“Picturing Hemingway’s Michigan”
Painted Turtle/Wayne State University Press, $39.95
In 2007 the Michigan Humanities Council chose Ernest Hemingway’s “The Nick Adams Stories” for the Great Michigan Read program. Hemingway’s short stories, they thought, caught the essence of the state. Now history professor Michael R. Federspiel has selected the Little Traverse Bay region of northern Michigan as a part of the state with strong Hemingway connections: Hemingway’s parents, Clarence and Grace, were frequent visitors to the area, and Ernest himself returned to Michigan every year until his first marriage in 1921. Federspiel refers to Hemingway’s Michigan years as a time when “there was little to suggest that he would become famous.” On the contrary, Federspiel notes, he was just “another young man who summered Up North with his family.” Still, Michigan, the author says, played an important role in Hemingway’s personal and professional life. It exposed him to the wonders of nature while providing him with the setting and characters of his early writings — written a few years later while he was sipping coffee in Parisian cafes. In addition to “The Nick Adams Stories,” Hemingway set his first novel, “The Torrents of Spring,” in Michigan. Federspiel has done a wonderful job not only placing Hemingway’s Midwestern work in its historical context, but also describing the Michigan of the time, its hotels, its waterfronts, its resorts. The text is accompanied by attractive period illustrations, maps and archival photographs, many from the Ernest Hemingway Collection at the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library in Boston (a photograph of a teenage Hemingway aboard a Michigan steamship is a revelation). This is a marvelous document of a lost time and place and a must for Hemingway fans.
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“Prairie, Lake, Forest: Minnesota’s State Parks”
Minnesota Historical Society Press, $29.95
This is not a guidebook. Rather it is a wonderful combination of photographs (by Doug Ohman) and text (by Chris Niskanen) as both men capture the various moods of Minnesota’s numerous state parks. They visit well-known parks as well as more obscure ones. They list the state’s “must-see” waterfalls. They describe lighthouses and mention famous shipwrecks (such as the wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald) and walk along elevated bog boardwalks (or “bog walks,” as Niskanen calls them). They suggest the best places to do a little bird-watching, from wild male turkeys to the common loon. In addition, they introduce us to park rangers, managers, lighthouse keepers and naturalists who offer their individual perspectives on the state park system.
“Historic Bars of Chicago”
Lake Claremont Press, $15.95
In this entertaining and informative guide, bar aficionado Sean Parnell profiles 100 of Chicago’s most historic taverns (and the Top 5 in the suburbs). Parnell warns that some of the best bars — and presumably reader favorites — could not be included because of space restrictions. Thus, such popular pubs as the Map Room, the Hopleaf and the Duke of Perth are missing in action (the “good news,” he says, is that this is only the first edition). But there is still plenty to savor as Parnell recounts the stories and anecdotes behind the names, from the Abbey Pub to the Zebra Lounge. Each entry is accompanied by a piece of bar trivia, such as “What world-famous band used to frequent the Fireplace Inn in the 1970s after concerts?” (Rolling Stones). He commemorates the “bars we miss the most,” which include the truly historic Wolf Tavern, which received Chicago’s first tavern license in 1829, or the late and great Theresa’s Lounge, a modest South Side blues joint run by Theresa Needham until it moved in 1983, then closed a few years later. He concludes with a list of recommended historic pub crawls, including a St. Patrick’s Day Pub Crawl, a Literary Pub Crawl, a Halloween Pub Crawl, an Andersonville Pub Crawl, an Old Town Pub Crawl and even a Jefferson Park Pub Crawl.
“Secret Stairs: A Walking Guide to the Historic Staircases of Los Angeles”
Santa Monica Press, $16.95
The secret is out: Los Angeles can be — is — a wonderful place to walk. In this unusual book, Charles Fleming uncovers the public staircases among the steep hillsides of LA’s neighborhoods and communities, including Silver Lake, Echo Park, Los Feliz, Hollywood and Santa Monica. They are reminders, he says, of a time “when Los Angeles was not a city of cars.” Although the city then was well-served by a rather elaborate system of trolleys, streetcars, buses and light rail, the hills still got in the way. The stairs, then, were a means to an end: City planners created them as a convenience for pedestrians. The car may be king today, but the staircases are still there if you know where to look. According to Fleming, there are more than 60 sets of staircases in the Silver Lake neighborhood alone. Once he started exploring, he became hooked. “I didn’t know where to stop, so I kept going. … I felt like Henry Hudson searching for the Northwest Passage.” He walked more than 275 secret staircases from Pasadena to Pacific Palisades; the guide includes 42 circular walks covering more than 110 miles. For the most part, each walk starts and ends at a cafe or restaurant and is rated by distance and difficulty. Like the city itself, “Secret Stairs” is full of surprises.