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Ann Arbor/Ypsilanti Reads is now on Facebook

by shannon riffe

In addition to our popular AADL Facebook page (we have over 900 fans!), we have just launched an Ann Arbor/Ypsilanti Reads Facebook page. Become a fan to receive updates on upcoming Reads events and book discussions.

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Michigan's Fascinating Past

by iralax

It took the opening of the Erie Canal in 1825 for New Yorkers and others to start moving to Michigan Territory big-time. The peninsula then filled up so quickly that Michigan statehood was achieved in 1837. Over next hundred years, endeavors like timber, mining, shipping, farming, fishing, automobiles, music and education grew apace. Learn about the people and the place that accomplished all this at 2:00 on Sun., Jan. 24 at Malletts Creek Branch, as UM-Dearborn historian Martin Hershock recounts many exciting stories from Michigan's early years.

Selected Bibliography

Ann Arbor Ypsilanti 2010 Reads
MICHIGAN
A VERY Selective Bibliography *

Afro-Americans
Cox, Anna-Lisa. A Stronger Kinship: One Town's Extraordinary Story of Hope and Faith. Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press/ Bison Books, 2007.
In the nineteenth century, when much of the nation was solidifying racial discrimination and barriers between the races and to achievement for former slaves, the small town of Covert, Michigan, was embarking on a bold social order--equality among the races. Historian Cox details the founding families--black and white--who established Covert in 1860 as a mixed-race community that defied the social conventions of the time, electing blacks to powerful political positions and providing a haven for economic development for achievers of all races.

Walker, Lewis and Benjamin C. Wilson. Black Eden: The Idlewild Community. East Lansing, MI: Michigan State University Press, 2002.
Black Eden" chronicles the history of Idlewild, MI. one of the many American black communities founded during the aftermath of the Civil War.

Detroit / Music / Automotive /
Boyle, Kevin. Arc of Justice: A Saga of Race, Civil Rights and Murder in the Jazz Age. New York, New York: Henry Holt and Company, LLC, 2005.
In the summer of 1925, Detroit, there is rising tension from racism as native-born whites, immigrants, and blacks, drawn by the flourishing automobile industry, jockeyed for jobs and housing in the teeming metropolis. This is the story of Ossian Sweet, his family, his rights and his murder trial.

Carson, David. Grit, Noise & Revolution: The Birth of Detroit Rock 'n' Roll. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press, 2005.
Carson chronicles Detroit pop music between World War II and Motown Records' early-1970s removal to L.A., delineating loud, intense Motor City acts from John Lee Hooker to Bob Seger and drawing lines of influence between white and black acts.

Early, Gerald. One Nation Under a Groove: Motown and American Culture. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press, 2004.
In this elegant, far-ranging essay, African American studies professor Early (The Culture of Bruising) offers a portrait of the revolutionary as a decidedly bourgeois family man and businessman-Motown Records founder Berry Gordy Jr., stage manager of "the most shining moment of the American black in popular culture."

Hernandez, Lolita. Autopsy of an Engine: And Other Stories from the Cadillac Plant. Minneapolis, MN: Coffee House Press, 2004.
Hernandez's short stories capture the effect on Detroit after Cadillac closed its plants there. Hernandez, who worked for Cadillac for 21 years, writes a tender tribute to the working-class people who made the auto industry thrive.

Smith, Suzanne E. Dancing in the Street: Motown and the Cultural Politics of Detroit. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2000.
A history of Motown's founding in 1958 on through the city's devastating riots in 1967 and the related early-'70s flight from its precincts of the two enterprises central to its modern identity. If you've never heard about the Concept East Theater; or of WCHB, the first radio station built, owned, and operated by African-Americans; or never knew about organizations like the League of Revolutionary Black Workers; or the Freedom Now Part (the first all-black political party in the nation), Smith's text will explain their rich legacies.

Sugrue, Thomas J. The Origins of the Urban Crisis: Race and Inequality in Postwar Detroit. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1996.
Title says it all.

Native Americans
Dowd, Gregory Evans. War Under Heaven: Pontiac, the Indian Nations, and the British Empire. Baltimore, MD: John Hopkins University Press, 2002.

