Waterfalls, Anyone? Head North!

Waterfalls of Michigan: The Definitive Guide to the Waterfalls of Michigan, by Phil Stagg, comes in four volumes. Book 1 covers the Eastern Upper Peninsula, Book 2 the Central U.P., Book 3 West Central, and Book 4 the West, including Porcupine Mountain State Park. Phil has also put together a “best of” collection, Waterfalls of Michigan: The Essential Guidebook to Michigan’s Best & Easiest Waterfalls. All books are illustrated in full color, with large, helpful maps and access details. All are paper, very attractively and sturdily bound.

Waterfalls of Michigan, Book 1 – East (Alger, Chippewa, Delta, Luce, Manistee & Presque Isle Counties) $19.95

Book 2 – Central (Dickinson, Marquette, Menominee Counties) $24.95

Book 3 – West Central (Baraga, Houghton, Iron, Keweenaw Counties) $29.95

Book 4 – West (Gogebic, Ontonagon Counties & Porcupine Mountain State Park) $24.95

Waterfalls of Michigan: The Essential Guidebook to Michigan’s Best & Easiest Waterfalls – The Collection

$29.95

Spring Travel to Japan

Cherry blossoms have fallen to the ground like confetti, and the orchards are now turning full and green with leaves, but our hearts are still full of the annual festival feeling the flowering orchards bring to the Leelanau countryside. In Japan, of course, cherry blossoms are the occasion for many festivals and pilgrimages, so it’s natural my thoughts should take an eastern turn in springtime, especially when I also have these beautiful books to feature. Please forgive the lamplight's glare. 

How to Wrap 5 More Eggs: Traditional Japanese Packaging, by Hideyuki Oka, is a sequel to his How to Wrap Five Eggs, a surprising and delightful journey in words and images. Whether or not you’ll be using any of the traditional Japanese methods for wrapping eggs, you’ll be charmed by this book, with its lesson that “our inner, spiritual satisfaction cannot be found merely in material abundance.”

How to Wrap 5 More Eggs: Traditional Japanese Packaging, by Hideyuki Oka

With photographs by Michikazu Sakai

NY & Tokyo: Weatherhill, 1975; 4^th printing, 1978

(now out of print)

Hardcover with protected dust jacket, VG/VG

$80

*  *  *

Autumn Grasses and Water: Motifs in Japanese Art, from the Suntory Museum of Art (founded in 1961) is a journey into traditional Japanese aesthetics, featuring objects from teapots to clothing, as well as paintings. Four important essays (by Shuji Takashina, Masakazu Yamazaki, Shigenobu Kimura, and Toyomune Minamoto) introduce the subject, and full-color illustrations include breathtaking detail.

Autumn Grasses and Water: Motifs in Japanese Art

NY: Japan Society, 1983

Paper with dust jacket, VG/G+

$25

*  *  *

Katsura: A Princely Retreat I have described elsewhere on my blog “Books in Northport.” My photographs there are better than the ones here, so follow this link for a fuller introduction to this gem.

Katsura: A Princely Retreat

Text by Akira Naito

Photographs by Takeshi Nishikawa

Tokyo, NY & San Francisco: Kodansha International, 1977, 1^st ed.

Hardcover/dust jacket/ slipcase, VG/VG

$80

*  *  *

And finally, here is a lovely budget item that can be put to practical home use. A Japanese Touch for Your Garden describes various traditional Japanese garden elements, illustrates them with lovely color photographs, and includes invaluable lists of garden plans and plant names.

A Japanese Touch for Your Garden

by Kiyoshi Seike, Masanobu Kudo, and David H. Engel

with photographs by Haruzo Ohashi

Tokyo, NY & San Francisco: Kodansha International, 1980; 10^th printing, 1987

Hardcover with dust jacket (lightly sunned), VG/VG-

$8

About Undocumented Child Immigrants

This is a very small, very important book. The author works as a translator for the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, and her title comes from her young daughter’s question when hearing some of the stories of undocumented child immigrants.

Do you know what “voluntary return” means to children crossing into the U.S. from Mexico? Do you know about the Juvenile Priority Docket? Whatever you think about immigration in general, this book will give you food for thought.

Tell Me How It Ends: An Essay in Forty  Questions

by Valeria Luiselli

Coffee House Press, paper, 199pp

$12.95

Tuesday is the BIG DAY!

