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61 Books that Arrived from Cleveland's Literary Scene in 2023

(Photos courtesy Vintage, St. Martin's Paperbacks, Hachette Book Group)

Alchemy of a Blackbird by Claire McMillan The twists and turns of this true story make up the backbone of Claire McMillan’s new historical fiction novel. A painter and a poet flee Nazis through a string of safe houses, discovering a new side of surrealism through tarot. clairemcmillan.com

Beauty Beheld by Zariah L. Banks This emotional intimacy novelist shares an emotionally explosive love story in Beauty Beheld, following a voice actress going through a breakup and later finding a perfect match. zariahlbanks.com

Broad Street Tully by David J. Higgs Inspired by some of what he saw as a blackjack dealer and casino manager, writer David J. Higgs wrote a novel that centers around gambling problems and alcohol addiction, and that takes place in Lorain, Ohio. Amazon link

Cleveland Noir by various authors What do you get when you put some of the most well-known authors in Northeast Ohio — a list that includes Dana McSwain, Paula McLain, Michael Ruhlman and Thrity Umrigar — together for a spooky story collection ? Cleveland Noir , a series of short fictional works all tied to the city. akashicbooks.com

The Last Catastrophe by Allegra Hyde "Cli-fi" author Allegra Hyde digs into the many facets of climate change in her new short story collection, which details stories around artificial intelligence, RV life, outer space relationships and more. allegrahyde.com

Leaving Cleveland by Steve Begleiter In this “fictional memoir,” author Steve Begleiter imagines a story around a man named Sam Cohen who leaves Cleveland for New York City for a whirlwind career in photography, inspired by Begleiter’s own experiences as a photographer. begleiter.com

Michikusa House by Emily Grandy After befriending an aspiring chef during a stay at a place called Michikusa House in rural Japan, a woman recovering from an eating disorder discovers a love of gardening and seasonal delicacies. The book, which won a Landmark Prize for fiction, was written by Cleveland native Emily Grandy, features settings in Cleveland’s Little Italy neighborhood. emilygrandy.com

Misfortune Cookie by Vivien Chien The ninth book of this author’s “Noodle Shop Mystery” cozy series features protagonist Lana Lee on the case of another mysterious murder — this time, while attending a restaurant convention in California. vivienchien.com

The Museum of Failures by Thrity Umrigar Bestselling author Thrity Umrigar released her 10th novel this year. The Museum of Failures follows an Indian family with one major secret that changes everything about a son’s relationship with his mother. umrigar.com

Of Manners and Murder by Anastasia Hastings Longtime mystery writer Connie Laux uses her Anastasia Hastings pen name for a brand-new series, “A Dear Miss Hermione” mystery. The story follows a woman who, in 1885, embarks on a role as an “agony aunt,” an stumbles into a murderous situation. us.macmillan.com/author/anastasiahastings

When Love Wins by Nicole D. Miller This “urban Christian fiction” story follows two young cousins in the depths of grief and loss, and celebrates the sisterhood that gets them through. ndmillerpublishing.com

Where Are Your People From? by James B. De Monte Told through a series of stories, this novel spans a multigenerational tale of an Italian-American immigrant family’s life in the United States. Amazon link

(Photos court esy ‎Henry Holt and Co., Act 3 LLC, Shanti Arts)

A Grandmother's ABC Book by Kathy Ewing During the pandemic, Kathy Ewing was excited to learn she’d be a new grandparent of twins — and to stay busy, she started sewing a cloth ABC book as a future gift for them. While making that book for the new additions to the family, Ewing also wrote a book of stories and essays for adults, as a companion. kathyewing.com

The Beginning Was the End: Devo in Ohio by David Giffels and Jade Dellinger This year, famed Akron new-wave band Devo turned 50 years old. To mark the occasion, Akron’s David Giffels teamed up with Florida author Jade Dellinger to document five decades’ worth of band stories, plus showcase dozens of band photos. davidgiffels.com

Conversations with Adele by Adele Malley The former CEO of Malley’s Chocolate shares her keys to success in this business-focused story of bringing the local confectionary shop to giant status in Northeast Ohio. malleys.com

Dream Town by Laura Meckler After writing an in-depth piece for The Washington Post , reporter Laura Meckler decided to dig even deeper into her hometown’s roots, exploring the racial divisions and history that continue to affect Shaker Heights’ culture to this day. Within her deep-dive, she examines the challenging history of integration in the Cleveland suburb. laurameckler.com

How to Protect Bookstores and Why by Danny Caine Along with a new poetry collection, Danny Caine stayed plenty busy writing this year and released a new appreciation of the indie bookstore — one which also signified the importance of bookstores for local literary communities. dannycaine.com

Invisible Soul by Carlo Wolff and James O’Hare Cleveland’s soul history is unearthed in this book which offers analysis and appreciation of the underground scene, one which Wolff had appreciated for decades. The book also features illustrations by Ron Hill. invisiblesoul.act3creative.com

Joe Thomas: Not Your Average Joe: The Authorized Biography by Marc Bona and Dan Murphy The authorized biography of Joe Thomas arrived at an opportune time, just as the famed Cleveland football player was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame. grayco.com

Pink: Raise your Glass and This Is Christmas, Song by Song: The Stories Behind 100 Holiday Hits by Annie Zaleski Cleveland music writer Annie Zaleski released not just one book about music this year, but two: a celebration of pop artist Pink, and an exploration of the most iconic holiday songs. anniez.com

Rain Dodging: A Scholar’s Romp through Britain in Search of a Stuart Queen by Susan Godwin A scholarly look at 17th-century Italian princess Mary of Modena’s life meets author Susan Godwin’s own experiences researching in this creative bit of parallel storytelling and research. susanjgodwin.com

Ukraine Is Not Dead Yet by Megan Buskey Cleveland native Megan Buskey retraced her family’s Ukrainian lineage in her debut book, released in February. Ukraine is Not Dead Yet arrived about one year after Russia invaded Ukraine, escalating the Russo-Ukrainian war that started in 2014. meganbuskey.com

(Photos courtesy Triumph Books, Joshua Womack, Sourcebooks)

ESSAYS AND TRUE STORIES

The Awesome Game by Dave Hill Comedian and musician Dave Hill goes back to his Cleveland roots playing hockey for St. Ignatius and other teams, and explores his love of the sport in this collection of essays that spans the globe. Amazon link

The Guy with the Sign by Terry Pluto Longtime The Plain Dealer “Faith & You” columns are compiled in Terry Pluto’s latest book release, centered on stories and moments of everyday faith. grayco.com

The Jolliest Bunch by Danny Pellegrino Everything Iconic podcast host Danny Pellegrino shares holiday stories from his Solon upbringing in his latest book, The Jolliest Bunch: Unhinged Holiday Sto ries. instagram.com/dannypellegrino

Kneading Journalism by Tony Ganzer A collection of “essays on breaking bread and breaking down the news” brings this Cleveland journalist’s news background into focus, while also looking at various news events involving bread and baking. anthonyganzer.com

Lost Lake Erie by Jennifer Boresz-Engelking Whether looking at the stories of shipwrecks, summer excursions, or even the daunting travels across the frozen version of Lake Erie, this collection of true, researched stories showcases the many sides of Cleveland’s Great Lake. jenniferboresz.com

You Are Not That Funny: Stories from Cleveland Stand-Up by Joshua Womack During his short run of stand-up performances, Joshua Womack collected plenty of stories from a variety of venues — some of which aren’t around anymore. Those make up the author’s second book, which also incorporates commentary from prominent comics Bill Squire and Mike Polk Jr. Amazon link

Zoo World by Mary Quade The environment around us comes into focus in Mary Quade’s latest collection of creative essays, which digs into topics like animals, war, climate change and more — ultimately crafting a creative statement on the importance of the world’s preservation. maryquade.com

