#hardcover #nwt #brandnewbook #freshread #memoir #humor #satire #detroit #lifelessons #neverfaded #friday #dayday 

Hardcover (1 to 2 lbs)

North Carolina

One Comedian’s Journey from Naptown to Tinseltown 

Unsuccessful Thug

#paperback #truecrime #abduction #appelman #crime #detroit #serialkiller 

Light Paperback (1 lb or less)

Michigan

Obsession, Descent, and a Hunt for Detroit's Most Notorious Serial Killer

In this cold case murder investigation from “a powerful, confident voice in the new true crime memoir genre” (James Renner, author of True Crime Addict), one of America’s most notorious sprees is cracked open. With a foreword by Catherine Broad, sister of victim Timothy King, this is a deftly crafted true story set amid the decaying sprawl of Detroit. Four children were abducted and murdered outside of Detroit during the winters of 1976 and 1977, their bodies eventually dumped in snow banks around the city. J. Reuben Appelman was only six years old when the murders began and even evaded an abduction attempt during that same period, fueling a lifelong obsession with what became known as the Oakland County Child Killings. Autopsies showed that the victims had been fed while in captivity, reportedly held with care. And yet, with equal care, their bodies had allegedly been groomed post-mortem, scrubbed-free of evidence that might link to a killer. There were few credible leads, and equally few credible suspects. That’s what the cops had passed down to the press, and that’s what the city of Detroit, and Appelman, had come to believe. When the abductions mysteriously stopped, a task force operating on one of the largest manhunt budgets in history shut down without an arrest. Although no more murders occurred, Detroit remained haunted. Eerily overlaid upon the author’s own decades-old history with violence, The Kill Jar tells the gripping story of Appelman’s ten-year investigation into buried leads, apparent police cover-ups, con men, child pornography rings, and high-level corruption saturating Detroit’s most notorious serial killer case. “Always deft, often sublime, Appelman uses his investigation to draw us into his personal journey through darkness, to light and life” (Chip Johannessen, producer of Dexter).

The Kill Jar

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#paperback #detroit #gonzo #reporting #memoir #literary

Iowa

An American Autopsy

An explosive exposé of America’s lost prosperity by Pulitzer Prize­–winning journalist Charlie LeDuff “One cannot read Mr. LeDuff's amalgam of memoir and reportage and not be shaken by the cold eye he casts on hard truths . . . A little gonzo, a little gumshoe, some gawker, some good-Samaritan—it is hard to ignore reporting like Mr. LeDuff's.” —The Wall Street Journal “Pultizer-Prize-winning journalist LeDuff . . . writes with honesty and compassion about a city that’s destroying itself–and breaking his heart.” —Publishers Weekly (starred review) “A book full of both literary grace and hard-won world-weariness.” —Kirkus Back in his broken hometown, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Charlie LeDuff searches the ruins of Detroit for clues to his family’s troubled past. Having led us on the way up, Detroit now seems to be leading us on the way down. Once the richest city in America, Detroit is now the nation’s poorest. Once the vanguard of America’s machine age—mass-production, blue-collar jobs, and automobiles—Detroit is now America’s capital for unemployment, illiteracy, dropouts, and foreclosures. With the steel-eyed reportage that has become his trademark, and the righteous indignation only a native son possesses, LeDuff sets out to uncover what destroyed his city. He beats on the doors of union bosses and homeless squatters, powerful businessmen and struggling homeowners and the ordinary people holding the city together by sheer determination. Detroit: An American Autopsy is an unbelievable story of a hard town in a rough time filled with some of the strangest and strongest people our country has to offer.

Detroit

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#fiction #bookofthemonth #historicalfiction #thefinalrevivalofopalandnev #botm #music #Seventies #1970s #detroit #nyc 

California

"Opal is a fiercely independent young woman pushing against the grain in her style and attitude, Afro-punk before that term existed. Coming of age in Detroit, she can't imagine settling for a 9-to-5 job--despite her unusual looks, Opal believes she can be a star. So when the aspiring British singer/songwriter Neville Charles discovers her at a bar's amateur night, she takes him up on his offer to make rock music together for the fledgling Rivington Records. In early seventies New York City, just as she's finding her niche as part of a flamboyant and funky creative scene, a rival band signed to her label brandishes a Confederate flag at a promotional concert. Opal's bold protest and the violence that ensues set off a chain of events that will not only change the lives of those she loves, but also be a deadly reminder that repercussions are always harsher for women, especially black women, who dare to speak their truth. Decades later, as Opal considers a 2016 reunion with Nev, music journalist S. Sunny Shelton seizes the chance to curate an oral history about her idols. Sunny thought she knew most of the stories leading up to the cult duo's most politicized chapter. But as her interviews dig deeper, a nasty new allegation from an unexpected source threatens to blow up everything."--