Graham, Loren R. A Face in the Rock: The Tale of a Grand Island Chippewa. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1998.
Off the south shore of Lake Superior lies an island eight miles long and four miles wide, shaped like the palm of a hand. Known as Grand Island, it was once home to a sizable community of Chippewa Indians who lived in harmony with the land and with each other. The tragic demise of the Grand Island Chippewa began more than 200 years ago when their fellow tribesmen from the mainland goaded the peaceful islanders into joining them in a senseless battle with their rival the Sioux. A Face in the Rock tells the fascinating story of the Grand Island Chippewa.

Petoskey, Warren. Dancing My Dream. David Crumm Media, LLC, 2009.
This memoir of Native American teacher, writer and artist Warren Petoskey spans centuries and lights up shadowy corners of American history with important memories of Indian culture and survival.

Sugden, John. Tecumseh: A Life. New York, New York: Henry Holt and Co., 1998.
This intelligent study of Tecumseh's life relates a great deal as well about the history of the Shawnee, especially in the Ohio region, and the wider context of Tecumseh's attempt to create a Pan Indian resistance, including a history of earlier such attempts. A very competent addition to the literature on this remarkable man; recommended for most academic and larger public libraries. --- Charlie Cowling, SUNY at Brockport

Environment, Nature and Weather (including literary works)
Bohnak, Karl. So Cold a Sky: Upper Michigan Weather Stories. Ed. Rebecca Tavernini and Judy Johnson. Negaunee, MI: Cold Sky Publishing, 2006.
Weather history of the Upper Peninsula of Michigan from the 1600's to the present.

Dempsey, Dave. Ruin and Recovery: Michigan's Rise as a Conservation Leader. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press, 2001.
Dempsey tells the story of Michigan's cycles of resource exploitation and conservation from the early days of statehood in 1837 to the present day. Drawing from a large number of resources, including archival records and reminiscences, official documents and individual interviews, Ruin and Recovery charts the development of a conservation ethic in Michigan and chronicles the major battles for environmental protection since the late 1800s.

Kalt, Brian C. Sixties Sandstorm: The Fight Over Establishment of a Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore, 1961-1970. East Lansing, MI: Michigan State University Press, 2001.
The 1,600 people who lived in the proposed park area feared not only that the federal government would confiscate their homes, but that a wave of tourists would ensue and destroy their beloved and fragile lands. In response, they organized citizen action groups and fought a nine-year battle against the legislation. Sixties Sandstorm is not a book about dunes as much as it is a book about people and their government. It chronicles the public meetings, bills, protests, and congressional interactions that led to the signing of the Sleeping Bear Sand Dunes Act in 1970.

Knott, John R. and Keith Taylor. The Huron River: Voices from the Watershed. 2000: University of Michigan Press.
A collection of new poems, essays, and stories, accompanied by maps, photographs, and illustrations that celebrate the Huron River. Over twenty locally and nationally known literary figures, including Alice Fulton and Charles Baxter, have contributed to this volume.

Swan, Alison. Fresh Water: Women Writing on the Great Lakes. Ed. Alison Swan. East Lansing, MI: Michigan State University, 2006.
A collection of nonfiction works by women writers. These works focus on the Midwest: living with the five interconnected freshwater seas that we know as the Great Lakes. Contributing to this collection are renowned poets, essayists, and fiction writers, all of whom write about their own creative streams of consciousness, the fresh waters of the Great Lakes, and the region's many rivers.

Roethke, Theodore. Collected Poems of Theodore Roethke. New York, New York: Anchor Books, 1991 "Originally published in hardcover by Doubleday in 1966: - T.p. verso.
Theodore Roethke was born in Saginaw, Mich., on May 25, 1908. The family owned the largest greenhouses in the state. He called his home "a wonderful place for a child to grow up in and around"--25 acres under glass in town and "the last stand of virgin timber in the Saginaw Valley" out in the country.

Michigan History
Faber, Don. Toledo War: The First Michigan-Ohio Rivalry. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press, 2008.
The conflict started with a long-simmering dispute over a narrow wedge of land called the Toledo Strip. Early maps were famously imprecise, adding to the uncertainty of the true boundary between the states. When Ohio claimed to the mouth of the Maumee River, land that according to the Northwest Ordinance of 1787 fell in the territory of Michigan, the "Toledo War" began.

