Grab your pumpkin spice latte, your flannel PJs, and curl up under the covers.
We've got some great Michigan books to keep you company on these chilly fall nights.
First, we get our seasonal roundup of great reads from poet and University of Michigan professor Keith Taylor. He's also just a really delicious reader-alouder...which should be a word but isn't, so let's just say that we would listen to this smoky-voiced Canadian read the phone book.
Lately, he's been focusing on books that take place in Michigan's Upper Peninsula. He fills us in on the UP's long literary tradition as well as some new homegrown favorites, including a twisty, action-packed crime novel from Steve Hamilton.
Speaking of chilly places with lots of blonde northerners: Sweden! That's the setting for our next pick, a memoir from a young Michigan woman named Natalie Burg.
She writes about leaving home and escaping a turbulent relationship in order to take an au pair job in Sweden. What happens next? Well, you get a sense just from the title: "Swedish Lessons: a memoir of sects, love, and indentured servitude. Sort of." It's bizarre, funny, and has all the wonderful weirdness that comes with being 23 and truly out of your depth.
Finally, check out this list of some of the best Michigan books of 2013 from the Library of Michigan. Pay special attention to Bettye LaVette's Woman Like Me, a flinty memoir about family, sex, and a hell of a voice in Motown's golden years.
Don't forget to tell us which Michigan books you're reading and loving. Leave a comment below, and let us know which books you like (or don't) from the Fall roundup's selection.