A Renaissance of Our Own: A Memoir and Manifesto on Reimagining by Rachel Cargle Now an established social justice speaker, Akron’s Rachel Cargle digs into her small-town Christian background in her new self-help memoir. The author, who runs Elizabeth’s Bookshop & Writing Centre, offers tools that helped her establish her identity, while also sharing her own story, in her book. rachelcargle.com

Lucky Me: A Memoir of Changing the Odds by Rich Paul The Cleveland native sports agent shares the story of his challenging childhood in Glenville, his family life and his fateful introduction to LeBron James in this inspiring memoir. penguinrandomhouse.com

Underwater Daughter by Tuni Deignan Imaginary worlds were a refuge for author Tuni Deignan, in the face of traumas. She writes about her coping journey and her road to recovery ultimately arriving through a bike accident at 55 years old. antoniadeignan.com

Ain’t It Fun: Peter Laughner & Proto-Punk in the Secret City by Aaron Lange Local comix creator Aaron Lange documents Pere Ubu and Rocket From The Tombs star Peter Laughner in this gritty graphic novel. stonechurchpress.com

Cookie Ghosts by Angela Oster Illustrator and artist Angela Oster plans to soon release her new book of sweet and home-baked characters. instagram.com/osterjoy

Gotcha Day by Greg Murray The cuteness of adopted animals’ photos and the stories of how they joined their new families make up this Cleveland pet photographer’s latest publication. gmurrayphoto.com

(Photos courtesy Passengers Press, Grieveland, Black Lawrence Press, Raven Rae)

POETRY AND CREATIVE WRITING

Any Closer to Home by Katie Daley This local instructor and poet’s latest masterful collection looks at her surrounding world and its events, even tackling the police killing of Tamir Rice in one piece. finishinglinepress.com

Butterfly Language by Raven Rae Local singer Raven Rae expanded her creative work to poetry, releasing her debut collection of encouraging poetry and creative writing this year. The project connects to themes in former music releases like her 2020 album Metamorphosis. instagram.com/ravenraeofficial

Cleveland Review of Books, Vol. 00 and Vol. 01 The first two print issues arrived from Cleveland Review of Books , a local creative writing and literary criticism publication that got its start online. Both feature reviews, essays and interviews on all things literature. clereviewofbooks.com

The Details Will Be Gone Soon by Jeremy Jusek Parma’s poet laureate details what it was like to lose his grandmother to Alzheimer’s disease in his new batch of poems. jeremyjusek.com

Excisions by Hilary Plum Author and Cleveland State University professor Hilary Plum released her latest project Excisions , a collection of poems that aim to explore moments and pieces of life lost — “when something is excised from you, though it was you, you are what remains,” Plum writes about the collection. hilaryplum.com

Gordon Square Review: Issue 12 The Gordon Square Review , a publication of Literary Cleveland, once again celebrated new poetry, fiction and creative nonfiction in its latest issue, released in July. gordonsquarereview.org

Keys & Locks Anthology by Lake Erie Ink contributors Northeast Ohio teens came together to produce the latest Lake Erie Ink anthology of poetry, writing and art, this time with the theme of “keys and locks.” lakeerieink.org

Once: A Golden Shovel Collection by Cathy Barber In her latest release, this Cleveland Heights poet experimented with the “golden shovel” form of poetry, in which poets take lines of an existing poem they admire and utilize them in a specific order in a newly constructed poem. cathybarber.com

Personal Problem by Brendan Joyce The co-founder of local publisher Grieveland digs into a critique and exploration of capitalism in all its flavors in his third collection of poetry. grieveland.com

Picture Window by Danny Caine Reflections on fatherhood, the coronavirus pandemic, long-distance living and other crises make up Cleveland native Danny Caine’s latest collection of poetry. dannycaine.com

Price of a Small Hot Fire by E.F. Schraeder A Cleveland author and poet digs into their own past traumas and nightmares in their latest collection, which looks to past horror writing experiences. rawdogscreaming.com

Warda by Nardine Taleb Translating to “Rose” in Arabic, poet and Gordon Square Review prose editor Nardine Taleb released her debut poetry chapbook via Passengers Press this September. instagram.com/wardachapbook

(Photos courtesy Joy Revolution, Bunker Press Books, Balzer + Bray)

Beulah Has a Hunch , illustrated by Katie Mazeika Famed inventor Beulah Louise Henry, also known as “Lady Edison,” is the focus of this storybook illustrated by Northeast Ohio’s Katie Mazeika. Henry’s unique way of seeing the world — experiencing both hyperphantasia and synesthesia — helped her make inventive advancements in typewriters, sewing machines, toy dolls and more. katiemazeika.com

Dinosaur Puzzle Book, illustrated by Mike DeSantis Who needs Where’s Waldo? Objects are hidden in plain sight in this inventive puzzle book, featuring adventurous dinosaurs. bunkerpressbooks.com

The Great Vandal Scandal, illustrated by Dave Motram This adventurous middle-grade novel follows the stories of an apartment building’s assortment of pets and their ambitions, featuring spunky drawings by Stow, Ohio’s Dave Motram. davemottram.com

House Party , edited by Justin A. Reynolds The same Cleveland-based author behind several Marvel Miles Morales graphic novels edited together a collaborative young adult book House Party , featuring contributions from a handful of fellow young adult authors. justinareynolds.com

I Am A Homeschooler, written by Allison Ryver This picture book looks at the many forms education can take, and what homeschooling can look like for some students. allisonryver.com

Surprisingly Sarah, written and illustrated by Terri Libenson The seventh book in Terri Libenson’s acclaimed graphic novel series arrived in May. Surprisingly Sarah follows Sarah’s nerve-wracking crush and all sorts of antics in the group of kid friends whom readers have known and loved since Invisible Emmie , the first in the series, published in 2017. terrilibenson.com

Noni & the God Tree: A Shattered Truth by Breshea Anglen The second Noni & the God Tree novel arrived this year from local author Breshea Anglen, following a young warrior Aisha, who must defend her realm from evil forces. bresheaanglen.com

The Note Who Faced the Music , written by Lindsay Bonilla North Canton’s Lindsay Bonilla penned a heartwarming story about a half-note who feels out of place in a composer’s piece of sheet music — but eventually learns how every note is important in a song. lindsaybonilla.com

The Swing on the Silver Star in the Royal Purple Sky , written by Laura Elizabeth Gray A little girl goes on a fantastical adventure shaped by her imagination in this colorful debut children’s book by Laura Elizabeth Gray. Amazon page

Midwest Pie , edited by Meredith Pangrace From stained recipe cards to a full cookbook, Belt Publishing released a locally informed collection of pie recipes this year. Sample butterscotch and “Speedy Custard Pie” varieties, along with Ohio buckeye, all-American apple and chokecherry pie. beltpublishing.com

Simply Symon Suppers by Michael Symon and Douglas Trattner Celebrity chef (and Cleveland native) Michael Symon teamed up with Cleveland Scene food writer Douglas Trattner for his latest cookbook, which features a variety of recipes for straightforward dinners. michaelsymon.com

Endangered Eating by Sarah Lohman Hinckley native Sarah Lohman looks at the changing landscape for agriculture and ecosystems that affect our food industry. Along with research and interviews with culinary professionals, Lohman also provides recipes throughout the book. sarahlohman.com

Shop Cleveland's Best Independent Bookstores for Your Next Read

Skip the big box stores and head to Mac's Backs, Clevo Books and other Cleveland bookstores for your beach read. By Haley Strnad

The Anisfield-Wolf Book Awards Announced This Year's Winners

The 2024 winners include Teju Cole, Ned Blackhawk, Maxine Hong Kingston and Monica Youn. By Annie Nickoloff

Connie Schultz Releases Debut Children’s Book: Q&A

The Cleveland journalist and author releases Lola and the Troll on Feb. 6. By Annie Nickoloff

27 episodes

The official podcast of the Cleveland Review of Books, a journal of criticism publishing reviews, essays, interviews, and excerpts both online and in print. Among other formats, the podcast highlights contributors and their work, allowing them to expand on ideas they presented and experimented with in our pages.

