Library Collections
Michigan Notable Books - 2011
The Library of Michigan recognizes 20 books, each year, that highlight Michigan people, places, and events. The list includes the following books available at the Baldwin Public Library:
| Apparition & Late Fictions: A Novella and Stories (Thomas Lynch) - FIC LYNCH: Lynch has gained national attention for his work as a poet and essayist on death and dying. His first work of fiction is a powerful collection of stories focusing on what makes us all human. Lynch's "day job" as a funeral director allows him a certain familiarity with death that resonates in his stories. Set in Michigan's north woods, on Mackinac Island or distant cities the stories are linked by the memories and longing for divorced spouses, deceased parents and missed loved ones. Love and redemption play a central role in each of Lynch's stories. Check Availability | |
| Blues in Black and White (Michael Erlewine) - 781.63 LIVINGSTON: Erlewine's words and Livingston's images successfully document the early days of the Ann Arbor Blues Festival. The 1969 and 1970 Ann Arbor Blues Festivals brought together the greatest blues performers in the world and exposed them to a larger audience. The festivals sparked a national explosion in the interest in blues-based roots music and brought long lasting attention to the musicians that created the music. Performers included: John Lee Hooker, Howlin' Wolf, B.B. King, Big Momma Thornton, Muddy Waters, Junior Wells, T-Bone Walker and Mighty Joe Young. The festivals were not professionally recorded, so Livingston's photographic treasures are the best documentation of the early festivals. Check Availability | |
| Chrysler's Turbine Car (Steve Lehto) - 629.222 LEHTO: In 1964, Chrysler built a fleet of turbine cars (automobiles with jet engines) and loaned them to members of the public to be tested. Over 1,000,000 miles were logged in the turbine cars and the designers considered the test a huge success. However, two years later, Chrysler crushed or burned most of the cars and the automobile industry's experiment with turbine engines was over. Lehto's book is a love letter to a car that explores where the program went wrong and why future development was halted. Jay Leno, avid car collector and host of the "Tonight Show" wrote the introduction. Check Availability | |
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Detroit Disassembled (Andrew Moore) - OVERSIZE 977.434 MOORE: Photographer Andrew Moore finds beauty in what many consider Detroit's decay. With the decline of the auto industry, sections of Detroit resemble a war zone. Moore's photographs capture the earth's/nature's recapturing of spaces that were once populated with spectacular architecture and entwined in the heartbeat of a vibrant city. Former Detroiter and Pulitzer Prize winning poet, Philip Levine, provides an introductory essay championing the unshakable spirit that makes Detroit special. Check Availability |
| The Detroit Electric Scheme: A Mystery (D.E. Johnson) - MYSTERY JOHNSON: Will Anderson is drunk and heartbroken over the breakup with his fiancé and barely able to keep his job at his father's leading electric car manufacturing company in Detroit. When Will panics and leaves the scene after discovering a dead body at his father's factory the police quickly identify him a the leading suspect. Johnson's debut novel is a fast-paced ride through early 1900s Detroit involving murder, blackmail, organized crime, the development of a wonderful friendship and the history of Detroit's early electric cars. Check Availability | |
| Eden Springs: A Novella (Laura Kasischke) - FICTION KASISCHKE: Eden Springs is set at the House of David colony in Benton Harbor in 1923. When a suspicious death is discovered at the colony, King Benjamin and his closest followers attempt to cover it up. Kasischke's historical fiction beautifully documents the decline of the colony and the dangers associated with the cult of personality. Using actual newspaper clippings, legal documents and accounts of former colonists Kasischke unravels the mystery. Check Availability | |
| The Freshwater Boys: Stories (Adam Schuitema) - FICTION SCHUITEMA: Michigan native Schuitema's debut collection contains 11 short stories set in and around the Great Lakes in Michigan. Michigan landscapes and lakes serve as central characters in the stories. Men and boys collide in Michigan's woods, dunes and lakesides in a struggle to understand what it means to be a man. Lake Michigan and the concept of a "third coast" figure prominently in these well-written and engaging stories. Check Availability | |
| The Hanging Tree: A Starvation Lake Mystery (Bryan Gruley) - MYSTERY GRULEY: When the "wild girl" that left town 18 years ago is found dead of an apparent suicide after her homecoming, it sends shock waves through Starvation Lake. Reporter Gus Carpenter sets out to solve the mystery and as a result is forced to return to Detroit, the scene of his humiliating past. The second book in Gruley's Starvation Lake series is a well-written story about family and friendship, sex and violence and love's failure to fix all of life's problems. Check Availability | |
| Lord of Misrule (Jaimy Gordon) - FICTION GORDON: Gordon's fourth novel is the 2010 National Book Award winner for fiction. She has taught writing at Western Michigan University since 1981. Lord of Misrule is set at an out of the way half-mile horseracing track in the early 70s. Gordon masterfully captures "the language" of horse racing and the romance of rooting for long shots. A failing trainer attempts to revive business by making quick money with well-trained, but unknown horses. Washed up horses and people search for redemption in Gordon's award-winning dark horse novel. Check Availability | |
