Download or read book Call Me Athena written by Colby Cedar Smith and published by Andrews McMeel Publishing. This book was released on 2021-08-17 with total page 576 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This enchanting novel in verse captures one young woman’s struggle for independence, equality, and identity as the daughter of Greek and French immigrants in tumultuous 1930s Detroit. Call Me Athena: Girl from Detroit is a beautifully written novel in verse loosely based on author Colby Cedar Smith’s paternal grandmother. The story follows Mary as the American-born daughter of Greek and French immigrants living in Detroit in the 1930s, creating a historically accurate portrayal of life as an immigrant during the Great Depression, hunger strikes, and violent riots. Mary lives in a tiny apartment with her immigrant parents, her brothers, and her twin sister, and she questions why her parents ever came to America. She yearns for true love, to own her own business, and to be an independent, modern American woman—much to the chagrin of her parents, who want her to be a “good Greek girl.” Mary’s story is peppered with flashbacks to her parents’ childhoods in Greece and northern France; their stories connect with Mary as they address issues of arranged marriage, learning about independence, and yearning to grow beyond one’s own culture. Though Call Me Athena is written from the perspective of three profoundly different narrators, it has a wide-reaching message: It takes courage to fight for tradition and heritage, as well as freedom, love, and equality.

Download or read book Ink Trails II written by Dave Dempsey and published by MSU Press. This book was released on 2016-03-01 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From authors of bodice rippers and gallant figures to hometown poetry, hearty men, and tales of American originals, the history of literature in Michigan is deep and rich. The Wolverine State has been the birthplace, home, and inspiration to a tremendous number of men and women of letters, both the well-known and the obscure. Ink Trails II tells the stories of these fascinating and diverse writers whose talent is inextricably linked to Michigan. Exploring the hidden treasures of otherwise forgotten authors while also acknowledging the Michigan-set stories of giants like Hemingway, Dave and Jack Dempsey delve into the state’s literary heritage, as robust, diverse, and inexhaustible as the natural beauty of the place that nurtured it. This second volume of “ink trails” continues to tell the story of the remarkable writers, powerful words, and sublime nature of Michigan in the same well-researched and entertaining prose as the first.

Download or read book Michigan in Literature written by Clarence A. Andrews and published by Wayne State University Press. This book was released on 1992 with total page 346 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Michigan in Literature is a guide to more than one thousand literary and dramatic works set in Michigan from its pre-territorial days to the present. Imaginative, narrative, dramatic, and lyrical creations that have Michigan settings, characters, subjects, and themes are organized into sixteen chapters on topics such as Indians in Michigan, settlers who came to Michigan, diversity in the state, the timber industry, the Great Lakes, crime in Michigan literature, Detroit, and Michigan poetry. In this most complete work to date, Clarence Andrews has assembled the literary reputation of a state. He illustrates, with a wide variety of literary works, that Michigan is more than just a builder of automobiles, a producer of apples and cherries, a supplier of copper and lumber, and the home of great athletes. It is also a state that has played—and continues to play—an important role in the production of American literature. To qualify for inclusion, a work or a significant part of it has to be set in Michigan. Andrews shows how novelists, dramatists, poets, and short story writers have created their particular images of Michigan by using and interpreting the history of the state—its land and waters, people, events, ideas, philosophies, and policies—sometimes factually, sometimes modified or distorted, and sometimes fancied or imagined. Biographical information is featured about authors, editors, and compilers, who range in fame from Ernest Hemingway and Elmore Leonard to persons long forgotten. The published opinions and judgments of reputable critics and scholars are also presented.

Download or read book Ghost Writers written by Keith Taylor and published by Wayne State University Press. This book was released on 2011-09-15 with total page 240 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Taylor and Kasischke have assembled a collection with a diverse mixture of settings, tones, and styles, ensuring that Ghost Writers will appeal to all readers of fiction, particularly those interested in the newest offerings from Michigan's best fiction writers.

Download or read book The Way North written by Ron Riekki and published by Wayne State University Press. This book was released on 2013-05-01 with total page 280 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: It will be welcomed by readers interested in new fiction and poetry and instructors of courses on Michigan writing.