Cleveland Review of Books Podcast Cleveland Review of Books

Society & Culture
4.6 • 11 Ratings
MAR 22, 2024

Resistance and Insistence: Capitalist Fiction, Conglomeration, and the Avant-Garde

We talk with J. Arthur Boyle about his piece, “The Artist’s Self Interest: On Capitalist Fiction.” Stay in touch with us by subscribing to our newsletter. Find subscription plans, print issues, and merch at our online store. Music/beats by producer aLiVE of Muamin Collective. Piece: https://www.clereviewofbooks.com/writing/dan-sinykin-big-fiction Newsletter: www.clereviewofbooks.com/newsletter Store: www.clereviewofbooks.com/store Muamin Collective Bandcamp: muamincollective.bandcamp.com/album/tailor-made

JAN 19, 2024

The Cook, The Surrealist, Her Husband-Thief, and His Manifesto: Emmeline Clein on Literary Cookbooks

Joined by special guest, fellow editor Alana Pockros, we talk with Emmeline Clein about her piece, “Recipes, Rumors, and Reminiscence: A Literary Cookbook Gift Guide.” “We talk about opulence, decadence, intransigence, dinner parties, the list as form, stealing husbands, anti-fascist pasta, Italian futurism, what Alice Toklas ate during before and after the war, considerations of oysters, and Salvador Dali.” Emmeline’s book “Dead Weight,” a cultural, political, and personal history of disordered eating, comes out in late February from Knopf. Stay in touch with us by subscribing to our newsletter. Find subscription plans, print issues, and merch at our online store. Music/beats by producer aLiVE of Muamin Collective. Piece: https://www.clereviewofbooks.com/writing/a-literary-cookbook-gift-guide Newsletter: www.clereviewofbooks.com/newsletter Store: www.clereviewofbooks.com/store Muamin Collective Bandcamp: muamincollective.bandcamp.com/album/tailor-made

JAN 1, 2024

The Novel as Résumé: Chapman Caddell on Ben Lerner and Frederick Exley

Buy Volume 1, out now, here :) (https://www.clereviewofbooks.com/store/p/volume-01) We talk with Chapman Caddell about his piece “View from the Couch: Success, “The Topeka School,” and “A Fan’s Notes.” Fiction-criticism, criticism-fiction, a loser’s guide to the future of contemporary literature, the careerist novel, “36 on the ACT-core” prose, Henry James in Philly, literary criticism in Argentina, and a young Ben Lerner in the grocery store. Stay in touch with us by subscribing to our newsletter. Find subscription plans, print issues, and merch at our online store. Music/beats by producer aLiVE of Muamin Collective. Piece: https://www.clereviewofbooks.com/writing/view-from-the-couch-the-topeka-school-a-fans-notes-the-novel Newsletter: www.clereviewofbooks.com/newsletter Store: www.clereviewofbooks.com/store Muamin Collective Bandcamp: muamincollective.bandcamp.com/album/tailor-made Pieces or Works Mentioned: “The Pound Era” by Hugh Kenner (University of California Press, 1971) (PDF easily available online) “A Golden Age” by Ryan Ruby (article published by Vinduet, April 2023) (https://www.vinduet.no/essayistikk/a-golden-age-ryan-ruby-on-literary-criticism-and-the-internet/) “The Golden Age of the Working Critic”, American Vandal Podcast (Criticism LTD series, hosted by Matt Seybold) (https://marktwainstudies.com/goldenage/) We didn’t specifically talk about this piece, but I’d never heard of Piglia before so this is worth sharing. “Ricardo Piglia’s Prescient Conspiracies” (Article published by the New Yorker in 2017) (https://www.newyorker.com/books/second-read/ricardo-piglias-prescient-conspiracies) “Jock Itch: Toxic Fandom in the Novels of Frederick Exley and Chris Bachelder” by Mina Tavakoli (Article published by Bookforum, July 2022) (https://www.bookforum.com/fiction/toxic-fandom-in-the-novels-of-frederick-exley-and-chris-bachelder-25002)

DEC 18, 2023

Andy Warhol Has Been Shot: Rafaela Bassili on Nicole Flattery's "Nothing Special"

We talk with Rafaela Bassili about her piece “Andy Warhol Has Been Shot: On Nicole Flattery’s “Nothing Special". It Girls, Invisible yet omnipresent Warhol, Edie Sedgwick (tormenter and tormented), hierarchies of attention-value, fleeing the suburbs for the big city, the difficulty of being cool, avoiding writing preachy, morally simplistic novels, and proto-only fans. Stay in touch with us by subscribing to our newsletter. Find subscription plans, print issues, and merch at our online store. Music/beats by producer aLiVE of Muamin Collective. Piece: https://www.clereviewofbooks.com/writing/nicole-flattery-nothing-special Newsletter: www.clereviewofbooks.com/newsletter Store: www.clereviewofbooks.com/store Muamin Collective Bandcamp: muamincollective.bandcamp.com/album/tailor-made

OCT 6, 2023

Philip Metres on Sergey Gandlevsky and the Task of the Translator

We talk with Philip Metres about his upcoming award winning book of translated poems: “Ochre and Rust: New Selected Poems of Sergey Gandlevsky.” Russian Literature as homeland, (self-)imposed exile, close readings, mothers, slant rhyme being cooler than direct end rhyme, retweeting Walter Benjamin, the deficit model of translation, and the music of language. Stay in touch with us by subscribing to our newsletter. Find subscription plans, print issues, and merch at our online store. Music/beats by producer aLiVE of Muamin Collective. Newsletter: www.clereviewofbooks.com/newsletter Store: www.clereviewofbooks.com/store Muamin Collective Bandcamp: muamincollective.bandcamp.com/album/tailor-made Register for Virtual Book Launch: https://zoom.us/meeting/register/tJAtdOqsqTMiG9yBQ_-u_7HVPh4US7Ma453v?mibextid=Zxz2cZ#/registration (Pre-)Order the book: https://www.greenlindenpress.com/books/ochre-and-rust

SEP 22, 2023

Still, Observing: Juliet Gelfman-Randazzo on Christine Kwon's "A Ribbon the Most Perfect Blue"

We talk with Juliet Gelfman-Randazzo about her piece “Still, Observing: On Christine Kwon’s A Ribbon the Most Perfect Blue”. Labor’s relation to and intertwinement with domestic life, femininity, and craft; upper-level seminar close reading mode, good parties and bad parties, bathtubs, Korean and Korean-American poetry, name-checking your influences, pay-to-play poetry prize chapbook publishing, and survival. Stay in touch with us by subscribing to our newsletter. Find subscription plans, print issues, and merch at our online store. Music/beats by producer aLiVE of Muamin Collective. Piece: https://www.clereviewofbooks.com/writing/christine-kwon-a-ribbon-the-most-perfect-blue Newsletter: www.clereviewofbooks.com/newsletter Store: www.clereviewofbooks.com/store Muamin Collective Bandcamp: muamincollective.bandcamp.com/album/tailor-made Index for Continuance Podcast by CSU Poetry Center(referenced): http://www.csupoetrycenter.com/index-for-continuance-podcast

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42 Books Every Clevelander Should Read

By Scene Staff on Tue, Nov 23, 2021 at 1:02 pm

With its shortened days and whipping winds, winter in Northeast Ohio is the 10 months each year when we allow ourselves to throw on sweatpants, chug hot cocoa or bourbon and spend long evenings indoors mindlessly scrolling through Netflix's inane personalized viewing options.

But for those of us annoyed by (or morally suspicious of) the way screens have come to monopolize our attention — that is to say, monopolize our lives — books offer a warm refuge. But they can also be intimidating. If Netflix's array of niche categories inspires helplessness or dread, imagine what a library can do! Where does one begin? What does one even like ?

Personal preferences naturally vary, but a list of books about Cleveland or by local authors, including fiction, nonfiction and poetry, is certainly a fun category for the literary dabbler, hardcore reader or local history buff.

