December 22, 2008
Michelle O'Brien
Historic Photos of University of Michigan Football, Turner Publishing, 2008.
The book: The images in this book depict 100 years of gridiron action and the players and coaches who competed on three historic fields. From winning the first-ever Tournament of Roses game, to back-to-back national championships, Michigan football created an unparalleled tradition during its first century. Selected from the extensive collection at the University’s Bentley Historical Library, the dramatic photos in this volume include rarities from games in the early 1900s, classic showdowns between Michigan and Ohio State, and All-American athletes such as the first Michigan Wolverine to win the Heisman Trophy.
The author: Michelle O’Brien is a contract researcher at U-M’s Bentley Historical Library and a third-generation fan of Michigan football.
Posted by tobiaslw at 12:44 PM | Comments (0)
Sonja Richards
My Maize & Blue Day, Olde Towne Publishing, 2008.
The book: Join Hannah and Cody as they attend their first U-M football game at The Big House. They enjoy typical Wolverine traditions, like singing along to “The Victors,� doing the Wave and watching the band at halftime. This is a great book for U-M alumni, Michigan football fans or hopeful Wolverines.
The author: Sonja Richards is publisher of Stroll magazine, which promotes downtown Traverse City, Michigan. She has authored another children’s book, “The Comet Kid,� which was nominated for Michigan Notable Books in 2007.
Posted by tobiaslw at 12:11 PM | Comments (0)
March 17, 2008
George Cantor
I Remember Bo: Memories of Michigan’s Legendary Coach, Triumph Books, 2007.
The book: Here is your chance to go inside the huddle of the Wolverines, into their locker room, onto the sidelines, on the team plane and even into the team hotel. Go behind the scenes and get a glimpse into the private world of the players, coaches and decision makers, eavesdropping on their personal conversations. You’ll read the real reason Bo turned down a lucrative offer from Texas A&M and remained at Michigan in 1982 and the origin of his battle cry every time the team left a hotel for the game: "Do I have 11? All I need is 11!" This book was written for every sports fan that follows the Wolverines.
The author: George Cantor has been a writer for Detroit newspapers for more than 40 years. He has written more than a dozen books on sports, history and travel and appeared frequently on local radio and television programs. He was also given the honor of throwing out the first pitch in one of the last games played at historic Tiger Stadium.
Posted by lingjiex at 07:19 PM | Comments (0)
January 02, 2008
Jean McGarry
A Bad and Stupid Girl, University of Michigan Press, 2006.
The book: Siri is a legacy admission, rich and spoiled and destined to flunk out of her freshman year at college. Esther, her roommate, is a scholarship student from humble means, brilliant and driven to succeed. Never having been forced to work hard at anything, Siri must rely on Esther to teach her to learn and attend class. But as Siri discovers the life of the mind, Esther begins shedding her rational bonds to explore the mysteries of the soul. Funny and bittersweet, this is a portrait of two friends helping each other uncover the potential splendor of their lives.
The author: Jean McGarry is the author of six previous books of fiction: "Airs of Providence," "The Very Rich Hours," "The Courage of Girls," "Home at Last," "Gallagher's Travels" and "Dream Date." She is a professor of fiction at The Writing Seminars at Johns Hopkins University.
Posted by tobiaslw at 01:14 PM | Comments (0)
Janet R. Gilsdorf, professor of pediatrics and communicable diseases, U-M Medical School
Inside/Outside: A Physician's Journey With Cancer, University of Michigan Press, 2006.
The book: To doctors, cancer means cells growing out of control; to patients, cancer means a life spinning out of control. The author offers a glimpse, through her perspective as physician and patient, of both sides of the medical divide. The medical system delivers cures, answers and relief from pain to those who seek its help, but it can also offer misinformation, shattered expectations, horrible options and inhumane consideration of the people it is supposed to serve. "Inside/Outside" is a story of one person's courage, hope and survival in the face of terrifying odds.
The author: Janet R. Gilsdorf is a professor at the University of Michigan as well as director of pediatric infectious diseases at CS Mott Children's Hospital, director of the Cell and Molecular Biology in Pediatrics Training Program, and director of the Haemophilus influenzae Research Laboratory.