Margolick, David. Beyond Glory: Joe Louis Vs. Max Schmeling, and a World on the Brink, by David Margolick. . New York: Knopf, 2005.
The 1938 heavyweight rematch between Detroit's Joe Louis and Germany's Max Schmeling qualifies as the sort of sporting event that coalesces into a symbolic moment with much larger themes. The African-American Louis's success and demeanor were an unsubtle rebuke to the Aryan theories of race; the affable Schmeling, for his part, would be shoehorned into the role of "Nazi Max," despite the uneasiness of the fit—later that year, on Kristallnacht, he would courageously protect two German Jews.

Maritime Stories/ Memoirs / Special Places
Catton, Bruce. Waiting for the Morning Train: An American Boyhood. Detroit, MI: Wayne State University Press, 1987.
One of America's great Civil War historians recounts his days growing up in Benzonia, a small town in Michigan's lower peninsula.

Emerick, Lon L. Going Back to Central: On the Road in Search of the Past in Michigan's Upper Peninsula. Skandia, MI: North Country Publishing, 2003.
Cornish copper miners in the region in the 1800’s.

Kowalski, Greg. Hamtramck: The Driven City. Charleston, S.C.: Arcadia Publishing, 2002.
Hamtramck is more than just pączki. Surrounded completely by the city of Detroit, Hamtramck is today home to 24,000 residents, but its small size of just 2.1 square miles belies its expansive history and the influence this remarkable community has had far beyond its borders.

Neuschel, Fred. Lives and Legends of the Christmas Tree Ships.Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press, 2007.
Lives and Legends of the Christmas Tree Shipsbrings the maritime heritage of the Great Lakes to life, using the tragic story of the schooner Rouse Simmons as a porthole into the robust but often forgotten communities that thrived along Lake Michigan from the Civil War to World War I.

Nguyen, Bich Minh. Stealing Buddha's Dinner : A Memoir. New York, New York: Viking Penguin, 2008.
Nguyen is a Vietnamese girl coming of age in Grand Rapids in the 1980s.

True Crime
Bernstein, Arnie. Bath Massacre: America’s First School Bombing. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press, 2009.
On May 18, 1927, the small town of Bath, Michigan, was forever changed when Andrew Kehoe set off a cache of explosives concealed in the basement of the local school. Thirty-eight children and six adults were dead, among them Kehoe, who had literally blown himself to bits by setting off a dynamite charge in his car.

Lehto, Steve. Death's Door: The Truth Behind Michigan's Largest Mass Murder. Troy, MI.: Momentum Books, LLC;, 2006.
Death's Door is the true account of the tragedy that struck a Michigan copper mining town during a time when a bitter struggle raged between the striking workers and the mining companies in 1913.

Link, Mardi. Isadore's Secret: Sin, Murder and Confession in a Northern Michigan Town. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press, 2009.
A gripping account of the mysterious disappearance of a young Felician nun in a northern Michigan town in 1907 and the national controversy that followed when she turned up dead and buried in the basement of the church.

When Evil Came to Good Hart. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press, 2008.
There is an intemporal quality to Good Hart, the kind born of ancient rocks, mature mixed forests, enduring Ottawa legends, and the turquoise waters of Little Traverse Bay. Hovering over this paradise is the dark chapter in the village's past that locals still don't care to talk about: the massacre of six members of the vacationing Robison family in the summer of 1968. In the first nonfiction book about this baffling and still unsolved crime, Link offers up a balanced and absorbing account of this mystery, allowing readers to form their own opinions and leaving them wanting more from this very talented writer. -- author Richard Bak

Fiction
Amick, Steve. The Lake, the River & the Other Lake. New York, New York: Anchor Books, 2005.
“By turns humorous, tender, and tragic, Amick’s debut novel features a deeply involving story that’s as authentic and addicting as Mackinac Island fudge and makes perfect summer reading.” – The Flint Journal

Arnow, Harriet. The Dollmaker. New York, New York: Macmillan, 1954.
Gertie Nevells is a strong and compassionate woman living in Kentucky and migrating north to Ypsilanti just before World War II with her husband and children. “The Dollmaker is both a passionate denunciation of industrialization and war, and a tribute to a woman's love for her children and the land.”