Download or read book Ordinary People written by Judith Guest and published by Penguin. This book was released on 1982-10-28 with total page 276 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: One of the great bestseller of our time: the novel that inspired Robert Redford’s Oscar-winning film starring Donald Sutherland and Mary Tyler Moore In Ordinary People, Judith Guest’s remarkable first novel, the Jarrets are a typical American family. Calvin is a determined, successful provider and Beth an organized, efficient wife. They had two sons, Conrad and Buck, but now they have one. In this memorable, moving novel, Judith Guest takes the reader into their lives to share their misunderstandings, pain, and ultimate healing. Ordinary People is an extraordinary novel about an "ordinary" family divided by pain, yet bound by their struggle to heal. "Admirable...touching...full of the anxiety, despair, and joy that is common to every human experience of suffering and growth." -The New York Times "Rejoice! A novel for all ages and all seasons." -The Washington Post Book World

Download or read book The Summer Cottage written by Viola Shipman and published by Harlequin. This book was released on 2019-04-23 with total page 409 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A USA Today Bestseller! “Every now and then a new voice in fiction arrives to completely charm, entertain and remind us what matters. Viola Shipman is that voice and The Summer Cottage is that absolutely irresistible and necessary novel.” — New York Times Bestselling Author Dorothea Benton Frank From the bestselling author of The Charm Bracelet and The Recipe Box comes the perfect summer escape about the restorative power of family tradition, small-town community and the feel of sand between your toes Adie Lou Kruger’s ex never understood her affection for what her parents called their Cozy Cottage, the charming, ramshackle summer home—complete with its own set of rules for relaxing—that she’s inherited on Lake Michigan. But despite the fact she’s facing a broken marriage and empty nest, and middle age is looming in the distance, memories of happy childhoods on the beach give her reason for hope. She’s determined not to let her husband’s affair with a grad student reduce her to a cliché, or to waste one more minute in a career she doesn’t love, so it becomes clear what Adie Lou must do: rebuild her life and restore her cottage shingle by shingle, on her terms. But converting the beloved, weather-beaten structure into a bed-and-breakfast isn’t quite the efficient home-reno experience she’s seen on TV. Pushback from Saugatuck’s contentious preservation society, costly surprises and demanding guests were not part of the plan. But as the cottage comes back to life, Adie Lou does, too, finding support in unexpected places and a new love story on the horizon. One cottage rule at a time, Adie Lou reclaims her own strength, history and joy by rediscovering the magic in every sunset and sandcastle. Don't miss bestselling author Viola Shipman's enchanting new novel, FAMOUS IN A SMALL TOWN—a magical story about the family you’re born with, and the one you choose! Other books by Viola Shipman: The Secret of Snow A Wish for Winter The Edge of Summer The Heirloom Garden The Clover Girls

Download or read book The Forgetting Tree written by Rae Paris and published by Wayne State University Press. This book was released on 2017-04-12 with total page 165 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A personal narrative of past and present racial violence and resistance to terror in the United States. Rae Paris began writing The Forgetting Tree: A Rememory in 2010, while traveling the United States, visiting sites of racial trauma, horror, and defiance. The desire to do this work came from being a child of parents born and raised in New Orleans during segregation, who ultimately left for California in the late 1950s. After the death of her father in 2011, the fiction Paris had been writing gave way to poetry and short prose, which were heavily influenced by the questions she'd long been considering about narrative, power, memory, and freedom. The need to write this story became even more personal and pressing. While Paris sometimes uses the genre of "memoir" or "hybrid memoir" when referring to her work, in this case the term "rememory," born from Toni Morrison's Beloved, feels most accurate. Paris is driven by the familial and historical spaces and by what happens when we remember seemingly disparate images and moments. The collection is not fully prose or poetry, but rather an elegy for those who have passed through us. A perfect blend of prose, poetry, and images, The Forgetting Tree is a unique and thought-provoking collection that argues for a deeper understanding of past and present so that we might imagine a more hopeful, sustainable, and loving future.

Download or read book M Is For Mitten written by Annie Appleford and published by Sleeping Bear Press. This book was released on 2010-11-12 with total page 42 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Where was the first mile of highway paved? Who was the 38th President of the United States? What is the nation's most remote National Park? What was the first bottled soda pop in this country? Find the answers to these questions and many more in M is for Mitten: A Michigan Alphabet. Author Annie Appleford has written M is for Mitten: A Michigan Alphabet to acquaint children with the most important people, places and items that have helped mold Michigan into the tremendous state it is. Rich with gorgeous paintings by Michigan artist Michael Monroe, M is for Mitten is both educational for older children and entertaining for youngsters who will surely be dazzled by the diverse and colorful illustrations from cover to cover. Kids can climb an Evergreen tree, hop on the back of a Robin, fly with him of the Mackinac Bridge through the Upper Peninsula for a visit to Isle Royale, before going to Detroit to drink Vernor's and then to Battle Creek to eat Kellogg's cereal. They can paddle in a birch bark canoe with Native Americans in and out of our many Harbors and then head to Lansing for a visit to the Capital. M is for Mitten: A Michigan Alphabet is an all expense paid trip from shore to shore through the Great Lakes State, and you won't need a map - just look at your hand!