The Final Revival of Opal and Nev

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#paperback #fiction #mystery #thriller #Detroit #michigan #farmlife #adultthemes #familyrelationships #drugs 

Connecticut

A Novel 

When Althea Leary abandons her nine-year-old son, Jasper, he's left on his uncle's farm with nothing but a change of clothes and a Bible. It's 1952, and Jasper isn't allowed to ask questions or make a fuss. He's lucky to even have a home and must keep his mouth shut and his ears open to stay in his uncle's good graces. No one knows where his mother went or whether she's coming back. Desperate to see her again, he must take matters into his own hands. From the farm, he embarks on a treacherous search that will take him to the squalid hideaways of Detroit and back again, through tawdry taverns, peep shows, and gambling houses. As he's drawn deeper into an adult world of corruption, scandal, and murder, Jasper uncovers the shocking past still chasing his mother--and now it's chasing him too.

The Buried Book

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#paperback #family #nationalbookaward #wonderlandquartet #detroit

Paperback (1 to 2 lbs)

"If the phrase 'woman of letters' existed, [Joyce Carol Oates] would be, foremost in this country, entitled to it."--John Updike, The New Yorker

As powerful and relevant today as it was on its initial publication, them chronicles the tumultuous lives of a family living on the edge of ruin in the Detroit slums, from the 1930s to the 1967 race riots. Praised by The Nation for her "potent, life-gripping imagination," Joyce Carol Oates traces the aspirations and struggles of Loretta Wendall, a dreamy young mother who is filled with regret by the age of sixteen, and the subsequent destinies of her children, Maureen and Jules, who must fight to survive in a world of violence and danger.

Winner of the National Book Award, them is an enthralling novel about love, class, race, and the inhumanity of urban life. It is, raves The New York Times, "a superbly accomplished vision."

Them is the third novel in the Wonderland Quartet. The books that complete this acclaimed series, A Garden of Earthly Delights, Expensive People, and Wonderland, are also available from the Modern Library.

[Oates is] a superb storyteller. For sheer readability, them is unsurpassed."--The Atlanta Journal-Constitution 

Them

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Street Guide Detroit and 39 Suburban Communities

#coming-of-age #family #Detroit #blackvoices

Oregon

A Novel

“Haunting . . . To read The Good Negress is to fall under a spell, to open a window, to fly.” —Los Angeles Times Book Review Twenty years after its initial publication, The Good Negress continues to be an important part of the literary canon, as relevant and necessary as ever. Set in 1960s Detroit, the novel centers around Denise Palms, who leaves her grandmother’s home in rural Virginia to reunite with her mother, stepfather, and older brothers. As a black teenage girl, Denise is given scarce opportunity beyond cooking, cleaning, and raising her mother’s baby. But an idealistic, demanding teacher opens Denise’s eyes to a future she has never considered, and soon she begins to question the limits of the life prescribed to her. With lyrical, evocative prose, A. J. Verdelle captures Denise’s journey from adolescence to womanhood as she navigates the tension between loyalty and independence, and between circumstance and desire. The Good Negress is an unforgettable debut—simultaneously the portrait of a family and a glimpse into an era of twentieth-century America. Winner of the Harold D. Vursell Memorial Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters Finalist for the PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction

The Good Negress

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#africanamerican #michelmoore #detroit #hood #drama

Out 4 Self

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Ohio

An Insider's Guide to Detroit

Belle Isle to 8 Mile

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This is the story of an African-American woman growing up in segregated Detroit.  Using her wit and with style she launches a slightly illegal pea-shake house and the money starts to roll in.  Can she maintain her hold in this male-dominated field?  How does she avoid police?  Or invest her modest fortune?  This is a gripping read.  #Detroit #AfricanAmerican #numbers #peashake #feminist #segregated

