William Heath has a Ph.D. in American Studies at Case Western Reserve University. He has taught American history and literature as well as creative writing at Kenyon, Transylvania, Vassar, the University of Seville, and Mount Saint Mary’s University, retiring as a professor emeritus. He has published two poetry books, The Walking Man and Steel Valley Elegy; two chapbooks, Night Moves in Ohio and Leaving Seville; three novels: The Children Bob Moses Led (winner of the Hackney Award), Devil Dancer, andBlacksnake’s Path;a work of history, William Wells and the Struggle for the Old Northwest(winner of two Spur Awards); and a collection of interviews, Conversations with Robert Stone.
Historians of the Midwest were deprived of one of their finest by the early death of Andrew Cayton. Frontier Indiana is the best of a series of books published by Ohio State University Press on the states of the Old Northwest. Combining chapters on various men and women, Little Turtle’s Miami resistance, and William Henry Harrison’s land-hungry settlers, Cayton’s impressive research and thoughtful writing go a long way toward illuminating the frontier of the late 18th and early 19th centuries.
"The research and scholarship that went into the work are excellent; so good, in fact, that the book should be on the required text list for all Transappalachian frontier courses." -History
Cayton's lively new history of the frontier period in Indiana puts the focus on people, on how they lived, how they viewed their world, and what motivated them. Here are the stories of Sieur de Vincennes, John Francis Hamtramck, Little Turtle, Anna Tuthill Symmes Harrison, Tenskwatawa, Calvin Fletcher-along with many more familiar (and not so familiar) early Hoosiers.
I've been creating books, magazines, comics, and stories for both adults and children for more than thirty-five years. If you’re after more graphic novels with a certain textural and/or emotional depth and storytelling heft to them, I’ve also compiled the following list that might work as a starting point. The search for the archetypal “good” graphic novel is of course one that will be peculiar to one’s own tastes. While it’s primarily a visual medium, the best of them can be as nuanced and complex as storytelling in any other art form and means of communication.
Jon Allen’s coming out and growing up story in his ongoing Ohio Is For Sale series, The Lonesome Era is, so far, his most complex and affecting work, but that’s not saying much for a cartoonist who expands his abilities and repertoire with each new book. The Lonesome Era is a rites-of-passage tale that showcases Allen’s customarily bleak outlook and dry wit, and it is, by turns, hilarious and poignant. I’ve called his work “Kafkaesque situation comedies” in the past, but that description belies the mordant emotional and observational sophistication on show here. He is simply one of the best young visual storytellers around.
"A touching book that is sure to appeal to any reader who has tried to be the person they were meant to be." - BOOKLIST
Camden is a cat. Camden is also crushing hard on his best buddy and all-around terrible influence, Jeremiah. Young, bored, and trapped in their slowly decomposing Rust Belt town, Camden tamps down his burgeoning feelings for the local ne'er-do-well and allows himself to be dragged along with every awful idea, every hair-brained plan, and every threat to life and limb Jeremiah can come up with. As the dangers of Camden's risk-taking mount, an even more…
I grew up in Ohio, just south of the Great Lakes. As a kid, I spent time on the Lakes fishing with my dad. I’ve been fascinated with these freshwater seas and their ecological richness ever since. My love for the Lakes eventually merged with my passion for early American history when I attended graduate school at Notre Dame. There, I began researching how Native peoples understood and utilized the unique geography of the Lakes. That work grew into my first book, Muddy Ground, and I anticipate the rest of my career as a historian will be dedicated to studying the environmental and human history of the Great Lakes region.
I’m a historian, and I didn’t want to bog down this list with academic history books exclusively. But if I had to recommend one history book, written by a top-notch scholar that offers an accessible and accurate picture of the history of the Great Lakes, it would be Tanner’s Atlas.
This is so much more than just a collection of maps; it is a labor of love by an expert who dedicated her career to understanding the human geography of the Great Lakes region. Readers will find guides to everything from the region’s environmental resources to military clashes between Europeans and Native peoples.
The beautiful maps are further contextualized with text sections laying out the history of the Native peoples of the Lakes from pre-contact through the end of the treaty era in 1871. As someone who believes geography is crucial to understanding history, this is one of my…
The Indian history of the Great Lakes region of the United States and Canada, and particularly of the Ohio Valley, is so complex that it can be properly clarified only with the visual aid of maps. The Atlas of Great Lakes Indian History, in a sequence of thirty-three newly researched maps printed in as many as five colors, graphically displays the movement of Indian communities from 1640 to about 1871, when treaty making between Indian tribes and the United States government came to an end.