Posted by tobiaslw at 01:12 PM | Comments (0)
John Kolars, professor emeritus, near eastern studies and geography, U-M College of LSA
Growing Up Walla Walla, AuthorHouse, 2006
The book: The Walla Walla Oliver knew when he was young was a wheat and cow town in the remote southeastern corner of a remote northwestern state. Or at least the town and the state were remote when he grew up there. Perhaps Whitman college and its Conservatory made a difference, but its campus was only a place he pedaled by on his way home from work, its museum a place to visit once or twice a year, an auditorium where his mother sometimes sang. The men who influenced Oliver were a different breed. Those were the men fatherless Oliver grew up around. Weathered men, ready to drink up their week's wages, ready for a fight, men who took off their hats in the presence of a lady, and who would do business on a hand shake, they were part of Oliver's Walla Walla. That's why he wants to tell about them and about the two Walla Wallas.
The author: John Kolars, born in Walla Walla in 1929, grew up there during the Great Depression and World War II. During those decades the town was transforming itself from a frontier settlement to the cultural center it is today. At seventeen, he enlisted in the army, and with the help of a G.E.D. diploma and the G.I. Bill, became Professor of Geography and Middle Eastern Studies at the University of Michigan. He is recognized as an authority on water in the Middle East, and has received the title of Distinguished Visiting Lecturer at the United States Foreign Service Institute.
Posted by tobiaslw at 11:38 AM | Comments (0)
Valerie Kivelson, Arthur F. Thurnau Professor and professor of history, U-M College of LSA
Cartographies of Tsardom: The Land and Its Meanings in Seventeenth-Century Russia, Cornell UP, 2006
The book: Toward the end of the sixteenth century, and throughout the seventeenth, thinking in spatial terms assumed extraordinary urgency among Russia's ruling elites. The two great developments of this era in Russian history - the enserfment of the peasantry and the conquest of a vast Eastern empire - fundamentally concerned spatial control and concepts of movements across the land. Cartographies of Tsardom explores how these twin themes of fixity and mobility obliged Russians to think in spatial terms.
The author: Valerie Kivelson is a U-M faculty member and the author of "Autocracy in the Provinces: Russian Political Culture and the Gentry in the Seventeenth Century" and the coeditor of "Orthodox Russia: Studies in Belief and Practice." She currently resides in Ann Arbor, Michigan
Posted by tobiaslw at 11:37 AM | Comments (0)
W.B. Devine, former house mother, U-M's chapter of Delta Delta Delta
They Called me "The W," First Page Publications, 2004
The book: This is a memoir of a woman who worked for nearly 20 years as a house mother in three different sororities. She writes about many stories that reveal the hilarious, frustrating, and touching reality that was her job and her daily life.
The author: After a career in advertising, W.B. Devine became a sorority house mother at three Midwest universities, including Tridelt on Tappan at U-M. She recently retired from sorority life, and now enjoys ballroom dancing and spending time with her sons and grandchildren. She lives in southeastern Michigan.
Posted by tobiaslw at 11:35 AM | Comments (0)
Elizabeth de la Vega, '74, United States v. George W. Bush et al.
Seven Stories Press, 2006
The book: In United States v. George W. Bush et. al., the defendants are George W. Bush, Richard Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Condoleezza Rice and Colin Powell. The crime is tricking the nation into war or, in legal terms, conspiracy to defraud the United States. The author has reviewed the evidence, researched the law, drafted an indictment and, in this lively, accessible book, presented it to a grand jury. The legal question is: Did the president and his team use false pretenses, half-truths and deliberate omissions to deceive Congress and the American public?
The author: Elizabeth de la Vega, a former federal prosecutor, was an assistant US attorney in Minneapolis as well as a member of the Organized Crime Strike Force and Branch Chief in San Jose, California. Since her 2004 retirement, she has been a regular contributor to TomDispatch.com and has written for The Nation, the Los Angeles Times, Salon and Mother Jones.
Posted by tobiaslw at 11:22 AM | Comments (0)
John Kolars, professor emeritus, near eastern studies and geography, U-M College of LSA
Growing Up Walla Walla, AuthorHouse, 2006
The book: The Walla Walla Oliver knew when he was young was a wheat and cow town in the remote southeastern corner of a remote northwestern state. Or at least the town and the state were remote when he grew up there. Perhaps Whitman college and its Conservatory made a difference, but its campus was only a place he pedaled by on his way home from work, its museum a place to visit once or twice a year, an auditorium where his mother sometimes sang. The men who influenced Oliver were a different breed. Those were the men fatherless Oliver grew up around. Weathered men, ready to drink up their week's wages, ready for a fight, men who took off their hats in the presence of a lady, and who would do business on a hand shake, they were part of Oliver's Walla Walla. That's why he wants to tell about them and about the two Walla Wallas.
