Small Town Michigan Tales

Small Town Michigan Tales
Author: Joseph E. Pluta
Publisher: FriesenPress
Total Pages: 242
Release: 2010
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1770671862

This collection of twenty-four short stories focuses on diverse experiences in small Michigan communities during the second half of the twentieth century. It addresses such topics as racial conflict and harmony, white collar crime, college life, family dynamics, tragedy, aspirations of young athletes, growing up, personal rejection, dishonesty in academia, unusual mentors, less than ethical policemen, class conflict, and career triumphs of a twice unhappily married woman. Michigan's Polish, Finnish, Irish, Hispanic, and Asian cultures are highlighted. The stories present the human side of life in American small towns from the relative ease of physical entry into these communities to the psychological difficulty of exit.

Weird Michigan

Weird Michigan
Author: Linda S. Godfrey
Publisher: Sterling Publishing Company, Inc.
Total Pages: 266
Release: 2006
Genre: Curiosities and wonders
ISBN: 1402739079

Explores ghosts and haunted places, local legends, cursed roads, crazy characters, and unusual roadside attractions found in Michigan.

Bicycle Cowboy

Bicycle Cowboy
Author: Ron Helmboldt
Publisher:
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2016-11
Genre:
ISBN: 9781624910890

Ride along with the Bicycle Cowboy as he shares growing-up-in-small-town Michigan stories through free verse poetry

Lost in Michigan

Lost in Michigan
Author: Mike Sonnenberg
Publisher: Huron Photo
Total Pages: 169
Release: 2017-10-15
Genre: Curiosities and wonders
ISBN: 9780999433201

Based on the popular Lost In Michigan website that was featured in the Detroit Free Press, It contains locations throughout Michigan, and tells their interesting story. There are over 50 stories and locations that you will find fascinating.

Dead Sleeping Shaman

Dead Sleeping Shaman
Author: Elizabeth Kane Buzzelli
Publisher: Beyond The Page
Total Pages: 213
Release: 2016-12-02
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1946069086

Fans of Louise Penny will love the Emily Kincaid mysteries by Elizabeth Kane Buzzelli! “The appeal of this third in the series comes both from Emily—a likable character forging a new life after her divorce—and the evocatively described, nicely detailed small-town setting.” —Booklist The End Timers, a cult-like group, have descended on part-time journalist and aspiring mystery author Emily Kincaid’s small Michigan town. With dire warnings that the end of the world is just two weeks away, the entire community has been disrupted by psychics, cult followers, believers and disbelievers alike. But when Emily’s latest job assignment leads her to an eerily motionless woman propped against a tree, she realizes that at least one person’s world has come to an end all too soon. Emily soon learns that the victim, an eccentric psychic and leader of a shamanic healing group, harbored painful memories of the area and had mysterious ties to certain members of the cult. Turning to her friend Deputy Dolly Wakowski for help, she’s stunned to learn that Dolly has turned in her badge and joined the cult, leaving Emily to fear for her friend’s sanity and forcing her to try to solve the case on her own. As the days tick away to the end of the world, Emily has to navigate her way through a crowd of true believers, a group of shamanic well-wishers, and a suspiciously secretive cult leader to rescue her friend and catch a killer—all the while dreading that these few precious days may be her last. “Buzzelli’s well-crafted third Emily Kincaid . . . [features] sharp prose and spirited characterizations.” —Publishers Weekly Rave reviews for the Emily Kincaid Mysteries: Dead Dogs and Englishmen A Kirkus Reviews Best Book of 2011! “Buzzelli will have you packing your bags for a move to northern Michigan.” —Kirkus Reviews (starred review) “Emily is a detective for our times: She can’t afford health care, but she can make flour out of cat tails and work three jobs at once.” —Christian Science Monitor Dead Dancing Women “Every woman who’s ever struggled with saying no, fitting in, and balancing independence against loneliness will adore first-timer Emily.” —Kirkus Reviews Dead Floating Lovers “A mystery that keeps you guessing, together with the story of a woman slowly finding her voice” —Kirkus Reviews Praise for A Most Curious Murder: “Fans of [Lewis] Carroll will delight in Zoe’s flights of fancy, and the northern Michigan setting in all its splendor is a charmer . . . an entertaining series with a quirky premise and captivating characters.” —Library Journal “This quirky, clever cozy series launch . . . [is] hard to resist.” —Publishers Weekly “Quirky main characters, lyrical dialogue and a story sure to appeal to bookworms as well as cozy mystery fans are all elements that give this novel a distinctive voice. A clever mystery and intriguing supporting cast round out the mix.” —RT Book Reviews (four star review)