History was shaped in this part of North America by intertribal warfare, refugee movements, epidemics…
As a Chicago native, the Great Lakes area is part of my identity. My family spent summers in Michigan and, one year even went up to Sault St. Marie on the border between Michigan and Canada to spend a week on Lake Superior. A knitting retreat in Petosky was another Michigan adventure I enjoyed. The idea of writing about Northern Michigan turned out to be a fascinating exploration of an area I barely knew. And I’ve been able to meet other writers from there and enjoy their varied mysteries set in the region. From Minnesota to Ohio, I hope you enjoy the many faces of the Great Lakes.
Another Great Lakes writer, Meredith Doench is an Ohio native who teaches in the English Department at the University of Dayton. Meredith, another member of my writing group, is the author of the Luce Hansen series, Whereabouts Unknown is a standalone introducing Office Theodora Madsen of the Dayton P.D.
Theo is investigating the case of two missing teenage girls, who vanish, each leaving behind a bloody handprint. When Theo is injured and faces a lengthy recovery, the case goes cold while Theo tries to piece together the connection between the two girls before time runs out.
Theodora Madsen has everything she’s ever hoped for: a distinguished career as a homicide detective with the Dayton Police Department, a woman she loves, and a baby on the way.
While Theo and Bree nest and plan for their family’s future, two sixteen-year-old Ohio girls vanish—one from Dayton and the other from Brecksville—each leaving behind a bloody handprint. Then a routine interview goes disastrously wrong, and Theo’s injured and facing a lengthy recovery.
With her professional future uncertain and the cases growing cold, Theo scrambles to piece together the links between the girls. But the clock is ticking and time…
Raised by activist feminist parents and schooled by Quakers, I am surprisingly amusing. Eartha Kitt once held my left hand for five minutes. I work primarily as a playwright; Not a Cat is my first children’s book! Now when I show up at a little kid’s birthday instead of bringing a play I wrote, I can give the tot age-appropriate reading material. For me, reading a memoir is this intimate exchange with a writer where they’ve shared everything, and I’ve revealed nothing. What’s better than a good story beautifully curated? Okay, a cookie, but that’s it. I hope my book reaches all the kids out there who are told: be less this and more that.
This one is a true outlier, because I don’t know Brian Broome, but after reading his incredible memoir, I wish I did because he’s an amazing human and a wonderful storyteller. His book is dealing with blackness, queerness and the expectations surrounding black manhood and his struggle to reject violence in favor of love and ultimately, of self-love as well. I haven’t seen him up close, but in photos, he totally looks super pretty, so he has that in common with every one of these authors. I loved his book and can’t wait for his next.
WINNER OF THE KIRKUS PRIZE • A NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK • A NEW YORK TIMES EDITORS' PICK • NAMED A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR BY PUBLISHERS WEEKLY, KIRKUS REVIEWS, LIBRARY JOURNAL, AMAZON AND APPLE BOOKS • A TODAY SUMMER READING LIST PICK • AN ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY BEST DEBUT OF SUMMER PICK • A PEOPLE BEST BOOK OF SUMMER PICK
A raw, poetic, coming-of-age “masterwork” (The New York Times) about Blackness, masculinity and addiction
“Punch Me Up to the Gods obliterates what we thought were the limitations of not just the American memoir, but the possibilities of the…
Currently a full professor at Loyola University, he entered college at 16, studying chemistry, economics, and literature. He did graduate work in German, Russian, and Philosophy, held a double fellowship in music and literature, and wrote his dissertation on the relationship between historiography and epic poetry. In 2001, his 10th book, The Myth of the Great War was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize in history.
The best account of the futile Allied attempts to keep Russia in the war. Largely ignored, mainly because it was politically embarrassing and. Still worse, through no fauly of the army, it was militarily unsucessful. But the intervention left lasting scars, and consequences were fatal for the remainder of the century.
In the aftermath of the First World War, the United States sent 13,000 troops into the Soviet Union in support of the Tsarist White Russian Army, in an attempt to crush the Bolshevik government that had assumed power in the Russian Revolution. Written by three American doughboys who fought in Russia, this is a firsthand account of the only time in history that American troops directly fought Red Army troops.
I have SB degrees in physics and electrical engineering from M.I.T. and a JD degree from the Georgetown University Law Center. I’m interested in how things work and how people think. I’ve written four novels, published countless articles, as well as many children’s stories. A few of them may be found on my author’s website.
