Invitation from Assignment Detroit blogger

On my initiative, not any request, here's a new post of possible interest, headlined Getting A Read On Detroit.

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What books would you recommend to someone who was trying to get a grasp on Detroit, both as it was and as it is now? What books do you think help sum up who we are, how we got this way and where we're headed?

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Blogger Darrell Dawsey kicks it off with a dozen of his picks, including 2 by Thomas Sugrue and must-reads by Carl Taylor, Kevin Boyle, James Boggs, Donald Goines, Zev Chafets, Gavrilovich/McGraw and even Butch Jones.

Reader 'cxiro' adds the obvious classic by W. Hawkins Ferry.

No doubt there's room for DY forumers to jump in . . .

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List as many as you'd like, from any genre, any year, any publishing house, any author

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Link again.

What book should be thrown at somebody who wants to understand Detroit? That is to say, what book, when you are hit in the head with it, feels most like Detroit? :p

tell em to get out on the streets and check it out

Its hard to read when you are driving.

mauser, I think the question is just one for the sake of generating ideas. I believe the author grew up in Detroit.

Land of Opportunity [[I don't know the author) which documents the rise and fall of the Chambers Bros. Better written than the Butch Jones YBI.

Rivethead by Ben Hamper. Although situated in Flint, pretty much gives you the early 80's version of the first wave of auto jobs being sent across the border, and the varying reasons as to why. A pretty funny read, too.

Land of Opportunity, subtitled One Family's Quest for the American Dream in the Age of Crack, is by William K. Adler, came out in '95 and is on Dawsey's list. "I grew up in the very same neighborhood where most of this takes place," he notes.

Used copies start at $2 on Amazon, incidentally.

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Originally Posted by cman710

I believe the author grew up in Detroit.

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Correct, Cman. Darrell graduated from Southeastern in the mid-80s and is a former DetNews reporter who gets "out on the streets" each time he leaves his family's Chandler Park Drive home.

As Cman also suggests, his post explains that book recommendations are solicited as a discussion-starter.

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These are just some of the books I think are worth reading to learn about the D. What would you recommend?

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Historically speaking, Silas Farmer's "History of Detroit and Michigan," of which I am proud to say I have the 1890 printing of the two-volume set in pristine condition!

Also, "This is Detroit" written at Detroit's 250th birthday in 1951, and is a snapshot with only brief mention of the '43 riots and still had a rosy future predicted for the city.

Malcolm Bingay's "Detroit Is My Own Hometown" written in the late 40's and is one person's recollections of living through the amazing technological transformations of the turn of the century forward.

From the old forum's Discuss Detroit » DISCUSS DETROIT! » Best Detroit Books Poll: Sugrue surges to lead thread:

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931 The Origins of the Urban Crisis:Race and Inequality in Postwar Detroit - Thomas Sugrue
260 Middlesex [[Jeffrey Eugenidies)
221 The Detroit Almanac - Detroit Free Press
221 Working Detroit
208 From Soupy to Nutz
195 Arc of Justice: A Saga of Race, Civil Rights, and Murder in the Jazz Age
151 American City: Detroit Architecture, 1845-2005
141 Made in Detroit: A South of 8 Mile Memoir
128 AIA Guide to Detroit
117 Grit, Noise, Revolution
101 Art In The Stations: The Detroit People Mover
100 American Odyssey
100 City Primieval by Elmore Leonard
100 History of Detroit and Michigan and Wayne County
100 Kick Out The Jams: Detroit's Cass Corridor--1963-1980
100 Metro Detroit Boxing
100 The Final Season: Fathers, Sons and One Last Season In A Classic American Ballpark by Tom Stanton
100 Whiskey River
97 The Detroit Artists Market, 1932-1982 a Partnership in Creativity
92 Art in Detroit Public Places
89 Virgin Suicides
80 Art Deco in Detroit
80 Motown
80 The Purple Gang - Kavieff
66 Detroit: Then and Now
64 Detroit's Downtown Movie Palaces
64 Granite Harbor
64 Jitterbug
64 The Quotations of Mayor Coleman A. Young
64 The Way I Am
64 The Way It Was: Glimpses of Detroit's History Through the Pages of Hour Magazine
51 Bob-Lo: An Island in Troubled Waters
51 Deep Summer
51 Dennis Coffey
51 Detroit: I Do Mind Dying: A Study in Urban Revolution [[Dan Georgakas and Marvin Surkin)
41 Our Hearts Were Young and Gay
41 Quotations of Mayor Coleman A. Young
41 Sirens of Chrome: The Enduring Allure of Auto Show Models
41 Sugartown
41 Talking Shops
41 The Buildings of Detroit: A History [[W. Hawkins Ferry)
33 Before the Ghetto
26 Devil's Night [[Ze'ev Chafets )
26 Hard Stuff
26 The Changing Face of Inequality
26 WestSiders:Remembering Detroit's old westside, 1920-1950 : a pictorial history of the westsiders
21 Calico Palace
21 Dancing in the Street
21 Farmers Detroit HIstory
17 From the Canon's mouth: The civil war letters of Alpheus Williams
17 Frontier Metropolis
17 Up from the Streets: Detroit Art from the Duffy Warehouse Collection
14 Dudley Randall, Broadside Press, and the Black Arts Movement in Detroit, 1960-1995
14 Poems of Jim Gustafson
14 YBI The Autobiography of Butch Jones [[a piece of tripe, but entertaining

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Originally Posted by Lorax

Historically speaking, Silas Farmer's "History of Detroit and Michigan," of which I am proud to say I have the 1890 printing of the two-volume set in pristine condition!

Also, "This is Detroit" written at Detroit's 250th birthday in 1951, and is a snapshot with only brief mention of the '43 riots and still had a rosy future predicted for the city.

Malcolm Bingay's "Detroit Is My Own Homtown" written in the late 40's and is one person's recollections of living through the amazing technological transformations of the turn of the century forward.

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There is also a "This Is Detroit 1701-2001" that was done for the 300th.