Starvation Lake

Starvation Lake
Author: Bryan Gruley
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Total Pages: 423
Release: 2009-03-03
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1416564004

Finalist for the Edgar Award for Best First Novel, Harlan Coben meets early Dennis Lehane in this “smashing debut thriller” (Chicago Tribune), set in a small northern Michigan town by a Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist. In the dead of a Michigan winter, pieces of a snowmobile wash up near the crumbling, small town of Starvation Lake—the same snowmobile that went down with Starvation’s legendary hockey coach years earlier. But everybody knows Coach Blackburn's accident happened five miles away on a different lake. As rumors buzz about mysterious underground tunnels, the evidence from the snowmobile says one thing: murder. Gus Carpenter, editor of the local newspaper, has recently returned to Starvation after a failed attempt to make it big at the Detroit Times. In his youth, Gus was the goalie who let a state championship get away, crushing Coach's dreams and earning the town's enmity. Now he's investigating the murder of his former coach. But even more unsettling to Gus are the holes in the town’s past and the gnawing suspicion that those holes may conceal some dark and disturbing secrets—secrets that some of the people closest to him may have killed to keep.

The Other Side of the River

The Other Side of the River
Author: Alex Kotlowitz
Publisher: Anchor
Total Pages: 337
Release: 1999-01-19
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 038547721X

Bestselling author Alex Kotlowitz is one of this country's foremost writers on the ever explosive issue of race. In this gripping and ultimately profound book, Kotlowitz takes us to two towns in southern Michigan, St. Joseph and Benton Harbor, separated by the St. Joseph River. Geographically close, but worlds apart, they are a living metaphor for America's racial divisions: St. Joseph is a prosperous lakeshore community and ninety-five percent white, while Benton Harbor is impoverished and ninety-two percent black. When the body of a black teenaged boy from Benton Harbor is found in the river, unhealed wounds and suspicions between the two towns' populations surface as well. The investigation into the young man's death becomes, inevitably, a screen on which each town projects their resentments and fears. The Other Side of the River sensitively portrays the lives and hopes of the towns' citizens as they wrestle with this mystery--and reveals the attitudes and misperceptions that undermine race relations throughout America.

The Lost Continent

The Lost Continent
Author: Bill Bryson
Publisher: Anchor Canada
Total Pages: 354
Release: 2012-09-25
Genre: Travel
ISBN: 0385674562

"I come from Des Moines. Somebody had to." And, as soon as Bill Bryson was old enough, he left. Des Moines couldn't hold him, but it did lure him back. After ten years in England he returned to the land of his youth, and drove almost 14,000 miles in search of a mythical small town called Amalgam, the kind of smiling village where the movies from his youth were set. Instead he drove through a series of horrific burgs, which he renamed Smellville, Fartville, Coleslaw, Coma, and Doldrum. At best his search led him to Anywhere, USA, a lookalike strip of gas stations, motels and hamburger outlets populated by obese and slow-witted hicks with a partiality for synthetic fibres. He discovered a continent that was doubly lost: lost to itself because he found it blighted by greed, pollution, mobile homes and television; lost to him because he had become a foreigner in his own country.

A Yooper's Tale

A Yooper's Tale
Author: Robert Hugh Williams
Publisher: Page Publishing Inc
Total Pages: 202
Release: 2022-02-25
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1662460805

A Yooper’s Tale: Death by Wendigo is a fun, action-packed adventure set in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. It is yarned with real history, real places, Native American lore knit into fictional story that will keep you turning the pages to keep up with the ride. Enjoy the brief history of the Great Lakes state, the tale of good vs. evil, and life in the Upper Peninsula college town where things may not be all that they seem. If you like a tall tale with action and monsters that grab you by the throat, you will love this one.