My Mother's Life in the Detroit Numbers

A singular memoir highlighting "the outstanding humanity of black America" that tells the story of one unforgettable mother, her devoted daughter, and the life they lead in the Detroit numbers of the 1960s and 1970s (James McBride) In 1958, the very same year that an unknown songwriter named Berry Gordy borrowed $800 to found Motown Records, a pretty young mother from Nashville, Tennessee borrowed $100 from her brother to run a Numbers racket out of her tattered apartment on Delaware Street, in one of Detroit's worst sections. That woman was Fannie Davis, Bridgett M. Davis' mother. Part bookie, part banker, mother, wife, granddaughter of slaves, Fannie became more than a numbers runner: she was a kind of Ulysses, guiding both her husbands, five children and a grandson through the decimation of a once-proud city using her wit, style, guts, and even gun. She ran her numbers business for 34 years, doing what it took to survive in a legitimate business that just happened to be illegal. She created a loving, joyful home, sent her children to the best schools, bought them the best clothes, mothered them to the highest standard, and when the tragedy of urban life struck, soldiered on with her stated belief: "Dying is easy. Living takes guts." A daughter's moving homage to an extraordinary parent, The World According to Fannie Davis is also the suspenseful, unforgettable story about the lengths to which a mother will go to "make a way out of no way" to provide a prosperous life for her family -- and how those sacrifices resonate over time. This original, timely, and deeply relatable portrait of one American family is essential reading.

The World According to Fannie Davis

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#paperback #fiction #blackfiction #historical #historicalfiction #detroit 

Indiana

An enthralling literary tour-de-force that pays tribute to Detroit's legendary neighborhood, a mecca for jazz, sports, and politics, Black Bottom Saints is a powerful blend of fact and imagination reminiscent of E.L. Doctorow's classic novel Ragtime and Marlon James' Man Booker Award-winning masterpiece, A Brief History of Seven Killings. From the Great Depression through the post-World War II years, Joseph "Ziggy" Johnson, has been the pulse of Detroit's famous Black Bottom. A celebrated gossip columnist for the city's African-American newspaper, the Michigan Chronicle, he is also the emcee of one of the hottest night clubs, where he's rubbed elbows with the legendary black artists of the era, including Ethel Waters, Billy Eckstein, and Count Basie. Ziggy is also the founder and dean of the Ziggy Johnson School of Theater. But now the doyen of Black Bottom is ready to hang up his many dapper hats. As he lays dying in the black-owned-and-operated Kirkwood Hospital, Ziggy reflects on his life, the community that was the center of his world, and the remarkable people who helped shape it. Inspired by the Catholic Saints Day Books, Ziggy curates his own list of Black Bottom's venerable "52 Saints." Among them are a vulnerable Dinah Washington, a defiant Joe Louis, and a raucous Bricktop. Randall balances the stories of these larger-than-life "Saints" with local heroes who became household names, enthralling men and women whose unstoppable ambition, love of style, and faith in community made this black Midwestern neighborhood the rival of New York City's Harlem. Accompanying these "tributes" are thoughtfully paired cocktails--special drinks that capture the essence of each of Ziggy's saints--libations as strong and satisfying as Alice Randall's wholly original view of a place and time unlike any other.

Black Bottom Saints

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#espionagethrillers #fantasyromance #romanticfantasy #suspensethrillers #futurism #detroit #femaleprotagonist

The Drafter

And Other True Tales of Detroit

Detroit's racial, religious, and economic problems through the experiences of black intellectuals, police officers, Muslim and Christian clerics, middle-class suburban whites, and Mayor Coleman Young

Devil's Night

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#paperback #them #love #class #race #urbanlife #detroit #raceriots #1930s #1960s

#hardcover #detroit #autobiography #nonfiction 

Texas

#paperback #detroit #dinosaurs #michiganchillers #fiction #johnathanrand #michigan 

Discovering a strange "window" through time, Nick and Summer visit the time of the dinosaurs and bring back a dinosaur egg as proof, but soon other dinosaurs find their way through the time portal and begin to wreak havoc on Detroit.

Michigan Chillers #8 Dinosaurs Destroy Detroit

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Paperback (under 2 lbs)

Strategies for Urban Reinvention

A practical guide to what's working in urban reinvention with examples drawn from Detroit and other cities.

Revolution Detroit

#Detroit #travelDetroit #midwestern #michigan #travelguide #uniqueTravel 

Rhode Island

#paperback #signed #psychologicalfiction #psychological #fiction #detroit #contemporary #humor

Heavy Paperback (2 to 4 lbs)

SIGNED COPY

OCD, anyone? Here, everyone is obsessed with something . . .