The author: John Kolars, born in Walla Walla in 1929, grew up there during the Great Depression and World War II. During those decades the town was transforming itself from a frontier settlement to the cultural center it is today. At seventeen, he enlisted in the army, and with the help of a G.E.D. diploma and the G.I. Bill, became Professor of Geography and Middle Eastern Studies at the University of Michigan. He is recognized as an authority on water in the Middle East, and has received the title of Distinguished Visiting Lecturer at the United States Foreign Service Institute.
Posted by tobiaslw at 10:52 AM | Comments (0)
Valerie Kivelson, Arthur F. Thurnau Professor and professor of history, U-M College of LSA
Cartographies of Tsardom: The Land and Its Meanings in Seventeenth-Century Russia, Cornell UP, 2006
The book: Toward the end of the sixteenth century, and throughout the seventeenth, thinking in spatial terms assumed extraordinary urgency among Russia's ruling elites. The two great developments of this era in Russian history - the enserfment of the peasantry and the conquest of a vast Eastern empire - fundamentally concerned spatial control and concepts of movements across the land. Cartographies of Tsardom explores how these twin themes of fixity and mobility obliged Russians to think in spatial terms.
The author: Valerie Kivelson is a U-M faculty member and the author of "Autocracy in the Provinces: Russian Political Culture and the Gentry in the Seventeenth Century" and the coeditor of "Orthodox Russia: Studies in Belief and Practice." She currently resides in Ann Arbor, Michigan
Posted by tobiaslw at 10:50 AM | Comments (0)
Lawrence I. Berkove, professor emeritus of English, UM-Dearborn
The Old West in the Old World: Lost Plays by Bret Harte and Sam Davis, University of New Mexico Press, 2006.
The book: The two plays in this collection, 'The Luck of Roaring Camp,' by Bret Harte, and 'The Prince of Timbuctoo,' by Sam Davis, were written by "Old West" authors as the nineteenth century transitioned into the twentieth. Both plays are original treatments of Americans in the Old World - France and Africa, respectively. Hitherto, both plays were lost - never published, and forgotten. At first glance, the plays appear to be very different. Harte greatly revised his famous short story to turn its title character into an attractive ingenue sent by her mining camp foster parents to acquire an education and polish in France. There, she and the son of an aristocratic family fall in love and confront complications of class and money. In Davis' play, a comic opera, three Americans come to Timbuctoo to exploit it. But, two of them decide to support the young prince of the kingdom who is trying to gain his rightful throne and marry the girl of his choice. Despite malicious intrigues, both works end happily, reflecting their authors' Old West beliefs in a society where character takes precedence over birth. Both plays besides being valuable additions to the literature of the period are intrinsically entertaining.
The author: Berkove is an internationally known scholar of American literature of 19th and 20th centuries, and is recognized as an authority on Ambrose Bierce, Mark Twain, Jack London and the writers of the "Sagebrush School." He has written more than 125 articles and notes and 10 books and monographs.
Posted by tobiaslw at 09:55 AM | Comments (0)
Lawrence Goldstein, professor of English, U-M College of LSA
Writing Ann Arbor, The University of Michigan Press, 2005.
The book: Writing Ann Arbor collects fiction, essay, poetry, memoir, and drama by Max Apple, Charles Baxter, Sven Birkerts, Donald Hall, Robert Hayden, Jane Kenyon, Thomas Lynch, Ross Macdonald, Frank O'Hara, Marge Piercy, Dudly Randall, Elwood Reid, Bob Ufer, Wendy Wasserstein, and Nancy Willard, among others.
The anthology is eclectic and engaging, with many wonderful surprises: an essay on the Underground Railroad in Ann Arbor; on basketball legend Cazzie Russell, an essay by Arthur Miller; an excerpt from Joyce Carol Oates' "All the Good People I've Left Behind"; a selection from "Tender at the Bone: Growing Up at the Table" by food writer and Gourmet magazine editor Ruth Reichl; and much more.
This is more than a series of portraits on Ann Arbor and the University of Michigan; it is a miniature time capsule, a look into the shifting cultural currents of the last two centuries from some of the greatest thinkers and writers of that time.
The author: Poet and literary scholar Laurence Goldstein is Professor of English at the University of Michigan and Editor of the Michigan Quarterly Review. He is the author of three books of poetry and several books of literary criticism.
