Alumni Authors
Note: The Alumni Authors are under development. We're adding in hundreds of great books and great U-M alumni authors. Soon, you'll be able to search for books by genre and author and get reading.
Lakewood Dance Camp in northern Michigan in Sara's thirteenth summer: A lake, a cabin, a dance studio, a theatre, costumes, performances. What could go wrong?: a tough Russian ballet teacher,learning modern dance, the boys across the lake, trying to win a scholarship to return next year, and Robin! Sara must learn to grow not only in technique, but in her social skills and in spirit. The story ends with a vivid final performance and announcement of the scholarship winners. "Watching Sara and the others develop not only as dancers but also as leaders and supportive friends is the best aspect of this book," -- ForeWord/Clarion book reviewer, Mary Cary Crawford.
Sean Delaney's desires and aspirations make him mormal in most ways. He loves his high school sweatheart, Ann Rutherford, and dreams of changing the world. His brilliant scientific mind sets him apart from the mainstream. Making cheap energy available to developing nations can only improve the economic status of people around the globe. Sean's need to change the world puts him "In Danger's Way", but it doesn't stop him. Only, twenty-five, he knows what he wants and where he's going. He will boldly venture into the world of international energy politics, whe he may have already attracted the attention of the wrong kind of people.
Alexander Popper can't stop remembering: four years old when his father tossed him into Lake Michigan, he was told, “sink or swim, kid.” In his mind, he's still bobbing in that frigid water. The rest of this novel's vivid cast of characters also struggle to remain afloat: Popper's mother, his brother, his paternal grandparents, his father, and his college girlfriend all struggle to get by. Covering four generations of the Popper family, Peter Orner illuminates the countless ways that love both makes us whole and completely unravels us. A comic and sorrowful tapestry of memory of connection and disconnection, Love and Shame and Love explores the universals with stunning originality and wisdom.
When the bronze statue in her family garden turns back into the mage who'd tried to kill her father decades before, sixteen-year-old Tabitha is immersed in a world of spells, politics and rumors.
Love and violence on the American frontier characterize this exciting novel about the early Mormons and their search for a place of peace and freedom. Thwarted in their attempts to settle together in northern Missouri, they flee to Illinois and they establish a city called Nauvoo on the Mississippi. The novel describes their search for a place of refuge, the story of their persecutions, and the ultimate destruction of their city.
In this edgy mystery, 25 year old police department counselor Alayne Vaughan pursues her detective boyfriend's case, the alleged suicide of a local poet, almost losing her love, career, and life in the process.
In 1988 Alan Ripley is a successful suburban lawyer, happy at home as well as at work, with a deep sense of gratitude at having found his way to this place. Given his history ---Alan got caught up in a political action that got out of hand, a bungled robbery of a gun store in a place called Lyletown--- he has every reason to feel proud of what he's accomplished. Then he gets a phone call and hears a voice from twenty years ago. It's Rory Dekker, bringing with him memories of Lyletown.
Published here for the first time, "The Great Bordello, A Story of the Theatre," is the story of Edwin Endsleigh (Hopwood's fictional counterpart), who heads for Broadway, after graduating from Michigan, to earn his fortune and pursue his dream of writing the great American novel. Completed just days before Hopwood's death, The Great Bordello, rumored to be “the most devastating exposé of the American theatre as an institution imaginable,” provides a deeper understanding of the human desire to accomplish something of enduring value amidst commercial success and ruthless realities of life.
On return to Ann Arbor, Jill Szekely immediately gets caught up in the affairs of a newly formed graduate commune when her old friend and former housemate, Renee Corliss, goes missing. The police believe Renee chose to disappear, since her marriage, like so many occurring in wartime, had just imploded. But this makes no sense to her friends, Jill and Alison, who know Renee has already made the hard decision to seek a divorce and upgrade her education for a career. They look elsewhere, and discover, in that volatile election year, a great many mysterious things Renee had been involved in.
Thirteen-year old Lizzie Hood and her next door neighbor Evie Verver are inseparable. They are best friends who share everything that's happened to them. And then, one afternoon, Evie disappears. The only clue: a maroon sedan Lizzie spotted driving past the two girls earlier in the day. As a rabid, giddy panic spreads through the Midwestern suburban community, everyone looks to Lizzie for answers. Haunted by dreams of her lost friend and titillated by her own new power at the center of the disappearance, Lizzie uncovers secrets and lies that make her wonder if she knew her best friend at all.