Barr, Nevada. A Superior Death. New York, New York: Berkley Book, 1994.

---. Winter Study. New York, New York: Putnam, 2008.
Anna Pigeon, National Park Service Ranger, is stationed at Isle Royal National Park in Lake Superior.

Eugenides, Jeffrey. Middlesex. New York, New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 2002.
Eugenides weaves together a kaleidoscopic narrative spanning 80 years of a stained family history, from a fateful incestuous union in a small town in early 1920s Asia Minor to Prohibition-era Detroit; from the early days of Ford Motors to the heated 1967 race riots; from the tony suburbs of Grosse Pointe and a confusing, aching adolescent love story to modern-day Berlin. Eugenides's command of the narrative is astonishing. He balances Cal/Callie's shifting voices convincingly, spinning this strange and often unsettling story with intelligence, insight, and generous amounts of humor.

Hamilton, Steve. A Cold Day in Paradise. New York, New York: Minotaur Books/ St. Martin's Press, 2000.
Alex McKnight is a retired Detroit cop living in Paradise, Mich., on disability with a bullet next to his heart.

Harrison, Jim. Off to the Side: A Memoir. New York, New York: Atlantic Montly Press, 2003.
Whether recalling bits of his past as a depressed child, manual laborer, Hollywood screenwriter, aspiring poet, novelist, or alcoholic husband, Jim Harrison pauses to analyze these moments--the cause and effect--and the choices that have made him who he is.

---. Returning to Earth. New York, NY: Heritage Press, 2007.

---. True North. New York, New York: Grove Press, 2004.

Jackson, Jon A. Man with an Axe. New York, New York: Grove Press, 1998.
The seventh book in Jon A. Jackson's addictive series about Detroit homicide detective sergeant "Fang" Mulheisen begins on the day of Jimmy Hoffa's disappearance, July 30, 1975.

* The titles here should be considered a ‘starting point’ for books on Michigan, or books by Michigan Authors about Michigan. Descriptions were taken from a variety of sources.

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Blog Post

Automotive Expert David E. Davis Visits AADL

by ringenka

Join us on Saturday, January 16, in the Downtown Library Multi-Purpose Room as David E. Davis discusses the 2010 Auto Show And The Future Of Michigan’s Auto Industry as a part of the 2010 Ann Arbor/Ypsilanti Reads Series on Michigan.

Davis is an automotive journalist and magazine publisher. His experience within the automotive industry includes work as a race car driver, factory worker, car salesman, writer, and publisher. He is the founder of Automobile Magazine and Time magazine called Davis the "dean of automotive journalists."

At the event Davis will discuss trends to look for at this year’s auto show, Michigan’s role in the future of the industry, and his own history and accomplishments within the field.

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Blog Post

The Three Fires Confederacy: Native Americans of Michigan

by iralax

Learn about the three historic Native American groups in Michigan: Ojibwe, Potawatomi, Ottawa at a talk by Margaret Noori on Wed., Jan. 6 at the Downtown Library. As we begin the Ann Arbor/Ypsilanti Reads 2010, we look at the early residents who speak the Anishinaabe language and formed a unique identity on the beautiful waters of Chigaming and the land of Michigan. What is the impact of their early culture on Michigan today? Where are the federally recognized Indian reservations and how is the language being passed on today?

Join us to learn more about the history of Michigan's Native American cultures at 7 pm on Wednesday, January 6 at the Downtown Library.

Reviews of Seeing in the Dark

Seeing in the Dark: How Amateur Astronomers Are Discovering the Wonders of the Universe, by Timothy Ferris, c2002

Washington Post
Entrancing and beautifully written, this latest work by Ferris, the writer laureate of astronomy, will be treasured by generations of stargazers to come

Publisher’s Weekly
Amateur astronomers are the heroes of this latest opus from one of the country's best-known and most prolific science writers. Ferris has a special place in his heart for these nonprofessionals who gaze into space out of wonderment and end up making discoveries about comets, the moon and the planets that change our understanding of the galaxy. Ferris recounts how he, as a boy growing up in working-class Florida, was first captivated by the spectacle of the night sky. He then looks at the growing field of amateur astronomy, where new technologies have allowed neophytes to see as much of the cosmos as professionals. The book introduces readers to memorable characters like Barbara Wilson, a one-time Texas housewife who turned to astronomy after her children were grown and has since helped found the George Observatory in Houston (where a number of new asteroids have been discovered) and developed a reputation as one of the most skilled amateur observers. Ferris also takes stock of what we know today about the cosmos and writes excitedly about the discoveries yet to come. With a glossary of terms and a guide for examining the sky, this book should turn many novices on to astronomy and captivate those already fascinated by the heavens.

