On Thursday, December 8th at 7 PM, the Book Beat (26010 Greenfield Rd. Oak Park, MI) will host a presentation by three local authors with recent books on Detroit history. Featured books will be Detroitland by Richard Bak (Wayne State University Press), Detroit Television (Arcadia Press) by Tim Kiska and Ed Golick and 313 Life in the Motor City (History Press) by John Carlisle. Keep this date open for a night of wonderful storytelling and local history. A special edition “Detroitland glass” will be made available with purchase at the event.
Detroitland covers a century of Detroit’s rich and colorful history, Bak relives the scandals, mysteries, catastrophes, triumphs, and celebrations that have rocked Detroit. He also introduces readers to the heroes, criminals, stars, and regular people who lived through them, or in some cases, set them in motion. Detroitland contains the stories behind familiar names like Frank Murphy, the infamous Purple Gang, the Lone Ranger, “Potato Patch” Pingree, and Charles Lindbergh. Yet Bak also reveals lesser-known episodes in Detroit’s history, like the ambitious International Exposition & Fair of 1889; the killer heat wave of 1936, with five straight days of hundred-degree temperatures; and the attempted around-the-world flight of Ed Schlee and Billy Brock in the Pride of Detroit in 1927.
313: Life in the Motor City is a collection of 42 stories and more than 100 glossy photographs, many previously unpublished, by Detroitblogger John Carlisle of detroitblog.org fame. His blog and weekly column in Metro Times chronicle the quirky and often over-looked stories of average folks in the city. Read about a man with a strip club in his living room, the city’s last gun shop, a historic church kept alive by a handful of its parishioners, a bar in a ghost town, a coffee shop for the homeless, an art gallery in a mattress store and a family who made an abandoned apartment complex their home, among many other unforgettable people and places in Detroit.
Detroit Television chronicles the history of many of the most fascinating characters in tv history. Soupy Sales turned getting a pie in the face into an art form. Mort Neff celebrated the state’s outdoor charms. George Pierrot showed Detroiters the world. Other beloved personalities include: Milky the Clown, Ed McKenzie, Sonny Eliot, John Kelly, Marilyn Turner, Robin Seymour, Bill Bonds, Dick Westerkamp, Jingles, Bill Kennedy, Lou Gordon, Captain Jolly, Johnny Ginger, Auntie Dee, and many more.
For more info on this event or to reserve copies of any of these titles, please call Book Beat (248) 968-1190. This event is free and open to the public.