Leelanau in Music and Stories

"Leelanau Nights," a CD of beautiful, haunting yet peaceful solo piano music by Tristan Eckerson, is now available at Dog Ears Books. I'm listening to it right now. The price is $16, and $2 from every CD sold will go to Leelanau Parenting Communities. This is the perfect music to play in your car as you are slowly cruising the lovely back roads of Leelanau County.

A book with a bonus will also give you Leelanau listening pleasure. Scott Craig's The Story Next Door (paper, $19.95) now comes with a free CD of additional stories of Leelanau residents. If you live here, you're sure to know people in the book, and if you're visiting, the book and CD together will give you intimate glimpses into the people who call Leelanau County home.

Read to the Grandkids

Lovers of dogs, meet the Traverse City Cherry Festival! Fun for the whole family! Dick Kennedy of Omena has partnered with illustrator Jenifer Thomas to produce a new Up North read-aloud favorite for generations to come.

Dogs love fun. People love dogs. People love fun with dogs. How can you miss?

Paper
$9.50

Thoreau and Wildflowers

May 20, 1852 All flowers are beautiful. The Salix alba (white willow) is about out of bloom. Pads begin to appear though the river is high over the meadows. A caterpillar’s nest on a wild cherry. Some apple trees in blossom. Most are just ready to burst forth, the leaves being half-formed. I find the feverbush in bloom but apparently its blossoms are now stale. I must observe it next year. They were fresh perhaps a week ago. Currants in bloom by Conant’s Spring – are they natives of America? A lady’s slipper well budded and now white. The Viola ovata is of a deep purple blue – is darkest and has most of the red in it. The V. pedata is smooth and pale blue delicately tinged with purple reflections. The cucullata is more decidedly blue, slaty blue and darkly striated.  

-      Henry David Thoreau

Thoreau’s Wildflowers

Edited by Geoff Wisner

Drawings by Barry Moser

Hardcover $30

Because one wildflower book is never enough, and it’s impossible to have too many. This one also has heavy literary and historical interest, wherever in the country you and your wildflowers live.

Chickadees Back by Popular Demand

Chickadees at Night, written by Bill O. Smith and Charles R. Murphy, both of Traverse City, was a regional bestseller when it first came out, back in 2012. There is no one who didn't love the chickadees! So now, by popular demand, we have restocked the popular title for the current season -- though the author will have a new book later this year, and you'll want that one, too, when it's available.

Continue to watch this site for new book news from Dog Ears Books in Northport.

Chickadees at Night,
by Bill O. Smith
Hardcover
$18.85

Take a Trip (or More than One) with Robert Downes

Biking Northern Michigan:

The Best & Safest Routes

in the Lower Peninsula,

2^nd edition,

by Robert Downes

Paper, $14.95

Travels with My Wife:

7 Months Around the World

by Robert Downes with Jeanette Wildman

Paper, $14.95

This season is seeing a lot of maps in books from northern Michigan authors. Kind of makes a reader’s feet itch for the road. Bob Downes has updated his Biking Northern Michigan Book and also takes us overseas in a new book, Travels with My Wife.

You’ll wonder how much time Bob and Jeanette spend at home in Traverse City, but you may also find yourself inspired by their ambitious trip from Australia through Asia and the Near East to Europe. Yes, there is a map showing the route, with each chapter giving rich details of their foreign experiences. And if you can’t take the trips yourself, enjoy them vicariously in the pages of Bob’s books.

Poetry from Michael Delp

Book cover

Lying in the River’s Dark Bed:

The Confluence of the Deadman and the Mad Angler,

poems by Michael Delp

Detroit: Way State University

  Press, 2016

Paper, $15.99

The cover is hard to photograph, but the book is here at last, and I’m excited. Those who have followed poetry in Michigan for a while already will remember Delp’s “Deadman” character, while those new to the work will have the good fortune to meet a modern Michigan icon. You’ll want to explore northern Michigan with the Deadman in all your years to come, I promise!

Cover detail

New Book on Michigan Waterfalls

Waterfalls of Michigan: The Definitive Guide to the Waterfalls of Michigan, by photographer Phil Stagg, when complete, will be a four-volume work, but Book 1 is at Dog Ears Books now. It covers four counties in the Upper Peninsula (Alger, Chippewa, Delta and Luce) and two in the lower (Manistee and Presque Isle). The color photographs are beautiful, and information clearly and beautifully laid out.

For each waterfall included, Stagg provides what he calls a data table full of vital information for hikes wanting to explore. How difficult is the climb? Is it dangerous? Do you need boots? What about access? And more. There are also detailed maps to get you there.

136 pp., paper, $19.95