As it happens, we read a lot of nitty-gritty stuff about Cleveland as part of our jobs: daily newspaper stories; annual reports; the latest academic research on regional trends. And we're also not shy about saying we're big fans of fiction. But there hasn't been, we realized, a long list of good local books that included many of the titles that have been most instrumental in shaping our understanding of the city. That seemed like an oversight, one we sought to immediately correct.

Putting together this list, with input from some of our most trusted friends and readers, was a joy. But what follows should not be interpreted as an exhaustive or definitive collection. Like all hungry readers, we welcome suggestions for additional titles to include in later coverage and our personal libraries. And there were some we couldn't include simply because of space constraints. Instead, think of these as books that have, for one reason or another, been important to us. In many cases they're books that we just really enjoyed.

In the poetry, fiction and nonfiction below, we hope that you find books that you've already read. We also hope you come across ones you haven't, and maybe even ones you haven't even heard of. We enthusiastically recommend them all, and wish for you the same nourishing sense of discovery, even epiphany, that accompanied our experiences with them.

Virtually all of these titles are available for borrowing at the Cleveland Public Library. Some of them are even on display at the downtown branch, in conjunction with this issue's publication. While many of them may be difficult or expensive to buy, we recommend purchasing local books at local bookstores when you can. (It goes without saying that this list should double as a gift guide for the Cleveland reader in your life.) Many of our favorite shops, places like Mac's Backs, Loganberry Books and Visible Voice, have permanent "Cleveland" sections in their stores and are keeping Cleveland's rich literary history alive.

A (*) signifies a nonfiction title. Capsules written by Sam Allard (SA), Vince Grzegorek (VG), Daniel Gray-Kontar, Hannah Lebovitz (HL), Karen Long, John McQuaid (JM), Lou Muenz, Eric Sandy (ES), Brett Zelman (BZ).

World'd Too Much: The Selected Poetry of Russell Atkins (2019)

Russell Atkins

It is little known that Russell Atkins, one of the United States' most important living poets, is a lifelong Clevelander. Atkins, now in his mid-90s, was a contemporary of Langston Hughes, and in fact, it was Hughes who introduced Atkins' work to publishers across the globe in the late 1940s. Atkins was among the first concrete poets, creating poetry that also appeared as artworks on the page. But Atkins' poetry was also uniquely Cleveland, capturing everyday people and familiar settings with a brand of humor and honesty that memorialized the city through verse. At long last, thanks to the CSU Poetry Center and editors Kevin Prufer and Rober E. McDonough, the legacy of Atkins' poetry lives through the book World'd Too Much, a necessary compendium that celebrates the contributions of a major figure in American letters who has for too long been relegated to the margins of American literary history. ( Daniel Gray-Kontar )

Await Your Reply (2009)

The bearded, bespectacled Cleveland Heights-dwelling Dan Chaon (pronounced Shawn ) has produced some of the tightest and most chilling prose of the past 20 years. His second novel, Await Your Reply, may be his best. Within it, he braids the frayed strands of three interlocking narratives with characters and settings plucked from his own life: Nebraska, Northwestern University, Cleveland Heights, Ohio. One of the three storylines follows estranged identical twins from the Heights who attended Roxboro Middle School and Hawken. There's no room to try to explain the plot, but it's enough to know that Chaon is a masterful prose stylist and a low-key king of suspense. (SA)

* Democratizing Cleveland (2007, 2018)

Randy Cunningham

Many of the most popular and celebrated nonfiction accounts of Cleveland — and indeed, much of the scholarly work on this list — zoom in on the 1960s. That tumultuous decade was one of profound racial tension and political upheaval. But few Cleveland writers have examined in depth (beyond an armchair Dennis Kucinich screed or two) the decade from 1975 to 1985. And only Randy Cunningham, in his book which was re-released last year by Belt Publishing, has done so through the lens of community organizing. Via personal interviews and firsthand experience, Cunningham writes how power was fomented at the grassroots level and how neighborhood organizing paved the way for the community development corporation boom. CDCs have cropped up in virtually every Cleveland neighborhood and these days tend to focus at least as much on private real estate development as they do on building community. Cunningham knows why. (SA)

The Coming of Fabrizze (1960)

Raymond DeCapite

An under-the-radar Cleveland novelist, Raymond DeCapite should rightly be considered the bard of the South Side. The longtime Tremont resident absorbed the ethnic melting pot of the neighborhood from the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s and filled his novels with characters Cleveland through-and-through. His debut effort, The Coming of Fabrizze , reaches back to the '20s for what The New York Times called a "modern folk tale filled with love, laughter and the joy of life," among many sparkling reviews at the time. The story follows a hardworking laborer who returns to his native village in Italy to the celebration of the townsfolk and his family but is soon followed by his nephew, Cenino Fabrizze, who accompanies his uncle Augustine back to Cleveland just in time for the stock market crash. The novel's deft portrayal of Italian-American immigrants' hope and hard work in times both booming and less so was glowingly celebrated. His novels had been largely out of print and hard to find prior to his death in 2009, even though his son, Mike DeCapite, told Cleveland Magazine that none other than Don DeLillo, who loved Fabrizze, had sent a copy to the New York Review of Books in the hopes of reviving modern interest. Thankfully, the Kent State University Press reprinted this, and A Lost King, in 2010 so a new audience could discover what the generation before had so thoroughly enjoyed. ( VG )

Thomas & Beulah (1986)

The year before the Pulitzer Prize caught up to the genius of Toni Morrison, it anointed another Ohio writer, awarding $1,000 to Rita Dove for Thomas and Beulah . Quietly mesmerizing, the book is centered on a version of Dove's maternal grandparents' lives in Akron. The first section, Mandolin, begins with her grandfather's life on a Mississippi riverboat. Its 23 poems encircle Thomas' life, often its quotidian moments, with economy and grace and glints of humor. The second half, called Canary in Bloom , follows Beulah through daydreams and disappointments over 21 poems. Dove likened them to "pearls on a necklace," poems able to stand alone, but more meaningful in sequence. The last two pages are a chronology, an exoskeleton of dates, from Thomas' birth in 1900 to Beulah's death in 1969. In those 69 years, Dove contains multitudes. She writes a specific, Midwestern African-American arc, conjuring a space that had not yet existed in American letters. Looking at a smokestack in Obedience , Beulah's "body's no longer tender, but her mind is free." ( Karen Long)

The Headmaster's Papers (1983)

Richard Hawley

Richard Hawley is both a commercial best-selling author and someone who happens to be among some of your favorite authors' favorite authors — count John Irving and Alice Munroe as fans. "Imagine a good man whose props have fallen away," Hawley wrote in a journal before starting work on this book, which was first published by a small press in Vermont before receiving critical acclaim and a paperback reprinting from Bantam years later. That man is John Greeves, the headmaster at an all-boys private school in Cleveland. (Hawley would, months after the publication of this book, himself become the headmaster of University School.) This episolatory novel — a form in which the entire story is delivered by letters, notes, addresses, etc. — traces, in absolutely heartbreaking fashion, the changes in his professional and personal lives, which are driving the headmaster into uncharted and uncomfortable territory. His wife is dying, his son is an addict, his tethers to all that defined him are disappearing, and in letter after letter, speech after speech, life is propelling him toward the end as he attempts to grasp one last bit of autonomy from the wreckage. ( VG )

The Collected Poems of Langston Hughes (1995)

Langston Hughes, ed. by Arnold Rampersad

This ultimate collection, arranged more or less chronologically, includes nearly 900 poems from one of the greatest and most popular poets of all-time. Dubbed the Poet Laureate of African America, Hughes grew up in Cleveland and maintained a close relationship with Karamu House throughout his life. The collection includes both his most well-known work — including his 1951 book-length poem Montage of a Dream Deferred — and previously unpublished and suppressed material. It's edited by Hughes' own biographer Arnold Rampersad and is an indispensable edition for both the Hughes dabbler, the Hughes aficionado, and the Cleveland lit junkie. (SA)

