In "My Forty Years with Ford, " Charles Sorensen-sometimes known as "Henry Ford's man," sometimes as "Cast-iron Charlie"-tells his own story, and it is as challenging as it is historic. He emerges as a man who was not only one of the great production geniuses of the world but also a man who called the plays as he saw them. He was the only man who was able to stay with Ford for almost the full history of his empire, yet he never hesitated to go against Ford when he felt the interests of the company demanded it. When labor difficulties mounted and Edsel's fatal illness was upon him, Sorensen...

In Line for the Exterminator is the final collection in Jim Daniels's trilogy of books explaining the urban working-class landscape. Daniels, who grew up near the Eight Mile Road boundary between Detroit and suburban Warren, Michigan, walks the razor's edge of the borderline in this collection, examining complex issues of race and class that are a part of daily life there.

The title poem, "In Line for the Exterminator," sets the ironic tone for this collection, examining a group of people waiting in line for a sinister-sounding amusement-park ride. Daniels presents blue-collar culture...

"After-Music" is a varied and rich collection of meditations on both the personal and universal. Among the many intriguing places, people, and events that Hilberry brings to life in these poems are watching manatees in a Florida canal, a reluctant priest blessing the animals in Mexico, a rushed and sullen checkout girl in the supermarket, and Day of the Dead skeletons that form a mariachi band. Some poems are formal-in sonnets, quatrains, and tetrameter couples-but most are free verse, all of them accessible and enjoyable reading.

This collection is divided into five sections, organized...

Located twenty miles south of Detroit where the Detroit River meets Lake Erie, Bob-lo Island was the ultimate summer playground for families from Detroit and Windsor for nearly one hundred years. In its heyday, the island housed an amusement park with one of the world's largest dance halls, an elegant restaurant, and a hand-carved carousel. It also employed two large Frank Kirby-designed ferry steamers--complete with dancing and other entertainment--to transport patrons to and from the island, which was not accessible by car. In Summer Dreams, author Patrick Livingston tells the story of...

Wide Awake in Someone Else's Dream is a collection of traveling poems written in Russia, Israel, Germany, and China that take the reader on a contemplative journey through both the geography of these countries and their cultures as well as through the inward mind of the narrator. As Liebler travels the world, he wrestles with themes of self-discovery, spirituality, identity, and change, and renders poems in his signature raw and defiant style. Thoughtful and direct, these poems look toward beauty and contemplation in a bitter world that has become fraught with mistrust and...

In Hollowed Ground, author Larry Lankton tells the story of two copper industries on Lake Superior-native copper mining, which produced about 11 billion pounds of the metal from the 1840s until the late 1960s, and copper sulfide mining, which began in the 1950s and produced another 4.4 billion pounds of copper through the 1990s. In addition to documenting companies and their mines, mills, and smelters, Hollowed Ground is also a community study. It examines the region's population and ethnic mix, which was a direct result of the mining industry, and the companies' paternalistic involvement...

Since the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, Detroit's large and nationally prominent Arab and Muslim communities have faced heightened prejudice, government surveillance, and political scapegoating, yet they have also enjoyed unexpected gains in economic, political, and cultural influence. Museums, festivals, and cultural events flourish alongside the construction of new mosques and churches, and more Arabs are being elected and appointed to public office. Detroit's Arab population is growing even as the city's non-Arab sectors, and the state of Michigan as a whole, have steadily...

Michigan's Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore was established in 1966 to preserve one of the most exquisite freshwater coastal landscapes in North America. Located between Munising and Grand Marais on Lake Superior, the rugged coastline is anchored by the Pictured Rocks cliffs-soaring sandstone fortresses awash with natural pink, green, and brown pigments. While the Pictured Rocks' geologic history is generally well understood by scientists, much of this information is scattered among different sources and not easily accessible to general readers. In Geology and Landscape of Michigan's...