, I HIGHLY recomend this book... GO BLUE!

If you love football this book is a must read. The stories about Bo and Woody are tremendous. I wish all young coaches would read this book before establishing a coaching philosophy. The character of Bo is inspiring and proves that you can still win and do it the right way.

It has been over ten years already since this anthology was first published, but the writings, photos, art, and interviews contained within it are still as stimulating, inspiring and necessary as when Behar's beautifully edited book first came out. Despite what was hoped for in the mid-90's, relations between Cuba and the United States have worsened and it seems that the possibility for dialogue between the two countries has narrowed even further. But at least we have the dialogue that Behar has so elegantly revealed in this volume.
Bridges to Cuba presents a diversity of perspectives in an attempt to piece back together the fragments of what politics and exile have divided. An excellent interview with poet Nancy Morejon succinctly summarizes this project. Morejon says, "the miracle that we could hold a conversation. That we could confront each other. Without imposing exile as a precondition, and without us imposing the precondition of being revolutionary islanders... it was only through [Cuban] culture that we could establish those links, recognize each other" (134).
The conversations are physical, between Cubans on the island and exiled Cubans, as well as intertextual. Fundamentally, however, this book converses with the reader, challenging his or her notions of the Cuba that resides in the popular imagination. Until the embargo is lifted, this book is the closest the average American reader can get to Cuba.

I had the pleasure of being a student of Ms. Behar and she is a wonderful woman. It's no surprise that her book is as informative and exciting as the class. I only wish I had asked her to sign it...

Bridges to Cuba is a collection of art, poetry, personal essays, and fiction written by Cubans on both sides of the straits of Florida.

A magnificent attempt to bring together all who are Cuban by birth, to share the complexities of what it has been like to be separated these many years. The submissions in this book capture magnificently the diversity of experiences, thoughts, emotions and conflicts caused by the separation of Cubans from each other, and for many, from the land of their birth. Having been born in Cuba and having lived in the U.S. for the last forty years, the contributions in this book spoke personally to me in a way that nothing I have ever read before has done. But the beauty of this book and the gift Behar has given, is to present the challenges and emotional depth of separation that all us feel in our lives. Each contribution gives us a different perspective, a unique view of the subject, and a deeper understanding of what it is like to be separated from that and those which we love.

Ruth, thank you.

Powelson turns to the historical experience of nations for an answer to the central question of economic development: why do some nations grow rich while others do not? The answer lies in the relationship between the decentralization of power and the ability of economic actors to play a role in the formation of transactional institutions. Absolutely necessary for students of development.

Jack Powelson's book, Centruies of Economic Endeavour, gives a clear explanation of why some countries (like the U.S. and Japan) are so much better at providing economic resources to its citizens than other countries, like in Eastern Europe, Africa and South America. His many years in business as well as academia results in relevant and clearly detailed notes for the reader to follow up. This book helped me understand why, even today, so many countries with large amounts of natural resources, cannot seem to get their people out of poverty. Must reading. Highly recomended.

If you believe in Lord Acton's dictum that "Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely," this book is for you. There have been a variety of theories why some countries have prospered and some have not. Some say it depends on allowing free trade; some argue it depends on the degree of democracy as opposed to socialism or communism. Douglass North won a Nobel prize for his work to prove that the key is having the right societal institutions. Certainly it takes more than having natural resources.

Professor Powelson (Economics at the U. of Colorado) has worked extensively in developing countries and observed that despite all the good advice these countries received, and had been receiving for 50 years, they were making very little progress. To find out why, he decided to study history, going back over ten centuries in every important region of the world to see what lessons could be learned. His conclusions are startlingly simple: People prosper and societies thrive where there is genuine diffusion of power -- power earned, not bestowed by a ruler. Where power is centralized among a ruling few, the ruling few are able to take care of themselves, but their nations fail to grow and prosper and the people stay poor.

This book explains why every college freshman should be required to study Western Civilization before studying any other. As George Santayana has said already, "Those who ignore the lessons of history are doomed to repeat them." Professor Powelson has written the most important history book of the past century for anyone interested in the lessons to be learned from the histories of Northern Europe, Japan, China, India, Russia, the Middle East, Africa and Latin America, all covered beautifully in this one book.

I read this book in a single day, a rainy Saturday that perfectly fit the mood of the story. In the waning days of WWI, a Vancouver Island apple farmer travels to Belgium to find the spot where his son was killed.

I've asked my wife's book group to read it because I think it may be a "guy" book, but not in the usual sense, not a violent guy book. We've known many quiet dads as tertiary characters in other novels; this book lets us see through the eyes of a quiet dad. Quiet on the outside, anyway.

Well paced, beautifully told. Well worth a Saturday afternoon.

So many novels of war glamorize or valorize the act of killing. This novel ingeniously shows the trauma left afterwards -- in the landscape and the psyche of the people and places left once the war is over. In beautifully wrought prose that shines and surprises in every sentence, W.D. Wetherell shows us the margins and hidden corners that so often are ignored in the midst of documenting the carnage. This is a novel that places itself in the company of great war novels like Pat Barker's REGENERATION and Tim O'Brien's GOING AFTER CACCIATIO. And if women are reading this review, please read this book! It's not your typical shoot-'em-up war novel.

I bought the book based on a glowing review in the paper, something I do more and more hesitantly these days, having been disappointed lots of times in the purchase. But this was worth every word the reviewer gave it. It's an old, old story: guy leaves town looking for something. But Wetherell's telling of it comes alive because of reams of period (WWI) research, all of it subsumed to character and plot; a gorgeous handling of language and freshness of image; and odd twists in the progression of the story that only serve to make it more believable. A book for you, if you love a great and simple story immaculately told.