Review by Mack Hassler Oh Jake,” Brett said “We could have had such a damned-good time together…. “Yes,” I said, “Isn’t it pretty to think so?” “You are all a lost generation” Gertrude Stein in conversation The Sun Also Rises, Ernest Hemingway (1926) I…
Review by Mack Hassler “then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more” …
Review by Victor R. Volkman Quite rarely, a “social history” book of Michigan’s Upper Peninsula crosses my Superior Reads desk. Social history focuses on the lives and experiences of ordinary people, rather than just political or military events. Social history is often described as “history from below” because it explores…
Reviewer: Sharon Brunner Kenneth C. Bracco’s “Michigan Auto Company: Calumet’s First Auto Dealership and the Man Behind it” brought to life stages of the automobile industry and other life changing events from 1900 to the 1960s. Other places mentioned in the book were Detroit and Chicago besides the main location…
Review by Mack Hassler “ We know what we are but know not what we may be” William Shakespeare, daily quote in the news sheet of my retirement home on the birthday of Shakespeare, 23 April 2025. We know that Lawton Hemans did not live to see his masterpiece in…
Reviewer: Sharon Brunner Steve Lehto’s “Death’s Door: The Truth Behind the Italian Hall Disaster and the Strike of 1913 (Second Edition)” offers a detailed account of the 1913 Christmas Eve mayhem and the corruption behind the strike in the Keweenaw Peninsula in Michigan. The peninsula is located in the northwestern…
Review by Mack Hassler “It is a poetry where the world becomes writing and language becomes the double of the world” — Octavio Paz Booksellers and especially publishers hope that books may be part of commerce. So it seems only fair that commercial books may be reviewed as though…
Review by Mack Hassler “Therefore it was called Babel because there the Lord confused the language of all.” Genesis 11:9 A good scholarly writer is needed, especially when there are multiple voices on a topic. Willa Brown began working on Gentlemen of the Woods for her dissertation at the…
Reviewed by Victor R. Volkman Brockway Mountain Stories is a beautifully illustrated tribute to the 2013 decision of Clyde and Lloyd Wescoat to relinquish their family’s nearly 80 year ownership of the 320 acres which comprised Brockway’s summit. Through a consortium of public and private donors both large and small,…
Reviewer: Sharon Brunner Mikel B. Classen’s “Piracy on the Great Lakes: True Tales of Freshwater Pirates” offers thought-provoking information about piracy, including attacking, robbing, and hijacking various types of watercraft and their crew. Piracy has occurred on the Great Lakes since the 1700s. Voyageurs in canoes transporting tons of furs…
You can now download and read “Wolves of Isle Royale” by L. David Mech, the classic 1966 book published by the National Park Service. As you know, any book published by a US Government agency is automatically in the public domain (your tax dollars at work!) Read Wolves of Isle…
Review by Sharon Brunner Denise Vandeville’s “A View of the Century Past: 1887 – 1987: Laird Township Centennial” presents a well-documented account of life in the wilderness of the Upper Peninsula (U.P.) of Michigan in a town called Alston—an area known for its freezing temperatures, logging operations and the mining…
Review by Mack Hassler “It is a poetry where the world becomes writing and language becomes the double of the world.” Octavio Paz I will blend in this review of Make It Go In the Snow ideas and effects that I have come across in my general reading on surrealism…
Review by Mack Hassler Recently I flew from O’Hare in Chicago to a conference at Moline, Illinois, and got a good look at the empty prairie West of the Windy City—wide open and empty like the UP. Two very big cities full of mob violence and major crime are the…
Review by Sharon Brunner Tom Chambers delved into the history of Mackinac Island, Michigan from the 1940s to the present in his memoir “Memories of a Mackinac Island Native.” The island is located in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan near the town of St. Ignace, Michigan. It served as a…
Review by Jon C. Stott In 1948, retired Michigan lumber company owner William S. Crowe, surprised to discover how little members of the Manistique community knew about the later 19th and early 20th-century white pine logging era of the Upper Peninsula, began writing for local newspapers a series of essays…
Review by Tyler R. Tichelaar Jennifer McGraw has compiled a treasure trove of information about Father Marquette’s life, burial, and various unburials and reburials in The Unsolved Mysteries of Father Marquette’s Many Graves. The story of Father Marquette’s graves—yes, multiple graves—ranges from his death in 1675 to the most recent…
Nobody predicted that 2023 would be the “year of the wildfire”. Where I live most of the year in downstate Michigan, we were inundated by the smoke from Canadian wildfires in early Summer 2023. As a result of this conflagration, my wife and I both woke up coughing and with…
