Night Sky with the Naked Eye
Night Sky with the Naked Eye
by Bob King
Page Street Publishing Co. • ISBN: 978-1-62414-309-0 • $21.99 Softcover
When I was a youngster, I officially declared that my astrological sign was “Orion,” mainly because the Greek hunter in a tunic was the only constellation – other than the dippers – that I could easily pick out from the northern night sky.
I never really did find Gemini, my actual birth sign, though after studying Astro Bob’s fine new volume, I may give it another try.
Bob King has had a lifelong career as a photojournalist, mainly working for the Duluth News Tribune, and his attention to detail belies that photographer’s eye.
This book is geared to newbie astronomers, not taking much of anything for granted in terms of your knowledge – a presentation for which I, knowing nothing, am grateful.
Every page is packed with graphics and information and each chapter is also filled with suggested activities to get you more familiar with the skies above you. Bob manages to inform without stripping from you that sense of wonder, probably because he himself still has it.
Bob details the stories behind the most popular names for our heavenly bodies, but also gives a tip of the hat to our own regional Ojibwe sky culture.
There is no way to make it through this book in one, two or even a week’s worth of sittings. This text needs to be savored, read and revisited. For dedicated readers who want to experiment with the activities, it probably will take you a full year’s sky cycle just to reach the end. And then you might start over.
Reading and using this book would be a great resolution for anyone wanting to connect more wisely to our world and to enjoy more broadly the mysteries and magic of the stars (and satellites, meteors and space stations) high above us. – Konnie LeMay
The Tao of Nookomis
The Tao of Nookomis
by Thomas D. Peacock
North Star Press • ISBN: 978-1-68201-034-1 • $14.95 Softcover
Happiness and heartbreak, pain and joy, anger and forgiveness. These are the yin and yang of any life, and in this book, Thomas blends philosophies and cultures as we unwrap soulful tales set on western Lake Superior.
The title story illustrates the complexity of our interlayered lives.
The Nookomis, or grandmother, in this tale, fluent in Ojibwe and raised in Red Cliff, turns out to be “150% Irish.” On top of that, she’s teaching her Ojibwe great-granddaughter about the balance of Tao.
Thomas, a member of the Fond du Lac Band of Lake Superior Ojibwe, is a multiple-time winner of the Minnesota Book Award and counts a national Multicultural Children’s Book of the Year among his honors.
His storytelling talent shines with these compelling parables, each teaching about ourselves as we learn about the lives he’s birthed in fiction.
Though comfortable in style, these are not stories for the faint of heart or for children. They are sometimes brutal and blunt, yet almost always revealing a gem of hope.
Reading along, there’s great familiarity in the places and towns along our Big Lake, but you’ll also recognize how very similar we all are at our human core. – KLM
Floating Palaces of the Great Lakes
Floating Palaces of the Great Lakes
by Joel Stone
University of Michigan Press • ISBN: 978-0-47205-175-5 • $26.95 Softcover
For a person who has worked the paddlewheels of the Mississippi River, this “History of Passenger Steamships on the Inland Seas” presented a fascinating, little-understood era of Great Lakes steamboats. The author offers plenty of facts, names and tidbits. It recounts how American firms, in a bit of economic diplomacy, built boats for Canada and America after the War of 1812.
“Steamboating” grew on the shores of Lake Ontario and Lake Erie and gradually spread to the other Great Lakes, though not without the big waves causing mishaps.
Not a collection of stories and anecdotes, this serious text is meant for dedicated boat nerds or old paddlewheelers like me. – Mike Link