Download or read book I Got to Keep Moving written by Bill Harris and published by Wayne State University Press. This book was released on 2018-11-12 with total page 321 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: African American characters navigate a physical and spiritual journey beginning in the antebellum South. In the twenty-five linked short stories in his collection, I Got to Keep Moving, celebrated Detroit author Bill Harris vividly and deftly describes the inner and outer lives of a wide cast of characters as they navigate changing circumstances in the southern United States, pre- and post-Civil War. Addressing vital aspects of life—hope, family, violence, movement, and memory—I Got to Keep Moving is as mesmerizing as it is revealing. A veritable Canterbury Tales,the book follows a group of African Americans, beginning in the 1830s on a plantation in the fictional town of Acorn, Alabama, as they head north, and ending in the Midwest in the 1940s. The opening section contains nine stories that investigate the events that compelled the party to migrate. The second section consists of fifteen stories focusing on the life and travels of Pearl Moon and her blind son, and introduces the reader to a range of individuals—a white southern prison guard and his family, an ex-cowboy and expert marksman from Oklahoma, and the owner and entertainers of an "All Colored" traveling minstrel show, to name a few—during their quest to find a place for themselves. The third section, written in three voices of surviving members of the Nettles family, observes the truth of memory and the importance of who gets to tell and preserve it. Harris gives readers an unfiltered look into the legacy of slavery and racism in the United States, while demonstrating the strength and complexity of the players involved. Readers of fiction, especially those interested in short fiction and African American fiction, will find this stunning and unique collection a welcome addition to their libraries.

Download or read book Know the Mother written by Desiree Cooper and published by Wayne State University Press. This book was released on 2016-03-14 with total page 83 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Short, searing glimpses of how race and gender shadow even the most intimate moments of women’s lives. While a mother can be defined as a creator, a nurturer, a protector—at the center of each mother is an individual who is attempting to manage her own fears, desires, and responsibilities in different and sometimes unexpected ways. In Know the Mother, author Desiree Cooper explores the complex archetype of the mother in all of her incarnations. In a collage of meditative stories, women—both black and white—find themselves wedged between their own yearnings and their roles as daughters, sisters, grandmothers, and wives. In this heart-wrenching collection, Cooper reveals that gender and race are often unanticipated interlopers in family life. An anxious mother reflects on her prenatal fantasies of suicide while waiting for her daughter to come home late one night. A lawyer miscarries during a conference call and must proceed as though nothing has happened. On a rare night out with her husband, a new mother tries convincing herself that everything is still the same. A politician's wife's thoughts turn to slavery as she contemplates her own escape: "Even Harriet Tubman had realized that freedom wasn't worth the price of abandoning her family, so she'd come back home. She'd risked it all for love." With her lyrical and carefully crafted prose, Cooper's stories provide truths without sermon and invite empathy without sentimentality. Know the Mother explores the intersection of race and gender in vignettes that pull you in and then are gone in an instant. Readers of short fiction will appreciate this deeply felt collection.

Download or read book Ruin Recovery written by Dave Dempsey and published by University of Michigan Press. This book was released on 2001 with total page 372 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A history of Michigan's conservation efforts

Download or read book Meet Behind Mars written by Renee Simms and published by Wayne State University Press. This book was released on 2018-05-01 with total page 112 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Explores the bonds of family, neighbors, lovers, and friends as they are tested in new environments. "I feel like I can't tell one story about a giant mustard penis because it's not about a mustard penis only, but about all of these incidents together, in context, and through time." So begins the title story in Renee Simms's debut short story collection, Meet Behind Mars—a revealing look at how geography, memory, ancestry, and desire influence our personal relationships. In many of her stories, Simms exposes her own interest in issues concerning time and space. For example, in "Rebel Airplanes," an L.A. engineer works by day on city sewers and by night on R-C planes that she yearns to launch into the cosmos. The character-driven stories in Meet Behind Mars offer beautiful insight into the emotional lives of caretakers, auto workers, dancers, and pawn shop employees. In "High Country," a frustrated would-be novelist considers ditching her family in the middle of the desert. In "Dive," an adoptee returns to her adoptive home, still haunted by histories she does not know. Simms writes from the voice of women and girls who struggle under structural oppression and draws from the storytelling tradition best represented by writers like Edward P. Jones, whose characters have experiences that are specific to black Americans living in the late twentieth and twenty-first centuries. One instance of this is in "The Art of Heroine Worship," in which black families integrate into a white suburb of Detroit in the 1970s. The stories in this collection span forty years and two continents and range in structure from epistolary to traditionally structured realism, with touches of absurdity, humor, and magic. Meet Behind Mars will appeal to readers interested in contemporary literary fiction.

