T. Marie Bertineau’s new memoir, The Mason House, published by Lanternfish Press, shares the author’s story of growing up in the 1970s through to the present. The title references a house in the small community of Mason, a former mining town in the Keweenaw Peninsula, which belonged to the author’s…
John Hilden’s poetry in Further Up the Vine is a different kind of dessert. It’s hard to select one or two lines to quote because each line and stanza connects so smoothly to the next to form the whole that a reader can’t break it down line by line. These…
Why Wait for National Poetry Month? For some strange reason, people don’t think of reading or reviewing poetry until National Poetry Month in April. People should keep a book of poetry on their bedside table along with the month’s magazines and whatever fiction or nonfiction they are currently reading. Poetry…
What happens when a female union activist confronts an intransigent mine operator? Review by Donna Winters This is the story told by Mary Doria Russell in The Women of the Copper Country—A Novel. The focus is the 1913 Keweenaw Copper Strike, which started on July 23 and ended April 14,…
A Wild Tale of a Religious Do-Gooder Who Never Gets it Quite Right Terri Martin’s Devilish Encounters: Church Lady Chronicles is the first anthology of stories about the adventures of Bea Righteous, one of the busybody “church ladies” of the Budworm United Methodist Church (a.k.a. BUMC). Of course, seeing the…
Marquette County’s Medical History Explored Reviewed by Tyler R. Tichelaar The Macabre to the Mundane: Death, Life, and Medicine in Marquette County Michigan during the Early 1900’s—with Covid 2020 Updates by John Parlin, M.D., reminds me of the fat old medical books my grandmother used to own that looked like…
What happens when a self-proclaimed prophet predicts that the world will end in two weeks? That is the inciting incident for Lin Enger’s American Gospel, a 251-page novel set in August 1974, the same month Richard Nixon resigned the presidency following the Watergate scandal. The primary setting of the novel…
Local Ojibwe Legend Finally Set Straight by Native American Author Review by Victor R. Volkman The Legend of Kitch-iti-kipi, by Carole Lynn Hare, is a retelling of the eponymous myth as passed down through generations of Sault Ste. Marie Chippewa (Ojibwe) Indian band. The author, whose Native American name is…
Latest Jack Handler Thriller Deals With Soo Locks Explosion Review by Tyler R. Tichelaar Sault: What Could be Worse than Great Lakes Erosion? is the fourteenth Jack Handler novel by Michael Carrier. That said, it can be read as a stand-alone book with little trouble. I have not yet read…
A Slice of Life from Chippewa County and Environs from 1960s to Today West of the River, North of the Bridge is the second (following Hitchhiking After Dark: Offbeat Stories from a Small Town) in Rich Hill’s series of short story anthologies about life in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan….
New Novel Reveals Pain of Native American Children Taken from Families Review by Tyler R. Tichelaar Linda LeGarde Grover’s new novel, In the Night of Memory, is a powerful and moving story about two young girls who lose their mother. Dedicated to “the missing Native women and all who grieve…
Reviewed by Donna Winters This collaborative work Yooper Women—Guts, Grit & Grace—Stories Around the Camp Fire is way more than its title suggests. In it, you will find several mini-biographies of Upper Peninsula women, as well as many unrelated writings: poetry, spirituality, self-promotion, opinion pieces and reprinted magazine and Internet…
Christ Child Helps Calm an Anxious Lamb Review by Deborah K. Frontiera There are thousands, maybe millions, of “Christmas” books out there—but most of them focus on the secular aspects of the holiday, rather than Christmas as the birth of Jesus. Among the books with Jesus as the center, it’s…
Men of Conscience Imprisoned in the U.P. Review by Deborah K. Frontiera My first reaction to Jane Kopecky’s book, World War II Conscientious Objectors: Germfask, Michigan, was, “Wow! I never knew that.” As I dove into the book, I realized what an incredible amount of research the author had done…
Novel Documents an Historic Experiment in Faith and Society in the U.P. Review by Donna Winters What happens when a compassionate, homesteading preacher invites a power-hungry visionary to transform his community into a product-sharing village? Such is the case in Eden Waits, by Maryka Biaggio. This author, the great-great-great-granddaughter of…
Eino Koski’s Legacy Reviewed by Victor R. Volkman Allan Koski’s book Another Time, Another Place is a heartfelt and compelling memoir about his father Eino Koski’s contribution to the Pacific theatre in World War II. Although Eino passed away in 2009, his son Allan managed to complete the manuscript with…
Kawbawgam Finally Tells the True Tale of Marquette’s Most Famous Chief Reviewed by Victor R. Volkman Kawbawgam: The Chief, The Legend, The Man by Tyler R. Tichelaar, PhD, is the first woke history of Native Americans in Upper Michigan that I have read. I’ll go so far as to presume…
Wildlife Photography was Born in the U.P. EDITORS NOTE: George Shiras III always referred to himself as George Shiras 3d in all matters so that convention is used here. Outside of Marquette County, there may be few people who understand the full legacy of George Shiras 3d and his contributions…