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A Michigan Polar Bear Confronts the Bolsheviks: A War Memoir (Godfrey J. Anderson) - 947.0841 ANDERSON: Set against the harsh and frigid winter of Russia, this west Michigan soldier's memoir details his experiences as a member of the 337th Field Hospital Unit during the ill-fated "Polar Bear Expedition" against the Soviet Bolsheviks in 1918-1919. Michigan soldiers comprised a large number of the total U.S. forces in Russia, and have been honored with the Polar Bear Monument at White Chapel Cemetery in Troy. Check Availability |
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Mine Towns: Buildings for Workers in Michigan's Copper Country (Alison K. Hoagland) - 728.0977 HOAGLAND: The complex relationship between company management and immigrant labor is explored in this history of mining towns across the Upper Peninsula's Copper Country. Utilizing maps, architectural plans, historical photographs, and more, Hoagland shows that the companies' paternalistic vision dramatically shaped and impacted the architecture and physical layout of mining towns, including their churches, schools, and homes. Check Availability |
| Picturing Hemingway's Michigan (Michael R. Federspiel) - 813.52 FEDERSPIEL: In this vividly illustrated look into the famous writer's time at Walloon Lake, which provided the setting and influences for his early formative writing, readers get a glimpse into Hemingway himself, his family, and summertime life in northern Michigan. Check Availability | |
| Reimagining Detroit: Opportunities for Redefining an American City (John Gallagher) - 307.3416 GALLAGHER: A clear vision for a vibrant and more livable Motor City emerges from this thoughtful analysis of a Detroit faced with deindustrialization and population loss. A journalist for the Detroit Free Press, Gallagher explores the landscape of city planning, including urban agriculture, vacant lots, roundabouts, bike lanes, and entrepreneurship. Check Availability | |
| Sawdusted (Raymond Goodwin) - BIOGRAPHY GOODWIN: Colorful personalities abound in this delightful memoir of the author's time spent working in a northern Michigan sawmill. A vivid depiction of blue-collar life and the Milltown community emerges in Goodwin's coming-of-age tale. Check Availability | |
| Sixty to Zero (Alex Taylor III) - 338.7629 TAYLOR: General Motors' bankruptcy captured headlines in 2009. Alex Taylor III's extensively researched book details how GM's problems were actually 40 years in the making. Taylor's book benefits from his more than 30 years experience as a reporter covering the auto industry. 60 to Zero provides information on the numerous mistakes GM and its competitors have made that resulted in a crisis for automobile manufacturers. Check Availability | |
| The Sweetness of Freedom (Stephen Ostrander and Martha Bloomfield) - 977.403 OSTRANDER: Demonstrating the ethnic diversity of the Michigan experience, this book draws on the compelling testimonies and family artifacts of Michigan immigrants from around the world, including Germany, Poland, Korea, Vietnam, and Tanzania, as they left their homeland to create better lives for their families in Michigan. Check Availability | |
| To Account for Murder (William C. Whitbeck) - FICTION WHITBECK: This debut legal, political thriller set in post-World War II, follows Charlie Cahill's tension-filled journey filled with love, corruption, and murder. Whitbeck's story is set primarily Lansing and culminates in an unforgettable ending at the Jackson State Penitentiary. Whitbeck is a Judge of the Michigan Court of Appeals, having previously served as Chief Judge from 2002-2007. Check Availability | |
| Working Words: Punching the Clock and Kicking Out the Jams (M.L. Liebler) - 810.8 WORKING: In this engaging anthology of the working class and labor, Liebler collects an impressive array of talent. Poems, essays and short stories by prominent poets, historians, rock stars and social activists praise the efforts of the "working man.". Works by Michigan luminaries including Dudley Randall, Thomas Lynch, Michael Moore, and Jack White (The White Stripes) can be found in Liebler's collection. Check Availability | |
| Wounded Warrior: The Rise and Fall of Michigan Governor John Swainson (Lawrence M. Glazer) - 977.4043 GLAZER: Prior to being indicted in 1975 on federal charges of bribery and perjury, Swainson served as Michigan's 42nd Governor (1961-1962) and as a Michigan Supreme Court Justice (1971-1975). This political biography explores both the remarkable highs and the tragic lows of a fascinating figure in Michigan history. Check Availability | |
| You Don't Look Like Anyone I Know: A True Story of Family, Face-Blindness, and Forgiveness (Heather Sellers) - BIOGRAPHY SELLERS: Diagnosed with prosopagnosia, a neurological disorder that makes it difficult to reliably recognize people, Sellers delivers an inspiring story of love, forgiveness, and perspective. This powerful memoir explores how a dysfunctional childhood and life struggles became a journey of self-discovery. Check Availability |
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** Descriptions are taken from Michigan Notable Books materials