Twisting in the excruciating abyss of adolescent self-rejection, Kristi Lou Jones was a freakishly tall seventh-grade girl. Agonizing insecurity compelled her to feel grossly unfeminine. Exacerbating her fear of height (her own) was the daily presence of her diminutive teacher who felt unmasculine because of his shortness and over whom she towered. Both viewed the contrast on display Monday through Friday as a cruel exhibition of genomic injustice: Why is he so squat? . . . She stole my genes

Now, she's 21 and ready to use her vertical surplus to her advantage. Deciding to take a hiatus from college, she turns to Downtown Secrets, a Detroit brothel operating under the guise of a blues music club. The blasphemous nightspot is pleased to employ all 6' 1" (she prefers 5'13") of Kristi Lou--including her 44-inch legs. While harvesting mounds of cold cash and meeting an array of odd personalities, she indulges her raison d' tre: her obsessions.

Soon, this impassioned heretic stumbles into a bizarre milieu of vehicle theft and vengeance-fueled, retaliatory savagery. Who are these mercenaries?

Grappling with self-doubt about her venture into harlotry, extreme self-analysis, zealous dogmas about sexual unfairness perpetrated against men, and a near-maniacal zeal regarding atheism, Kristi Lou, whilst coming to recognize her oppressive loneliness, finds humor and warmth as she journeys through a hot August that delivers her to the threshold of answering her question: What am I supposed to be doing with myself?



August of Deliverance

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Georgia

An interview with Mark Fidrych in which he discusses his life and his baseball career.

No Big Deal

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Oversized Paperback (4 to 6 lbs)

300 years of life in the Motor City

The Detroit Almanac

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A People's History of Self-Determination





NAACP 2017 Image Award Finalist

2018 Michigan Notable Books honoree

The author of Baldwin's Harlem looks at the evolving culture, politics, economics, and spiritual life of Detroit--a blend of memoir, love letter, history, and clear-eyed reportage that explores the city's past, present, and future and its significance to the African American legacy and the nation's fabric.

Herb Boyd moved to Detroit in 1943, as race riots were engulfing the city. Though he did not grasp their full significance at the time, this critical moment would be one of many he witnessed that would mold his political activism and exposed a city restless for change. In Black Detroit, he reflects on his life and this landmark place, in search of understanding why Detroit is a special place for black people.

Boyd reveals how Black Detroiters were prominent in the city's historic, groundbreaking union movement and--when given an opportunity--were among the tireless workers who made the automobile industry the center of American industry. Well paying jobs on assembly lines allowed working class Black Detroiters to ascend to the middle class and achieve financial stability, an accomplishment not often attainable in other industries.

Boyd makes clear that while many of these middle-class jobs have disappeared, decimating the population and hitting blacks hardest, Detroit survives thanks to the emergence of companies such as Shinola--which represent the strength of the Motor City and and its continued importance to the country. He also brings into focus the major figures who have defined and shaped Detroit, including William Lambert, the great abolitionist, Berry Gordy, the founder of Motown, Coleman Young, the city's first black mayor, diva songstress Aretha Franklin, Malcolm X, and Ralphe Bunche, winner of the Nobel Peace Prize.

With a stunning eye for detail and passion for Detroit, Boyd celebrates the music, manufacturing, politics, and culture that make it an American original.

Black Detroit

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Limited edition, signed and numbered. Number 134 out of 150 #signed #numbered #horror #darkfantasy #urbanfantasy #detroit #weirdfiction #shortstories #horrorstories #illustrated 

Mike Epps

Unsuccessful Thug

J. Reuben Appelman

The Kill Jar

Charlie LeDuff

Detroit

Dawnie Walton

The Final Revival of Opal and Nev

D. M. Pulley

The Buried Book

Joyce Carol Oates; Elaine Showalter (Introduction by)

Them

United News Company

Street Guide Detroit and 39 Suburban Communities

A. J. Verdelle

The Good Negress

Michel Moore

Out 4 Self

Andrew Linn; Emily Linn; Robert Linn

Belle Isle to 8 Mile

Bridgett M. Davis

The World According to Fannie Davis

Alice Randall

Black Bottom Saints

Kim Harrison

The Drafter

Zev Chafets

Devil's Night

Joyce Carol Oates; Elaine Showalter (Introduction by)

Them

Charlie LeDuff

Detroit

Jonathan Rand

Michigan Chillers #8 Dinosaurs Destroy Detroit

John Gallagher

Revolution Detroit

Andrew Linn; Emily Linn; Robert Linn

Belle Isle to 8 Mile

Michael Cameron

August of Deliverance

Mark Fidrych and Tom Clark

No Big Deal

Peter Gavrilovich (Editor); Bill McGraw (Editor); Steve Dorsey (Designed by)

The Detroit Almanac

Herb Boyd

Black Detroit

Curtis M. Lawson; Luke Spooner (Illustrator)

Devil's Night