* Cleveland: A Metropolitan Reader (1995)

Ed. by Dennis Keating, Norman Krumholz and David C. Perry

Composed chiefly of contributions from scholars at CSU's Maxine Goodman Levin College of Urban Affairs, this monumental volume is the single most important anthology for understanding Cleveland's history and political economy. It'd be an introductory textbook in virtually any college course about the city. With selections from each of the three editors, all giants in their respective fields; several historians who are included elsewhere on this list; and even a famous special "Cleveland Mayors" edition of Point of View by legendary local muckraker Roldo Bartimole, the seven-part book is a multifaceted compendium of the city's social and political development. Classics upon classics! (SA)

*Derelict Paradise (2011)

Daniel Kerr

Of all the books on this list, Daniel Kerr's Derelict Paradise may be the single most important. Covering a huge historical period, from the late 19th century to the early 21st, Kerr totally reframes homelessness and poverty in Cleveland by examining who has benefitted from it . There are so many epiphanic moments throughout that will utterly reshape (or reinforce) your conception of the city and its leaders. One of the most destabilizing revelations is that public dissent has been effectively crushed by rendering invisible the structural causes of inequality. Kerr's clear, rigorously sourced prose is enhanced by a commitment to social justice. It's both an infuriating and invigorating read. Kerr now teaches history at American University, but his Cleveland masterwork will remain a vital source of reality for those who don't wish to live in the Matrix. (SA)

* A Ghetto Takes Shape: Black Cleveland, 1870-1930 (1976)

Kenneth L. Kusmer

From Carl Stokes to Tamir Rice, race has defined modern Cleveland's history. It's a story of botched promises, institutional bigotry, and the sins of self-interest. But to fully understand the city today, you have to dig into Kusmer's meticulous history of how African-Americans went from a vibrant part of Cleveland's city life in the 1800s to a segregated, forgotten population. Citing primary accounts and newspaper coverage, the historian documents how Cleveland was once a place of equality and abolitionist spirt in the years before the Civil War. By the industrial revolution, however, Cleveland's new waves of European immigrants set in motion a scramble of political power, sidelining black Clevelanders in the process. The book's heartbreaking conclusion argues this fall from equality to segregation is what ultimately doomed the city. ( VG )

Tampa (2012)

Alissa Nutting

What on earth is a book called Tampa, which does indeed take place in the eponymous city — and for the record is about a middle-school teacher's steamy affair with a 14-year-old student — doing on a list of essential Cleveland reads? Well, consumers of local fiction may be surprised to learn that author Alissa Nutting, the third vertex in a powerhouse triangle of contemporary Florida fiction writers which also includes Karen Russell and Lauren Groff, taught for a time at John Carroll University. And while her second novel, Made for Love, may be the more prescient literary achievement, Tampa owns the distinction of having been written primarily at the Lakewood Public Library, near where Nutting lived at the time. Cleveland should be overjoyed to claim it. (SA)

* The Silent Syndicate (1967)

Hank Messick

Through the meticulously documented story of the Cleveland Syndicate, this riveting account by Hank Messick manages to tell the full story of organized crime in mid-20th-Century America. This was before the mob's vast influence was widely known, and certainly before "the Mafia" was culturally popularized five years later in The Godfather. Messick's extensive research was funded by the Ford Foundation, and even though the book was ultimately used by law enforcement agencies, it doesn't read like a sober historical document. It has all the drama of the very best narrative nonfiction. And for Cleveland history buffs, it has the juicy details on the local mob's litany of rackets: from rum-running on Lake Erie in Prohibition days to the casinos. (SA)

*Surrogate Suburbs (2017)

Todd Michney

Two decades into the 21st century, there are a significant number of black families living outside of the municipal boundaries of the city of Cleveland. A century ago, however, many had to fight just to reach the outer neighborhoods within the city. Todd Michney's 2017 book highlights the struggles that upwardly-mobile Black families faced in their efforts to move away from the urban core. Areas such as Mount Pleasant, Hough and Glenville offered black families the chance to live a suburban-like lifestyle, even when they could not purchase a home or safely move to the cities outside of Cleveland. However, the existing white residents made even these intra-city migrations not only difficult but, in some cases, dangerous. Michney's book sheds important light on the racial tensions that existed within the city of Cleveland at a time when black political and economic power were on the rise. But the book offers more than a tension-filled story line. It highlights the ways that black communities fought back against discrimination through sustained community and coalition building. The focus might be historical but the takeaways are still incredibly relevant. (HL)

* Cleveland: A Concise History (1990, 1997)

Carol Poh Miller and Robert A. Wheeler

This slim historical volume, weighing in at less than 200 pages before appendices, is one of the most engaging and accessible books about Cleveland. It's chock full of trivia — gas lighting was introduced to downtown streets in 1850! — and swiftly charts the city's historical course with special emphasis on Cleveland's rich cultural and industrial heritage. The second edition, published in 1997, includes a chapter, "The New American City," focused on the downtown development boom of the early Michael White years. For those wanting a wide-ranging, surface-level precis on the city, and for those who want their historical facts ironed out, there's no better text to recommend. (SA)

The Bluest Eye (1970)

Toni Morrison

"Since why is difficult to handle," Toni Morrison wrote in the prologue to her debut novel The Bluest Eye, "one must take refuge in how." Hailing from Lorain, Ohio, Morrison chronicled the anguish of the black American experience in 11 revelatory novels. And while much of her work is rooted in Northeast Ohio, The Bluest Eye feels especially divined from the community in which she grew up. Morrison has written that in her first book, she wanted to explore the tragic consequences of "accepting rejection as legitimate, as self-evident." She follows a young black girl who wants, more than anything, blue eyes. Her prose is wondrous stuff. "Guileless and without vanity, we were still in love with ourselves then," Morrison wrote. "We felt comfortable in our skins, enjoyed the news that our senses released to us, admired our dirt, cultivated our scars, and could not comprehend this unworthiness. Jealousy we understood and thought natural — a desire to have what somebody else had; but envy was a strange, new feeling for us. And all the time we knew that Maureen Peal was not the Enemy and not worthy of such intense hatred. The Thing to fear was the Thing that made her beautiful, and not us." (SA)

Little Fires Everywhere (2017)

Shaker Heights native Celeste Ng stormed onto the literary scene in 2014 with her gripping novel Everything I Never Told You . And there was no sophomore slump. She followed it up in 2017 with Little Fires Everywhere , a critically acclaimed bestseller that takes place in the near-eastside suburb that Ng grew up in. Shaker Heights is a well-manicured suburb with strict regulations and standards and giant mansions and a great history. But it's also a suburb where there is a wide divide between the haves and have-nots, where race and class collide, and it's this territory and dichotomy that Ng mines. The story focuses on an artist and mother, Mia, and her daughter Pearl, who rent a house from the wealthy Richardson family. Some friends of the Richardsons are attempting to adopt a Chinese-American baby, and the fight over that adoption takes over the town, which ultimately leads to a compelling battle with lines being drawn that end up unearthing family dynamics and secrets of both sides. ( BZ )

The Buddhist Third Class Junkmail Oracle (1999)

In the weeks and months leading up to d.a. levy's suicide in 1968, the elegist of an earlier era of Cleveland would distribute copies of The Buddhist Third Class Junkmail Oracle, his underground newspaper, among artistic crowds and wayward wanderers. In his poems and criticism, levy called out the dysfunctional, often usurious relationship that the city has with its artists. Not much has changed since the late 1960s — certainly not in the power dynamics of local political structures. If anything, the artistic enclaves of Cleveland have moved on to bigger topics, addressing unease with broader capitalist systems and national trends (police violence, ICE raids, workers' rights). And yet levy's words remain a powerful reminder that even the voiceless can be heard in the midst of a complicated, self-righteous city. "Cleveland, I gave you / the poems that no one ever / wrote about you / and you gave me / NOTHING" (ES)