Library Journal
Science writer and stargazer Ferris elaborates on his 1998 New Yorker essay about the renaissance of amateur astronomy, describing how advances in telescope design, electronics, and telecommunications have made it possible for amateur observers to discover new celestial objects. Improved technology and the sheer numbers of participants have also empowered amateurs to conduct round-the-clock or long-term research projects that complement the work of professional astronomers. Yet these same advances also render human eyes, hands, and sometimes even minds increasingly irrelevant to the practice of both amateur and professional astronomy. Perhaps as a counterpoint to this dismaying trend, Ferris frequently interrupts his narrative to introduce readers to individual amateur astronomers, from the well known…to the more obscure or even surprising…Appendixes provide useful tips and seasonal star maps (Northern Hemisphere only) for the beginning observer, facts and figures about various celestial bodies, and recommendations for further reading. Lyrical and engrossing, this book is highly recommended for public and academic libraries.

Scientific American
If you've never heard of Stephen James O'Meara or Don Parker, then you've missed some of the most fascinating adventures in 20th-century astronomy. O'Meara was the first person to measure the length of a day on Uranus and to see radial "spokes" in Saturn's rings. (Most astronomers dismissed that discovery as illusionary, until Voyager got close enough to photograph them.) What's more remarkable, in an age of computer-enhanced CCD [Change-Coupled Device] images, O'Meara made these observations visually, using only a small telescope and his own eyes. Parker went in a different direction. After improving the technique of CCD-based astrophotography, he amassed what might be the world's most extensive and scientifically valuable digital archive of planetary portraits. Despite their passion for astronomy, both hold more down-to-earth day jobs. They are not alone. Today, equipped with low-cost telescopes and high-tech imaging systems, a small army of dedicated amateur sky watchers struggles every night to advance our understanding of the cosmos. While that's no secret, tales from the trenches are seldom told, so these passionate citizen scientists and their extraordinary achievements have remained undeservedly obscure. Happily, amateur astronomy is about to receive a whole new type of exposure.

Seeing in the Dark, Timothy Ferris's latest sojourn into matters astronomical, presents a delightful look back down the telescopes of some of the world's most accomplished citizen astronomers. Ferris knows this community well. A lifelong amateur astronomer, he has an intimate connection to his subject. He isn't bashful about sharing his own experiences. In one passage, Ferris regresses to 1959, when he was a young man, strapped inside the cockpit of a "raw, street-legal racer" while it screeched headlong down the Florida interstate. A self-described "white boy" in the segregated South, Ferris was haunted by his forbidden love of authentic African-American blues. But the radio stations that played it were hundreds of miles away. So he took to the road near midnight, when the ionosphere firmed up and reflected those prized AM waves from their faraway source to his car radio. As he describes how he mentally connected the stars with those distant radio signals, he makes it clear why some people wonder incessantly about life on other planets. It's a refreshing perspective because it presents the situation as astronomers often see it: one cosmos in which the great questions of existence are inextricably intertwined with the mundane. It's what turns thousands of otherwise ordinary folks into night owls who tirelessly prowl the skies for new insights into ancient mysteries. Ferris profiles some of the stars of amateur astronomy, such as comet hunter extraordinaire David Levy... But he also meanders about the community's charming backroads, where you never know whom you are going to meet. The introductions include a roly-poly Houston housewife and master observer who casually chases alligators away from her observatory with a rake, and a sculptor who converted the caldera of an extinct volcano into an enduring work of modern astronomical art. We even get to meet Brian May of the rock group Queen. It turns out that the fellow who wrote "We Will Rock You" also did postgraduate work in infrared astronomy and still observes as an amateur.

