Don't Miss Anything Up North

This is the perfect book to have on hand for your visitors who want to know what to do and where to go when they’re in the Grand Traverse area. From Lake Ann to Northport and over to Elk Rapids, with Traverse City as its center, Inside UpNorth is full of ideas for every season of the year. There are also maps, photographs, and other wonderful illustrations (some by Glenn Wolff). In fact, I can’t even begin to cover everything you’ll find in this indispensable guide.

Inside UpNorth: The Complete Tour, Sport and Country Living Guide to Traverse City, Traverse City Area, Leelanau County [and more, says your bookseller]

by Heather Shaw, Jodee Taylor, Tom Carr, and many more

Mission Point Press, paper, 250pp

$16.95

Back by Popular Demand

That would be the Back Pages of Leelanau County, a decade's worth of beautiful color photographs by Ken Scott, originally featured on the back page of Section One of the Leelanau Enterprise -- because not everyone has a copy yet!

Hardcover, $40

Bees and Butterflies and Some Surprising Others

A new children’s book from Charlevoix is here just in time to celebrate summer crops and gardens. Sip, Pick, and Pack..., by Polly W. Cheney and beautifully illustrated by Kim Overton, presents the role of pollinators in clear, readable, and exciting prose for all ages. Parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles, and babysitters can learn right along with the little ones who focus on the pictures while taking in the facts. I love this book!

Sip, Pick, and Pack... How Pollinators Help Plants Make Seeds

by Polly W. Cheney & illustrated by Kim Overton

Wilmington, OH: Orange Frazer Press

Hardcover, $16.99

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

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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

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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

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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