American Splendor (2003)

Harvey Pekar, with introduction by R. Crumb and art by Kevin Brown, Gregory Budgett, Sean Carroll, Sue Cavey, R. Crumb, Gary Dumm, Val Mayerik, and Gerry Shamray

It's Harvey-freaking-Pekar: Of course you should read it. ( VG )

* Loose Balls: The Short, Wild Life of the American Basketball Association (2007)

Terry Pluto

Before oral histories were even a thing, Terry Pluto cataloged the unbelievably funny, influential and short-lived American Basketball Association (1967-1976), an upstart league that challenged the NBA's dominance with flashy characters and flashy play, eventually forcing a merger. With interviews from dozens of former players — and players there were, with the ABA giving basketball fans Moses Malone and Dr. J, just to name two — Loose Balls delivers the history the league, and its many bizarre and important moments, deserved. From players chartering their own flights and showing up minutes before the game in mink coats to coaches showing up at halftime, from the introduction of the 3-point line to an emphasis on dunks and high-flying action, it documented a league that was barely covered at the time but whose fingerprints are all over the modern game, and it remains one of the best sports books ever written. (VG)

*Cleveland: Confused City on a Seesaw (1976)

Philip W. Porter

If you're interested in Cleveland's history, but sick of seeing all these scholarly accounts of the city, perhaps you'll be interested in Confused City on a Seesaw, Philip Porter's firsthand account of his experiences in the city during his 50-year career as a newspaperman. Ascending to the executive editor throne at the Plain Dealer, Porter had unique insight on both Cleveland's leadership class and the news media to which he belonged. In one chapter, he discusses at length one of the local media's most influential 20th century figures, Louis Seltzer, "Mr. Cleveland," editor of the Cleveland Press for 38 years. Overall, it's a brisk, readable eyewitness account. (SA)

The Dead Key (2014)

D.M. Pulley

At first glance one might expect D.M. Pulley's The Dead Key to be a vanity project destined for a future in the local highlights section of a Northeast Ohio bookstore or Cuyahoga County Library branch. In fact, a rediscovered safe deposit box key becomes the catalyst for a tense and well-paced novel that brings to life two different eras of Cleveland — the nadir of 1978 and the hopeful resurgence of the late 1990s. (Its bona fides also include winning the 2014 Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award.) The reader follows the exploits of two young women, two decades apart, as they investigate the hidden activities in a downtown bank, which of course are not entirely what they seem. Like most thrillers set in a specific place and time, overly pedantic readers will have their quibbles, but don't let that get in the way of an entertaining tale with plenty of satisfying inside references to Cleveland. ( JM )

* Ballots and Bullets (2018)

James Robenalt

Cleveland attorney James Robenalt's account of the 1968 Glenville riots examines the ways that urban guerilla warfare was advanced as a method for combating racism in America's cities. The book traces the local and national events that lead to the infamous Cleveland shootout that left 10 dead and more than 15 wounded. But it also describes the political aftermath, even to this day, noting that police brutality against black communities is still rampant and that the root causes of racism and poverty are often ignored in favor of politically expedient appeals for "law and order." Another solid read from the Stokes era. (SA)

The Greatest Thing Since Sliced Bread (1965, 2008)

Don Robertson

A road story set against one of the most devastating moments in Cleveland's history, Don Robertson's most beloved and well-regarded novel follows 9-year-old Morris Bird III as he sets out from his home on Edmunds Avenue off East 90th Street with his sister and wagon in tow to visit a friend across town. It is October 20, 1944, when gas leaked from an East Ohio Gas storage tank, seeped into the sewer system, and caught fire, exploding a good chunk of the east side. One hundred and thirty people died, 70 homes were destroyed, 600 were left homeless. Robertson's tale of adventure, friendship, loyalty and childlike awe brought comparisons to Tom Sawyer when it was first published in 1965. (It was later reissued in 2008.) Robertson, a native Clevelander and former Plain Dealer reporter, was regarded as a mid-selling author, and though some of his novels found homes in big publishing houses, he also struggled to find an audience at times. Stephen King, who has said Robertson is one of his favorite novelists of all time, published one of Robertson's last books on his imprint in 1987. (VG)

* Cleveland: The Making of a City (1950)

William Ganson Rose

In terms of granular, nitty-gritty histories, you can't do better than this book, published in 1950 by World Publishing. An invaluable historical diary of Cleveland and the Western Reserve, The Making of a City documents the region from the early days of the settlers to the industrial churn of post-WWII America. Rose, a lifelong Clevelander and former Plain Dealer editor, set about with a clear premise — how does a city form and grow? — and elucidated it with the people and events that made it happen. From the major movements and characters to the trivial — William Tax was the first person arrested in Cleveland, on May 21, 1836, after unlawfully firing his gun; after the Kelley brothers formed a winery on their Lake Erie island, Mark Twain remarked, "You can't fool me with Kelley Island wine; I can tell it from vinegar every time — by the label on the bottle" — Rose collects everything you'd ever want to know about early Cleveland. ( Lou Muenz; follow along with his reading of the book on Twitter @MOCCleveland. )

The Sparrow (1996)

Mary Doria Russell

Mary Doria Russell, of Lyndhurst, is one of Northeast Ohio's most important novelists. The Sparrow is her glittering debut from '96, and it remains a classic of speculative fiction. Weaving in the religious and existential questions that rack the minds and souls of so many seekers, the book follows Fr. Emilio Sandoz, whom St. Ignatius and John Carroll alums will be pleased to note is a Jesuit priest. Sandoz has returned from an outer space expedition physically and spiritually mutilated by a mysterious confrontation with an alien species. Russell wrote a sequel, Children of God (1999) , and has more recently written two historical novels on gunslinger Doc Holliday. But for those of us who encountered it in high school, The Sparrow will always hold a special place in our hearts. (SA)

The End (2008)

Salvatore Scibona

Set on a single day in 1953 in Elephant Park, Cleveland, an Italian immigrant community modeled after Murray Hill, Scibona's rhapsodic 2008 novel was all the rage in MFA circles in the late aughts. The Plain Dealer uttered Scibona's name in the same breath as such modernist giants as T.S. Eliot, William Faulkner, Virginia Woolf and Gertrude Stein! Esquire called it a mashup of Joan Didion and Alfred Hitchcock. Scibona faded from view until the publication of his second novel, The Volunteer, earlier this year, but The End remains a forceful, and at times ravishing, novel of immigration and family bonds. It should be more widely embraced by Cleveland readers. (SA)

Memoirs of an Ex Prom Queen (1972, 2019)

Alix Kates Shulman

Forty-five years after it was first published and became a best-seller, Alix Kates Shulman's Memoirs of an Ex Prom Queen was reissued this year by Picador, bringing the groundbreaking feminist novel to a whole new audience. Though The New York Times condescendingly dinged it upon its debut — "The publishers announce this angry little book as the first feminist novel" — it found a wide and eager audience thanks to its darkly comedic and fiercely honest portrayal of Sasha, a girl who, like the author, grows up in Cleveland in the 1940s and '50s, a time when things like abortions, date rape, gender roles, sexuality and vanity are both explicitly buried below the surface of everyday life and yet define it all. From dating to marriage to motherhood and divorce and beyond, from hope to crushing resignation and what comes after, it was a consciousness-raising flashbulb delivered to a mass audience in digestible fiction form that, some five decades later, remains a vital read. (VG)

The Changelings (1955, 1985)