To provide context for the profiles, Ferris has also written an excellent introduction to basic astronomy. Actually, it may be a bit too good. Anyone who wishes to plumb the depths of planetary astronomy, or to contemplate catastrophic cosmic collisions, can buy bushels of best-selling books on those subjects. But here, where the main course is the community itself, astronomy should be treated like a rich dessert. The chef needs to present enough to complement the meal, but too much richness can detract from the experience. In an era when publishers impose strict page limits on their authors, more science means less of the stuff that makes Seeing in the Dark such a joy to read. Also, the book eats up 30 pages with astronomical tables and viewing tips, apparently so the publisher can position it as an observer's guide. This must be the work of an overzealous marketing department. Ferris surely knows this small space can't present enough information to be of much use and that many excellent observing guides can already be found in bookstores and on the Internet. My advice to Simon & Schuster would have been to keep the "Further Reading" section and let Ferris substitute the rest with another profile or two. Then this great book would be near perfect. In the end, Seeing in the Dark teaches an important lesson for any nonprofessional interested in science. Amateurs may not have access to all the toys the professionals do. But they always seem to enjoy their research tremendously--and many make discoveries, some of them of immense value to our understanding of the universe.

Booklist
A veteran author of general-interest works on astronomy, Ferris here spotlights the renaissance in amateurs' contributions to the science. The big-telescope era of Mounts Wilson and Palomar demoted most amateurs to hobbyist status, but the proliferation of charge-coupled devices has vastly increased the power of build-your-own and off-the-shelf telescopes. Combined with "bench strength" and native fascination with the sights of the night, the amateurs are again discovering objects the professionals miss; unpaid insomniacs detect most novae and comets. Surveying these enthusiasts, among whom he counts himself, Ferris relays his "transforming experience" of observing Mars as a Florida teenager in the 1950s. He also interviews 15 other amateurs about their fascination with celestial objects. The most popular planets with amateurs are Saturn or Jupiter; Britain's prolific astronomy popularizer Patrick Moore was held in thrall by the moon. A word tour of planets and constellations closes out Ferris' companionable testimonial cum guide, which has the power to convert a casual browser into an active observer.

NY Times Sunday Book Review
This is a beautiful book....Seeing in the Dark is even more delightful and successful because Ferris has so artfully pinned its organization to the human experiences of observers past and present..

The New York Times
Editor's Choice: One of the year's best books
Unquestionably sublime, the universe is also beautiful, from ruddy Mars and jade Uranus to majestic blue-white Rigel (named in Arabic, like most of the Milky Way's high-magnitude stars, by Muslim astronomers) to the colossal Sombrero, Whirlpool, colliding Seashell and exploding M87 galaxies. Every month the Hubble Space Telescope releases breathtaking new pictures; but all over Earth, Timothy Ferris writes in Seeing in the Dark, there are thousands of less expensive telescopes trained on sights just as lovely. Amateurs, too, can make long colorful exposures with charge-coupled devices (CCD's, the astronomical equivalent of the omnicompetent microchip). Comets can be spotted with binoculars. The Perseid meteor showers this month could be enjoyed with the naked eye…we stare at the universe often, with or without precision optics, in our endless search for meaning. If Ferris is right, more of us are doing that now than ever before. His book is not just a handbook of the universe but a record of people of all sorts who have looked long and hard at it, and of what the experience has been like for them. To be impressed with the universe and curious about it may be, according to some scientists, our species' only purpose in being here, especially if we are indeed alone in it. Others disagree…For Ferris, the more characters there are in the universe, human or not, who can be impressed with it, the better it is for us, and maybe for the universe as well. He provides many means to that end, including a guide to the night sky, tips for the novice stargazer and a brief history of the popularization of science, from Pierre Bayle to James Jeans and Steven Weinberg. But his two big themes are the structure of the observable universe and profiles of the observers.

Ferris has a chapter for each kind of object, from the Sun to quasars, with what you never find in an astronomy book -- the story of human perceptions of these objects, the resulting conceptions of them and, in some cases, encounters with them. He devotes two chapters to the planetesimals, the second one for those with high ''Torino numbers,'' the ones that might crash into Earth, a category that should interest everybody.

