Acclaimed Traverse City writer, Jerry Dennis, captures our imagination and hearts while spinning new tales in The Windward Shore: A Winter on the Great Lakes. While sharing stories about winter around the lakes, Dennis weaves adventure with inner peace, solitude and loneliness. Dennis’s deep and intimate thoughtfulness and research showcases his beautifully moving writing. He makes it sound easy as he pens, “Our lives are short—but big places stretch them out, offering a glimpse of time extending beyond our few years.” Cover and inside drawings are by Glenn Wolff, a Traverse City artist who has illustrated most of Dennis’s writing. We have a number of these prints for sale. A few years back, Dennis’s The Living Great Lakes gained national recognition, was chosen as a Traverse City’s Reads choice, and Dennis received the 1999 Michigan Author of the Year awarded by the Michigan Library Association. Don’t miss this gem! We have signed copies by them both. (University of Michigan, 2011. hdc $22.95)  ~Barbara Siepker

Vintage Views along the West Michigan Pike: from Sand Trails to US-31 by M. Christine Byron and Tom Wilson will be available early this summer and we will be scheduling a book signing. The West Michigan Pike Association promoted tourism along Lake Michigan from Chicago to Mackinaw in the (years?) M-22 was a portion of this scenic route and D. H. Day was a leader in the West Michigan Pike Association. As the Pike tours came through Leelanau County he treated them to lunch at his farm. This pictorial history book depicts the adventure and romance of motoring on Michigan’s most prominent early highway. Laid out much like their earlier book (Vintage Views of Leelanau County), it is filled with vintage postcards, photographs, maps, and ephemera of quaint towns, hotels and cabins, tourist camps and state parks along the road. It documents the influence of Pike on Michigan’s early tourist industry and is another great contribution to our local history.  (Arbutus Press, 2011. hdc $35)  ~Barbara Siepker

Loreen Niewenhuis has done what some may have thought of but not attempted: to walk around the shore of Lake Michigan.  A 1000-Mile Walk on the Beach: One Woman’s Trek of the Perimeter of Lake Michigan chronicles this journey. Aware simply of her being drawn to the lake and wanting an adventure, in 2009 she decided to walk it.  It took 64 days in ten separate segments. She was joined by family and friends for twenty percent of the time. By the end of the journey she realized it was an inward one-being-alone experience and a test of the core of who she was.  Lake Michigan’s glory and its degradation are treated equally with interesting facts and stories. She encourages the reader to have dreams and embark on their own adventure. (Chickhollow Books, 2011. pap $16.95)  ~Barbara Siepker

Beyond just family bonding and time away from daily life, family vacations to this area can create lasting and meaningful traditions.  When we hear of these nostalgic vacations taken years ago at the Sleeping Bear Dunes we take notice, appreciating their enchantment of times long ago and the importance in our lives today, as well. Jim McGavran returned to Glen Lake after a 40-year absence to explore this poignancy and has written In the Shadow of the Bear: A Michigan Memoir.  I met him early on and as he shared his early efforts, and encouraged him as he has a special ability to capture these memories in a frank and lyrical manner. This is a tribute to the powerful influence of the Bear and his family. (Michigan State University Press, 2010. pap $19.95)  ~Barbara Siepker

Norbert Bufka has not only captured his family history, but had made an incredible contribution to our local history. He includes photographs, maps and charts previously not published in From Bohemia to Good Harbor: The Story of the Bufka Family in Leelanau between 1880 and 1980. The picturesque Bufka Farm is in the Sleeping Bear National Lakeshore on  M-22 between Glen Arbor and Leland. Charles and Mary Hortove Bufka established the farm and their children, Joseph and Agnes Schafer Bufka lived there more than fifty years. Bufka has a MA in history and will be doing presentations in the area. ~Barbara Siepker