Download or read book The Women of the Copper Country written by Mary Doria Russell and published by Atria Books. This book was released on 2019-08-06 with total page 352 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the bestselling and award-winning author of The Sparrow comes an inspiring historical novel about “America’s Joan of Arc” Annie Clements—the courageous woman who started a rebellion by leading a strike against the largest copper mining company in the world. In July 1913, twenty-five-year-old Annie Clements had seen enough of the world to know that it was unfair. She’s spent her whole life in the copper-mining town of Calumet, Michigan where men risk their lives for meager salaries—and had barely enough to put food on the table and clothes on their backs. The women labor in the houses of the elite, and send their husbands and sons deep underground each day, dreading the fateful call of the company man telling them their loved ones aren’t coming home. When Annie decides to stand up for herself, and the entire town of Calumet, nearly everyone believes she may have taken on more than she is prepared to handle. In Annie’s hands lie the miners’ fortunes and their health, her husband’s wrath over her growing independence, and her own reputation as she faces the threat of prison and discovers a forbidden love. On her fierce quest for justice, Annie will discover just how much she is willing to sacrifice for her own independence and the families of Calumet. From one of the most versatile writers in contemporary fiction, this novel is an authentic and moving historical portrait of the lives of the men and women of the early 20th century labor movement, and of a turbulent, violent political landscape that may feel startlingly relevant to today.

Download or read book The Great American Cheese War written by Paul Flower and published by Prelude Books. This book was released on 2019-06-27 with total page 265 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Governor Bill Hoeksma of Michigan is a simple, gun-loving son of a billionaire who idolises George W. Bush. When a mysterious illness afflicts members of his inner circle, his conspiring advisors point to a rumoured viral weapons attack – via monkeypox-carrying prairie dogs – launched by the Wisconsin government. Governor Bill decides the Michigan militia should lead the military response, chaos ensues, and he falls unwittingly into a scheme of his powerful father’s making. That scheme begins with cheese research and a Hollywood movie star. How it will end all depends on two unlikely heroes: an aging lesbian state senator, and a high-school teacher born and raised in the Michigan militia. When the conspiracy runs out of road, and guns are drawn in a showdown outside a Cracker Barrel, will anyone emerge victorious from the Great American Cheese War? What readers are saying about The Great American Cheese War: "A rollicking riot of insanity and I mean that in the most wonderful sense! I laughed my way through this story." "Highly recommended!! This book was a lot of fun, I laughed out loud, and it's a clever satire book. It's well written, engrossing and entertaining." "Enjoy your summer, read this book!" "Satire at its finest. The whole book had me rolling on floor laughing!"

Download or read book The First Phone Call From Heaven written by Mitch Albom and published by Harper Collins. This book was released on 2013-11-12 with total page 266 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the beloved author of the #1 New York Times bestsellers Tuesdays with Morrie and The Five People You Meet in Heaven comes his most thrilling and magical novel yet—a page-turning mystery and a meditation on the power of human connection. One morning in the small town of Coldwater, Michigan, the phones start ringing. The voices say they are calling from heaven. Is it the greatest miracle ever? Or some cruel hoax? As news of these strange calls spreads, outsiders flock to Coldwater to be a part of it. At the same time, a disgraced pilot named Sully Harding returns to Coldwater from prison to discover his hometown gripped by "miracle fever." Even his young son carries a toy phone, hoping to hear from his mother in heaven. As the calls increase, and proof of an afterlife begins to surface, the town—and the world—transforms. Only Sully, convinced there is nothing beyond this sad life, digs into the phenomenon, determined to disprove it for his child and his own broken heart. Moving seamlessly between the invention of the telephone in 1876 and a world obsessed with the next level of communication, Mitch Albom takes readers on a breathtaking ride of frenzied hope. The First Phone Call from Heaven is Albom at his best—a virtuosic story of love, history, and belief.

Download or read book William G Milliken written by Dave Dempsey and published by University of Michigan Press. This book was released on 2006 with total page 344 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The story of one of the Great Lake State's most fascinating political figures, the "gentleman governor" of Michigan