As the book moves out into space from planet to star to galaxy, it stops for fascinating chats with the stargazers who specialize in seeing them. You meet all kinds of people here who are regrettably never profiled in People magazine… Ferris's own biography is slipped in, a sentence here, a paragraph there, as an interviewer's reflections. It is a charming memoir about growing up in Key Biscayne, Fla., in the 50's, by an indifferent student who caught the science bug that was so contagious in those years of sputnik and satellites, and became a professional journalist and a lifetime amateur of blues music and astronomy. In backyard observatories and at ''star parties,'' where you bring your own, often home-built, telescope, Ferris has seen eclipses, colliding galaxies, double-star systems and a storm on the surface of the Sun big enough to slap an orbiting satellite into the Indian Ocean and black out Montreal. For him a highlight of the 60's was being able to report the exact times of a transit of Mercury across the disk of the sun. In a stray sentence on Page 196 he measures out his life in something grander than coffee spoons -- four successive observations of the rare Jupiter-Saturn conjunction.

Universe-watching, like golf and aging, promotes humility. Ferris is a retired professor, but of journalism, not astronomy, and his tone is that of the amateurs he celebrates and interviews. That adolescent enthusiasm, well tended since sputnik, reinforces his formidable literary gifts -- for metaphor, for narrative and everything between. This is a beautiful book.

In a generation of writing scientists like Steven Pinker and Stephen Jay Gould, and superb science journalists like James Gleick, David Quammen, George Johnson and Laurie Garrett, Ferris is among the very best. Specializing in astronomy and astrophysics, he has written eight previous books, collaborated on another and edited two. His 1997 book, The Whole Shebang, was an attempt to take it all in; but Seeing in the Dark, on the same subject, is even more delightful and successful because Ferris has so artfully pinned its organization to the human experiences of observers, past and present, instead of to the problems and subdivisions of the astronomical discipline. You learn just as much reliable information about the heavenly bodies and their stunning peculiarities, but you also learn who saw which of them and when. Having brought so many memorably passionate seekers into the book, Ferris can use his other principle of organization to highlight how dwarfed they are -- and how dwarfed they know they are -- by what they are seeking.

New York Times Review of PBS Film
Timothy Ferris, the author, academic and filmmaker, has been called the greatest science writer of his generation, praise he has won for explaining the phenomena of the cosmos with unusual clarity and style. Some commentators have described his prose as poetic, and his latest documentary, “Seeing in the Dark,” tonight on PBS, shows us why.
Here is Mr. Ferris, who serves as writer, producer and narrator, describing the possible contents of Saturn’s spokes: dust particles “that pick up an electrostatic charge from lightning in Saturn’s upper atmosphere, leaping up off the icy rings, like scraps of tissue paper levitating toward a comb.”

Mr. Ferris brings to his similes a Dickinsonian ambition that offers no aural reward, but his paean to amateur astronomy is no less compelling for all of his linguistic intrusion.

“Seeing in the Dark,” based on his book of the same title, is part memoir and part reportage. The documentary pays homage not only to a fascination with stargazing that began in Mr. Ferris’s boyhood, but also to a group of nonprofessional observers, who, because of advances in digital imaging and the development of remotely operated telescopes, have turned into invaluable freelancers for astrophysicists like Debra Fischer of California.

Exactly what our civilization will need trained specialists to do in the future appears to be an issue that gets murkier and murkier. As Dr. Fischer explains here, there are too few astronomers in the world to meet the demands of research, and impassioned amateurs who can now track the movements of exo-planets around stars with the aid of computerized photography are beginning to make significant contributions to our understanding of the solar system.

Mr. Ferris regards these developments with unmitigated awe. He positions himself as a kind of Charles Osgood, walking us through a subculture for which he has tremendous affection. In the process, what he captures most evocatively is the basic human urge to carve for oneself a greater piece of the world than mundane circumstance typically provides.

Visiting a group of makers of hobby telescopes, he finds a man who has made an imposing, exquisite-looking device, using cedar chips left over from a canoe project. What moves Mr. Ferris in “Seeing in the Dark” — what moves us — isn’t the cold, clammy intellectualism of scientific inquiry, but the aesthetics, the beauty and glory of it all.