Posted by tobiaslw at 09:53 AM | Comments (0)
December 21, 2007
Wilfred Kaplan
Heidi and Bill: Beginning of Our Lives Together, Kolossos Printing, 2006
The book: This is a true story, told mainly through actual letters written long ago. Bill, a 20-year-old American math graduate student, goes to Zurich, Switzerland in 1936 to pursue his studies. On this first day in class he meets Heidi, a Swiss girl seeking a diploma in math. Soon thereafter a student-run ball, on a grand scale, brings them together. They discover how deeply they share a devotion to music, art and literature and find themselves bound together in love, which remains unshakable through two years of frequent painful separation, and of bitter opposition of Heidi's family. Their letters reveal their passionate attachment to each other as well as their penetrating thoughts on mathematics, music, art and other subjects. They are finally joined in marriage and sail away to America.
The author: Wilfred Kaplan is professor emeritus at U-M's College of LSA.
Posted by tobiaslw at 03:31 PM | Comments (0)
Christine Brennan
Best Seat in the House: A Father, A Daughter, A Journey Through Sports, Scribner, 2006
The book: Journalist Christine Brennan unfolds her life as a sports fan and sports writer. Her father introduced her to sports at an early age and she never looked back. As a child, she grew up rooting for the Toledo Mud Hens, Detroit Tigers and U-M Wolverines. She later went on to become the first full-time woman sportswriter at the Miami Herald. Brennan moved to the Washington Post to cover the Redskins and then the Olympics, and was offered a general sports column in USA Today. Her account is not only sprinkled with amusing anecdotes about learning to maneuver through a man's, but also a tribute to her father, who encouraged her love of sports.
The author: Christine Brennan is a sports columnist for USA Today, a commentator for ABC News, ESPN, NPR and Fox Sports Radio and an author.
Posted by tobiaslw at 03:30 PM | Comments (0)
Nicholas Delbanco
The Vagabonds, Warner Books, 2005
The book: Born and raised in Saratoga Springs, New York, the three Saperstone siblings have drifted apart and lead very separate lives. On Cape Cod, Joanna manages a B&B and a teenage daughter, feeling vulnerable and alone. In Ann Arbor, Claire flirts with becoming an interior decorator while coming to terms with a personal betrayal. And in Berkeley, David carves a niche as a Web designer-yet he yearns to be a painter.
Suddenly, these middle-class and ordinary lives will come together again in an extraordinary way.
The death of their proud, spirited mother draws the Saperstones home to the New York resort town of Saratoga Springs. Gathered again in the family's ramshackle cottage, they discover a stunning legacy from 1916. Almost a century ago, the legendary "Vagabonds"—captains of industry Henry Ford and Harvey Firestone, inventor Thomas Edison, and naturalist John Burroughs—came to this town during one of their road trip adventures. Here they encountered a beautiful young woman, whom they would burden with a scandalous secret and a dazzling windfall.
Now, when decades later this inheritance comes to the three Saperstones, it will utterly transform them—not so much for the riches it brings, but for how it will reconfigure the past they share … and a future they had thought beyond their grasp.
The author: Nicholas Delbanco is a Robert Frost Collegiate Professor of English Language and Literature at the University of Michigan.
Posted by tobiaslw at 02:14 PM | Comments (0)
Craig Ross
The Obscene Diaries of a Michigan Fan, First Page Publications, 2005
The book: Craig Ross has written a comic gem about college sports and the sports personalities in America. Packed with fresh and funny insights, the book is the perfect mix of serious analysis, wild imagination and sports lore. The author’s obsession will all aspects of sports in our culture is contagious.
The author: Craig Ross is a fanatical sports fan. He was born in Lorain, Ohio, but now lives in Ann Arbor, Michigan, where he is a sports writer for the Ann Arbor Observer.
Posted by tobiaslw at 11:52 AM | Comments (0)
Laurence Goldstein
A Room in California, Northwestern University Press, 2005
The book: Southern California is one of two significant places in Laurence Goldstein’s fourth collection of poems. In the neighborhoods of Los Angeles, Goldstein encounters the vivid ghosts of an exotic personal landscape: Criswell the TV prophet, Madame Nhu, Mickey Cohen and Bob Hope, among others. He then takes the reader to Ethiopia, the setting of a long dramatic monologue narrated by a young American woman seeking the reincarnation of the medieval Christian potentate Prester John for help in the apocalyptic wars of the 21st century.
The author: Laurence Goldstein was born and raised in Los Angeles. He is a professor of English at the University of Michigan and editor of Michigan Quarterly Review.
Posted by tobiaslw at 11:51 AM | Comments (0)