Northport author Sarah Shoemaker’s debut novel, Mr. Rochester, inspired by Charlotte Bronte's classic Jane Eyre, will be officially released, simultaneously in the U.S., England, and Australia, by Grand Central Publishing in New York on May 9, 2017, and offered for sale by Dog Ears Books beginning at 7 p.m. that Tuesday at a world premiere book launch. The launch will take place Spice World Cafe in Northport, across Waukazoo Street from the bookstore, and Shoemaker will be on hand for the celebration and to sign books for purchasers. Dessert and punch will be served.

(Book price is $27 + sales tax, for a total of $28.62. Payment by cash or check only, please. For your convenience, I am accepting prepaid orders now.)

To whet your appetite for the book, read this review/interview by Mary Sharratt of the Historical Novel Society. Sharratt calls the novel a "tour de force." That's what I've been saying all along!

Author Sarah Shoemaker

Birdman and Birds for the Birders

John James Audubon: The Nature of the American Woodsman, by Gregory Nobles, will be featured at a Dog Ears Books author event on Thursday evening, August 3. The book is as much history as it is biography. See my review of this fascinating study of America’s foremost bird artist, and for the author’s presentation on C-SPAN, click here.

In Pursuit of Birds: A foray with field glasses and sketchbook, by Kalamazoo artist Ladislav R. Hanka, is more birds than birdman. As Hanka puts it, the book is “drawings and etchings of birds with some stories about birding in exotic places.” Bird art in its highest form!

Both Mother’s Day (May 14) and Father’s Day (June 18) approach as we move through spring, and if you have a birding parent or grandparent, either of these books would make a thoughtful gift.

John James Audubon: The Nature of

       The American Woodsman

by Gregory Nobles

Hardcover, 330pp w/ notes, index, & illustrations

$34.95

In Pursuit of Birds

by Ladislav R. Hanka

Paper, 142pp, illustrated

$25

History and Mystery!

I’ve often said that someone could open a bookstore stocking only these two categories of book, history for the nonfiction readers and mystery for the fiction readers, and do a pretty good business. Of course, that would leave out poetry, classic literature, cookbooks, and so many other genres and subjects that I haven’t restricted myself that way. I only mention it this morning to introduce a new book by Traverse City’s Stephen Lewis.

Here’s what Aaron Stander has to say about Steve’s new book:

Stephen Lewis guides the reader through a richly woven tapestry of time, place, and character. This historical narrative set in the early years of the 20^th century transports the reader from northwest lower Michigan through the halls of power in Lansing, the prison yard in Jackson, LaSalle Street law offices, lumber camps, and Michigan’s copper country—then torn by labor unrest. It is a superb sequel to Lewis’s earlier novel, Murder on Old Mission.

Murder Undone

by Stephen Lewis

Paper, 260pp

$14.95

Featured Young Adult Novels for April

See You in the Cosmos, by Jack Cheng, is the author’s first YA literary venture. The novel’s protagonist is 11-year-old Alex, obsessed with space exploration. He has even named his dog Carl Sagan. Alex’s father has died, his mother has problems, and his older brother isn’t around much, so it’s Carl Sagan (the dog) who is Alex’s chosen companion on a road trip with a constantly changing destination that brings many surprises into the boy’s life.

I still have more to pack but I needed a break, so I came up to the roof of my house. I love lying down on the hood of a car like Dr. Arroway in the movie Contact but my mom doesn’t drive anymore, so I just come up on our ladder to the roof. I usually come up here at night so that way I’m closer to the stars, even though it’s only one story closer. 

The protagonist of American Street, by Ibi Zoboi, is a girl who has made a different kind of voyage. When Fabiola Toussaint, born in the United States, leaves familiar Port-au-Prince with her mother, she thought they would reach a new home together, but in the airport in New York her mother is detained, to be sent back to Haiti, and the frightened daughter must fly on to Detroit alone to meet her cousins in what feels like strange new land.

Darkness seeps into every crack and corner of this Detroit. Even with a few lampposts dotting the streets, I can’t see the breadth and depth of this city that is my birthplace, that is now my home. I squint to see if the big mansions I’ve seen on American TV will glow of sparkle in the dark. I hope to catch a glimpse of the very tops of the tall buildings, but the car is moving too fast—with its fancy seats, too-loud music, and the scent of shiny new things.
 

Ibi Zoboi’s American Street, then, is set in Detroit, while Jack Cheng, author of See You in the Cosmos, grew up in Michigan. I’ve given you a taste from the beginning of each story, with everything yet to come for Alex and Fabiola, in hopes you will want to journey along with them.

American Street, by Ibi Zoboi

Hardcover, 314pp, $16.99

See You in the Cosmos, by Jack Cheng

Hardcover, 324pp, $17.99