Living Great Lakes Reading Guide Questions

    1. Do you have any sailing experience?
      a. Do you think the author did a good job of describing the experience?
      b. Do you have a preference for fresh or salt water sailing?
      c. Did you find the use and explanation of sailing terms useful?

    2. Do you have a favorite Great Lake?

      a. Did one lake seem more ‘favored’ than another in the book?
      b. Did the author make you want to learn more about a particular lake?

    3. Have you ever experienced living in tight quarters?

      a. Do you think the author described the relationships realistically?
      b. Do you think that the experience is the same (cramped quarters) on both land and sea?- why or why not?

    4. Librarians will use the phrase, “non-fiction that reads like fiction” to describe a book that is factual, but reads like a novel. Do you think that this describes The Living Great Lakes? Why or why not?

    5. There are several “stories” in this book:

      a. the actual sailing adventure
      b. the natural history of the Great Lakes
      c. the relationships between crew members
      d. the sailing differences between the Great Lakes and the ocean
      e. maritime history of the Great Lakes
      f. memoir of author’s experience
      Did you find one story more compelling than another? Are there too many stories?

    6. Which character did you identify with in the book? Why?

    7. Have you read many sea stories? Would you class The Living Great Lakes in this genre? Why or why not?

    8. Does this book make you proud to live in Michigan? Why or why not?

    9. Jerry Dennis discusses the demise of Michigan’s forests by logging. Has this book changed your perspective on Michigan’s natural resources, especially its water? Do you feel motivated to take care of our resources?

    10. What is something you learned in this book that you did not know before?

Reading List Grades K - 8

Ann Arbor/Ypsilanti Reads 2010 Youth Reading List

MICHIGAN

Grades K - 5

Appleford, Annie
M is for Mitten: A Michigan Alphabet Book

Barker, Charles Ferguson
Under Michigan: The Story of Michigan's Rocks and Fossils

de Angeli, Marguerite
Copper-Toed Boots

van Frankenhuyzen, Robbyn Smith
Kelly of Hazel Ridge

Polacco, Patricia
Mrs. Mack

Rand, Jonathan
Michigan Chillers: Great Lakes Ghost Ship
(and other Michigan Chillers)

Wargin, Kathy-Jo
The Legend of Sleeping Bear

Wargin, Kathy-Jo
Look & See Michigan with Me

Whelan, Gloria
Mackinac Bridge: The Story of the Five-Mile Poem

Whelan, Gloria
Next Spring An Oriole

Grades 6 - 8

Bellairs, John
The House with a Clock in its Walls

Blos, Joan
Brothers of the Heart

Curtis, Christopher Paul
The Watsons Go to Birmingham – 1963

Frost, Helen
Crossing Stones

Giff, Patricia Reilly
Willow Run

Jones, Patrick
Cheated

Schatzer, Jeffery L.
Fires in the Wilderness

Slote, Alfred
Finding Buck McHenry

Swanson, Julie A.
Going for the Record

Trottier, Maxine
Sister to the Wolf

Graphic for events post

Blog Post

Announcing the Official Book Selection of Ann Arbor/Ypsilanti Reads 2010.

by shannon riffe

Jerry Dennis' book, 'The Living Great Lakes: Searching For The Heart Of The Inland Seas' is the title selected as the focus of Ann Arbor/Ypsilanti Reads 2010. This year's theme is Michigan.

An eleven-member selection team, composed of community members, educators, students and librarians from the Ann Arbor/Ypsilanti area chose the book Wednesday night after two hours of deliberation. The other title under consideration was 'Arc of Justice: Saga of Race, Civil Rights, and Murder in The Jazz Age' by Kevin Boyle.

The winner of the “Best Book of 2003” by the Outdoor Writers Association of America,'The Living Great Lakes: Searching for the Heart of the Inland Seas' chronicles author Jerry Dennis’ travels as a crew member on the tall-masted schooner Malabar on a four-week trip through the waters of Lakes Huron, Ontario, Michigan, Erie and Superior. The author, a resident of Traverse City, Michigan, reminisces on a lifetime spent near the lakes and interweaves his personal journey with stories from the biologists, fishermen and sailors that he met during his travels.

Ann Arbor/Ypsilanti Reads 2010 is scheduled to occur January through February 2010, with multiple opportunities for the community to become involved. For more information, visit the website.