Linda Castillo is a master of the Amish whodunnit, having written fifteen books in a series staged in Amish country and culture. I’ve read five of them. Her characters are vivid and come alive on the page. The Hidden One, this latest “novel of suspense,” is written in the first person by her protagonist, Kate Burkholder, Chief of Police in Painters Mill, Ohio. Before you realize it, you are in Kate’s mind, trying to make sense of the many clues—bits and pieces of information—that make up a mosaic. All this is delivered up in what I would venture to say is a “woman writer’s touch”—with sensitivity and a warm heart.
The discovery of an Amish bishop's remains leads chief of police Kate Burkholder to unearth a chilling secret in The Hidden One, a new thriller from bestselling author Linda Castillo.
Over a decade ago, beloved Amish bishop Ananias Stoltzfus disappeared without a trace. When skeletal remains showing evidence of foul play are unearthed, his disappearance becomes even more sinister.
The town’s elders arrive in Painters Mill to ask chief of police Kate Burkholder for help, but she quickly realizes she has a personal connection to the crime. The handsome Amish man who stands accused of the murder, Jonas Bowman, was…
I have a wealth of knowledge and experience for living through tragic situations from my young adult life. I have overcome a traumatic childhood, alcoholism, drug addiction, and mental health. I find psychology fascinating; I have personally had many attempts by others to take my life. I have survived violent attacks, stalkers, and abuse. I love thriller books that have psychology embedded alongside many life lessons.
This book is a suspense thriller that has a theme of family drama and substance abuse.
As an advocate for mental health and addiction recovery I found this book a very worthwhile read. I found it hard to put the book down, the depth of the characters and their experiences were fearful. I assume the writer has drawn from personal experience as the storyline is too tragic to be completely fabricated.
The MC lives with her family in a household that walks on eggshells due to an alcoholic father. The story is rich and compelling with a great educational side of it that really does help others to understand issues surrounding alcoholism and mental health.
Perception is king, especially in a small Ohio town. Jessie Taylor seems like a normal 15-year-old girl, but she’s an illusion of what people expect her to be: a good girl, a smart girl, and most importantly, a girl from a respectable family. Her family may appear ordinary, even wholesome, but behind closed doors it’s an alcohol-soaked nightmare without reprieve. Jessie and her brother Brian, struggle bravely together as they fight to survive their violent father. Even the excitement of falling in love for the first time can’t seal the foundational cracks in her psyche. As her home life worsens,…
I have always had an interest in the American frontier and the Native peoples. But while researching the novelBrave Enemies and Boone: A BiographyI spent years studying and visiting places where the stories occur, and using archives and libraries. However, the most important consideration is storytelling, rewarding the reader with a good story.
In this volume Belue has done the almost impossible task of transcribing the text of Draper’s unpublished manuscript of Boone’s life. Draper spent his career collecting documents and interviews about Boone and the settlement of the Ohio Valley, but never managed to finish the work. Only those who have tried to read Draper’s manuscripts can appreciate the heroic task Belue has accomplished. I relied extensively on this volume.
Draper, the first secretary of the State Historical Society of Wisconsin, collected more than 500 volumes of material on the famed frontiersman Daniel Boone. His biography of Boone remained unfinished for 100 years until Ted Franklin Belue, a widely read scholar of early Americana, added his authoritative editing. This long-awaited work is filled with little-known information on Boone and his family, long hunters, the Shawnee, the fur trade, and frontier life in general.
Coming-of-age stories fascinate me because they are all so different. While we each experience many of the same events, each person’s story is unique. I like to read about how they first understood love or how they met their best friend. I like to try on their life for a bit, walk around in their shoes, and then return to my reality with the person I’ve worked so hard to become. The more I read other people’s stories of growing up, the more I feel we all harbor the same worries about ourselves and our future. We all struggle with similar problems while becoming who we’re meant to be.
SPOILER: the best part of this book is the resolution.
I wasn’t sure how Spencer’s team would respond when they discovered he was trans, but the acceptance he experiences is what I wish for all trans kids. I want to believe that Spencer’s acceptance is how society will respond in the (near) future to all trans people. No one will have a problem with you, but if anyone does, we’re all behind you.
In addition, I liked that Fitzsimons included Justice’s family’s views since they are the reality for far too many people. But like so many families, Justice’s family will need to accept people who are different if they don’t want to lose him.
Love, Simon meets Bend It Like Beckham in this feel-good contemporary romance about a trans athlete who must decide between fighting for his right to play and staying stealth.
“A sharply observant and vividly drawn debut. I loved every minute I spent in this story, and I’ve never rooted harder for a jock in my life.” – New York Times bestselling author Becky Albertalli
Fifteen-year-old Spencer Harris is a proud nerd, an awesome big brother, and a David Beckham in training. He's also transgender. After transitioning at his old school leads to a year of isolation and bullying, Spencer gets…
