This easy to use guide has good descriptions and easy to follow maps. Since I was not familiar with many of the back roads, it was very useful. The authors write with an easy style and help you get into the feeling of the areas by providing interesting bits of history.

If you are new to Michigan or new to hiking, hiking guru Jim Dufresne's "50 Hikes in Michigan" is required reading.

From the Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore to the Ohio state line, "50 hikes" lists the wildest but easiest to find, easiest to hike trails.

"Wild" usually discourages the novice, however, rest assured these are all well traversed trails and usually well marked.

This is my second copy, and I bring it with me in the field. Having hiked nearly all of the trails in his book (including all of the North Country Trail segments, and all the others not in the book), I have learned to take this book with me on my hike.

A tip: keep it in a zip lock bag. Those of you who are familiar with Michigan's weather know--it may be sunny, but wait a few minutes, it could rain!

For families pressed for time, and money great ideas. Offers insightful tips and gives great fun trip ideas.

I received this book as a gift and can't put it down. So much to do in our great state. I recently found another book Up North Wisconsin A Region For All Seasons which is a must have also!!!

52 Wisconsin Weekends offers a new place to go and a different thing to do every weekend throughout the year in the Badger State of Wisconsin. The suggestions range from romantic getaways for couples, vigorous activities for families, and outdoor adventures for anyone in search of open horizons and sunshine. Midwest travel expert Bob Puhala provides a full year's worth of fresh and fulfilling travel experiences from weekend mountain biking in rugged Lincoln County, touring lighthouses in the Apostle Islands, exploring Al Capone's hideout, drinking and dancing the night away at the Germanfest in Milwaukee, and a lot more. 52 Wisconsin Weekends is a terrific, highly recommended compendium of ideas for newcomers to the state seeking to become acquainted with its immense recreational resources, and for long-time natives looking for something novel to do elsewhere in their home state.

I live in Michigan and still got a lot of new information from this book. Highly recommended.

AFTER THE FIRE is a collection of essays that are compiled by a gifted writer. "The Blind World" is one essay worth the price of the book. Mr. Zimmer was a "guinea-pig" GI during the Atomic Bomb tests in Nevada,in the mid-1950's. He writes that when he covered his eyes with his hands, his hands became an x-ray because his company was so close to the fiery blast of the bomb. That one chapter would make one great movie.

But Mr. Zimmer also writes with insight and passion about his many loves, including his wife Suzanne, and his first-hand experiences with great jazz musicians, including Lester Young, Art Tatum, Thelonius Monk and Sarah Vaughn. Zimmer writes, "They even stuffed whole bands--Basie, Kenton, Herman--onto those small stages." That essay, "Young Jazz" is one of the best pieces written about American music this side of Down Beat.

We also learn that Paul Zimmer has had a long literary career as editor and director of several publishing houses, where he introduced numerous writers, including Gary Gildner, Richard Shelton, Gary Soto, Norman Dubie, Jack Anderson,and Bin Ramke, to the literary world.

This is a finely honed, remarkably insightful and humane collection of essays. I thought I would read one essay, put the book aside and savor it, but found myself reading the entire book in one sitting.

It's good to see Albion Fellows Bacon get some well deserved credit and attention for her hard work during her live. Although not as famous as her older sister, Annie Fellows Johnston, Albion probably did more for the needy. Very well wrote with lots of information I never knew existed.

Alexander William Doniphan was one of the most significant and popular figures in Missouri from the 1830s through the 1870s. He excelled as an orator above all but was also an extremely successful attorney (he defended 188 clients on murder charges with most being found innocent and none receiving the death penalty), military leader, politician and businessman and an influential educator and farmer. Doniphan's most famous exploit, the conquest of New Mexico and Chihuahua and the creation of a law code to govern the first area, was chronicalled several times in the 19th century but this is the first full biography to be published about this important man. I have studied most of the available primary and secondary sources on Doniphan and find this biography to be both balanced and complete. Anyone who is interested in Mormon, Missouri or Western History should find this book worth reading.

Alone Among Friends is the first full-scale biography of W. Robert Parks, the eleventh and longest-serving president of Iowa State University. The life of Parks and the evolution of his university are intimately intertwined compelling this biography to serve as a history of the nation's first land-grand university as well. Alone Among Friends shows how a people's college, under Parks' stewardship, went on to become one of the nation's great institutions of higher learning a the peer of even the more prestigious European university systems. Alone Among Friends is a detailed, candid, occasionally humorous, exceptionally well presented and highly recommended biography of the man who, more than any other, is inextricably linked to Iowa State University.