Jo Sinclair

"The real ghetto, [Jo Sinclair] believed, was the 'ghetto of the spirit' into which large numbers of Americans were herded as children, when their inability to rationally explain such rejection left them with a bewildering sense of shame (and ever-present fear) that would inhibit their full flowering," the Cleveland Arts Prize notes of the author, its recipient in 1961 for the prize for literature. That, as critics and academics have eloquently addressed at further lengths since then, is at the heart of Sinclair's four novels, and for good reason. Jo Sinclair was the pseudonym used by Ruth Seid from the time of her first submitted and published piece for Esquire in 1938 — written while she was working at the WPA during the Great Depression — when entry into the world was easier for someone who could be male, and not Jewish, as opposed to the Cleveland middle-class Jewish lesbian that she was. Her first novel, Wasteland (1945), might be her best known, but The Changelings , first published in 1955 and reissued in 1985, is her most complete. Set in an Italian-American Cleveland neighborhood that's become more Jewish over time and has lately witnessed an influx of African-Americans, the book centers on two young female teens who battle back fiercely against the racism, anti-Semitism and "mob thinking" of their elders. The New York Times championed it for the "power with which the author reveals the impact of [racial] struggle on the new generation, whose survival lies in their power to love." Fifty years later, what Sinclair was talking about — of young generations challenging the ignorance inflicted upon them by the older generations around them, of acceptance and the erosion of racial, social and LGBT discrimination and hate — feels as relevant as when it was first published. (VG)

* Believing in Cleveland (2017)

Mark Souther

Nowhere are Cleveland's overzealous boosters more thoroughly taken to task than in the pages of Mark Souther's Believing in Cleveland, which became an instant classic when it was published in 2017, at least for Cleveland history nerds and the wisecracking dissidents of Twitter. Souther's premise is that decline and renaissance aren't necessarily sequential phenomena and that in Cleveland, the two often occur side by side. One of the most important aspects of Souther's first-of-its-kind research is that it exposed how local civic elites often promoted the city's comeback in public but expressed grave reservations among themselves. (SA)

* The Pitch That Killed: Carl Mays, Ray Chapman and the Pennant Race of 1920 (1989)

Mike Sowell

The name Ray Chapman provokes an automatic, Jeopardy-like response in any baseball fanatic: Who was the only Major League Baseball player to die as a result of injuries suffered on the field? The pitch from Carl Mays on August 16, 1920 that struck Chapman in the head and resulted in his death provides the catalyst for Mike Sowell's The Pitch that Killed: Carl Mays, Ray Chapman and the Pennant Race of 1920 . Sowell's book explores the psychological impact on all those affected by the pitch. Chapman's wife and teammates were obviously devastated, some to the point of suffering nervous breakdowns. Their heartache becomes all the more poignant as the Indians rebounded to win the World Series that year, the organization's first. Sowell's treatment of Carl Mays is the true achievement, though. He takes the reader through Mays' life and motivations, from a wild spitballer who killed an opponent to a baseball lifer who would eventually work for the Indians in his post-playing career. ( JM )

* Promises of Power (1973)

Carl B. Stokes

"For a brief time in Cleveland, I was the man in power." So writes Carl Stokes in his trenchant political autobiography published in the years after his single turbulent mayoral term. "I had what no black man in this country has had before: direct control of the government of a predominantly white population. That power came to me because I seized a situation that had made me seem like a savior to men who ordinarily look on blacks as an alien and vaguely dangerous force." (!!!) Reading histories of this pivotal era is crucial for understanding the city's current woes, but just as important is hearing the personal perspective of the man at the center of it. His anecdotes and barbs make for lively reading. (SA)

* Good Kids, Bad City: A Story of Race and Wrongful Conviction in America (2019)

Kyle Swenson

Expanding on an award-winning Scene investigation that helped exonerate three men wrongfully convicted of a 1975 murder in Cleveland, this book by former staff writer Kyle Swenson is a stunning narrative achievement. Delivering an incisive history of the city alongside a compelling and compassionate portrait of the lives of those three men, Good Kids, Bad City recounts the convictions and eventual exonerations some 40 years later in the framework of politics, race and criminal justice in Cleveland from the 1970s through today. (VG)

* The History of the Standard Oil Company (1904, 2018)

Ida Tarbell

Published serially in 19 installments in McClure's Magazine between 1902 and 1904, Ida Tarbell's flagship expose on one of America's most famous companies, Standard Oil (founded by John Rockefeller in Cleveland, Ohio), is an exemplar of muckraking journalism. Fortunately for local readers, the book was reissued last year by Belt Publishing as part of its "Revivals" series, with an introduction by Elizabeth Catte. Tarbell maintained an analytical rigor and distance in her work, even as she wrote with what Rockefeller's biographer Ron Chernow described as an "indignation that throbbed just below the surface." Her indignation, and her self-avowed "hatred of privilege" emerges from time to time, but her overall facts-first approach feels especially relevant now, as we recognize the value of journalism in its increasing absence and witness Standard Oil's monopolistic and predatory tendencies repurposed and optimized in the high-tech world. (SA)

* Legacy Cities: Continuity and Change amid Decline and Revival (2019)

Ed. by J. Rosie Tighe, Stephanie Ryberg-Webster

Rarely do we find a book centered on the struggles and opportunities of cities like Cleveland, written by not just one or two urban policy experts but an entire department of them. Tighe and Ryberg-Webster's edited volume grew out of a collaborative effort to highlight the uniqueness of Legacy Cities and resulted in a book that undoubtedly codifies much of the expertise within Cleveland State's Levin School of Urban Affairs. The book is divided into three sections: It describes components of Legacy Cities across the United States, then it outlines the history and current state of decline in the Cleveland region, and finally it offers clear strategies to mitigate decline and propel Cleveland toward resurgence. The book sets the groundwork for residents, public officials and business leaders to use policy levers to promote success and sustainability in the region. While other books have been written about the history and state of Cleveland, the value of this book is that it is an edited work. Individual chapters are both succinct and substantive on their own and even more powerful when combined into a single volume. Here's to hoping that local leaders take note of the book and recognize that much of its expertise is housed in a building only several blocks from their own. (HL)

The Space Between Us (2006)

Thrity Umrigar

In her second novel, longtime Case Western Reserve University professor, former journalist, and best-selling author Thrity Umrigar delivers a compelling and empathetic tale of class and family. Set in India, where Umrigar was born and lived until she was 21, The Space Between Us examines the relationship between Sera, a widowed Parsi housewife, and Bhima, the family's servant. In powerfully perceptive and subtle details that illuminate the character's inner lives — their individual traumas, their need for and pull toward each other, their shared experiences despite decisively different economic and social statuses — Umrigar spins a tender, heartbreaking story that unspools with a quietly arresting quality. (VG)

Cherry (2018)

Nico Walker

There have been few buzzier books in the past year than Cherry , the semi-autobiographical debut novel from Nico Walker written entirely behind bars while serving an 11-year sentence in federal prison for a string of bank robberies around Cleveland in late 2010 and early 2011. (The film rights were quickly snatched up for a princely sum by the Russo brothers shortly after publication.) Essentially a retelling of how he landed there, the novel spins the tale of a Cleveland boy who enlists and is shipped off to the Middle East, his struggle with undiagnosed PTSD upon his return, his descent into heroin addiction, and the bank robbery spree he subsequently engaged in to feed his habit. Whatever qualms one could point to — prose that seems, at times, an earnest, amateur impression of Henry Miller; an intensely misogynistic main character surrounded by shallowly developed female characters — Cherry is, from start to finish, a spare and unsparing portrait of the absolute horrors of war, both the unending ones fought overseas by America's young men and women and the opioid-strangled one at home. (VG)

The Broom of the System (1987)

David Foster Wallace

Wallace, who would later become famous for his 1,000-page opus Infinite Jest, and for his observant essays on American arts and culture — in particular, his commentary on the Midwest — penned his first zany novel as an undergrad at the University of Massachusetts and as a grad student at the University of Arizona. Like Infinite Jest, The Broom of the System features an enormous ensemble cast and explodes with the syntactical collision and formal diversity that are hallmarks of his work. For the purposes of this list, the story is set in Cleveland — a harebrained version, make no mistake — and the protagonist lives in the fictional suburb of East Corinth, "which determined the luxuriant and not unpopular shape of the Inner Belt section of I-271." One can almost watch in real time this post-modernist master discover the immensity of his talent. (SA)

Blackeyed (2014)

Cuyahoga County Public Library's 2019-2020 Writer in Residence, Mary Weems brings a prolific career with her when she reads. Known for her plays and poems, Weems' work ranges across socioeconomic strata and recontextualizes the stories we've told ourselves about how the world is changing (and how we can change it). She draws the heartbreak and the emotional rebuilding process out of front-page headlines and national narratives — namely, the foreclosure crisis and its ongoing-ness, which has been both a local and national backdrop to much of her writing. We'll point you to her 2014 book of plays and monologues, Blackeyed , in which she examines the textures of the black American experience in its abundant contemporary shapes. Weems' work is highly ekphrastic, and she invites the reader to sit awhile with her words and her invocations of different forms, different sounds. ( ES)

Crooked River Burning (2001)

Mark Winegardner

When it comes to quintessential Cleveland novels, no list would be complete without Mark Winegardner's 2001 epic, Crooked River Burning . Weaving a mix of fiction with mid-20th century Cleveland history, this epic, coming in at just under 600 pages, gets at the story of Cleveland from a macro sense. At the heart is a love story between an eastsider and a westsider bridging the city divide, but Winegardner also inserts legendary, real-life Clevelanders like Eliot Ness, Alan Freed and Carl Stokes into the mix, as well as notable east-side families that ran the city from behind the scenes in post-WWII Cleveland. Set against an era when Cleveland was changing by the day, the love story gets into the soul of the city, one which Winegardner clearly adored. ( BZ )

* Checkmate in Cleveland (1972)

Estelle Zannes

The subtitle of Dr. Zannes 1972 political book is The Rhetoric of Confrontation During the Stokes Years. This forensic account of the political strategies in the major mayoral campaigns of the late 1960s — with deep focus on Carl Stokes vs. Seth Taft in 1967 — provides the sort of play-by-play coverage you'd expect from detailed, objective news coverage at the time. It is perhaps too in the weeds for casual readers, but the account offers valuable insight on racial politics, particularly as it evolved in the context of the riots in Hough and Glenville, and how the business community coalesced around Stokes to, in their view, purchase security. Dr. Zannes, who was a professor of communications, was interested foremost in the rhetorical strategies of political campaigns, and asserted that both Stokes and Dennis Kucinich brought a "show-biz quality" to local politics. (SA) * * * Cuyahoga (2020)

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Karen Cleveland

New york times bestselling author.

Keep You Close

She knows her son isn’t perfect. but is he dangerous.

A woman must confront her sense of right and wrong when the one person she loves most is accused of an unimaginable crime. From the New York Times bestselling author of Need to Know …

Stephanie Maddox works her dream job policing power and exposing corruption within the FBI. Getting here has taken her nearly two decades of hard work, laser-focus, and personal sacrifices—the most important, she fears, being a close relationship with her teenage son, Zachary. A single parent, Steph’s missed a lot of school events, birthdays, and vacations with her boy—but the truth is, she would move heaven and earth for him, including protecting him from an explosive secret in her past. It just never occurred to her that Zachary would keep secrets of his own.

One day while straightening her son’s room, Steph is shaken to discover a gun hidden in his closet. A loaded gun. Then comes a knock at her front door—a colleague on the domestic terrorism squad, who utters three devastating words: “It’s about Zachary.”

So begins a compulsively readable thriller of deception and betrayal, as Stephanie fights to clear her son’s name, only to expose a shadowy conspiracy that threatens to destroy them both—and bring a country to its knees. Packed with shocking twists and intense family drama, Keep You Close is an electrifying exploration of the shattering consequences of the love that binds—and sometimes blinds—a mother and her child.

Praise for Keep You Close

“Propulsive . . . an adrenaline-fueled narrative that will leave readers wanting more . . . Equal parts conspiracy thriller and paranoia tale, Cleveland’s latest exploits the distance between parents and teenagers while exploring the lines a patriot will cross to protect kin.” — Publishers Weekly

“Cleveland excels at twisting her plots so tightly that the ‘big reveal’ in the end truly is a surprise.” — Kirkus Reviews

“Fast-paced . . . for fans of high-stakes political thrillers.” — Booklist

Beatles’ own words star in latest ‘All You Need is Love’ Fab Four book

Updated: Apr. 10, 2024, 6:37 a.m. |
Published: Apr. 10, 2024, 6:34 a.m.

"All You Need is Love: The Beatles in their Own Words," features transcripts of interviews authors Peter Brown and Steven Gaines did for their controversial 1983 book "The Love You Make: An Insider's Story of the Beatles." (Courtesy St. Martin's Press) St. Martin's Press

Gary Graff, special to cleveland.com

Back in 1983, former Apple Records executive Peter Brown and writer Steven Gaines shook the world with “The Love You Make: An Insider’s Story of the Beatles.”

It was the first frank and, as the title states, insider’s account of the Fab Four’s history -- including all the bumps and potholes on its long and winding road. Benefiting from Brown’s trusted access, the book revealed previously unspoken in-depth information about the inner-workings and personal lives of the band members and those around them, particularly manager Brian Epstein. It documented highs and lows, and the latter is, of course, what the world focused on, including juicy details such as John Lennon’s alleged same-sex encounter with Epstein during a vacation in Spain and about the circumstances that broke up the band.

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GROVER CLEVELAND, AGAIN!

A treasury of american presidents.

by Ken Burns ; illustrated by Gerald Kelley ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 12, 2016

A buoyant gallery, up to date, handsomely framed, and, in this particular election year, timely too.

Humanizing portraits of the 43 men who have served as president of the United States.

Burns stresses that even though all but one president has been both white and male, the diversity of their backgrounds, occupations, experiences, and characters amply proves that anyone (born in the U.S. and 35 or older) can rise to the office—despite even physical disabilities (FDR) or learning differences (Wilson, possibly the second Bush). Each president through Barack Obama gets a double-page spread (Grover Cleveland gets two: thus the title) illustrated with both a small official portrait and a looser, much larger view by Kelley of the incumbent at some pivotal or intimate moment. Other than a few significant omissions (Sally Hemings, most notably) or spins (Ford “never lost the respect of the American people”), the accompanying overviews and selected anecdotes present sunny but not entirely disingenuous views of each office holder. Often some balance is at least attempted even for egregious faults, by acknowledging Jackson’s racism but also his adoption of a Creek orphan, for instance, or countering scandal-plagued Harding’s habit of giving his “worst friends” government jobs by also mentioning his anti-lynching efforts. Side ribbons with dates, family members and histories, nicknames, and pets serve as continuing reminders that all had personal as well as public lives.

Pub Date: July 12, 2016

ISBN: 978-0-385-39209-9

Page Count: 96

Publisher: Knopf

Review Posted Online: June 21, 2016

Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2016

CHILDREN'S BIOGRAPHY & MEMOIR | CHILDREN'S HISTORY

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50 IMPRESSIVE KIDS AND THEIR AMAZING (AND TRUE!) STORIES

From the they did what series.

by Saundra Mitchell ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 10, 2016

A breezy, bustling bucketful of courageous acts and eye-popping feats.

Why should grown-ups get all the historical, scientific, athletic, cinematic, and artistic glory?

Choosing exemplars from both past and present, Mitchell includes but goes well beyond Alexander the Great, Anne Frank, and like usual suspects to introduce a host of lesser-known luminaries. These include Shapur II, who was formally crowned king of Persia before he was born, Indian dancer/professional architect Sheila Sri Prakash, transgender spokesperson Jazz Jennings, inventor Param Jaggi, and an international host of other teen or preteen activists and prodigies. The individual portraits range from one paragraph to several pages in length, and they are interspersed with group tributes to, for instance, the Nazi-resisting “Swingkinder,” the striking New York City newsboys, and the marchers of the Birmingham Children’s Crusade. Mitchell even offers would-be villains a role model in Elagabalus, “boy emperor of Rome,” though she notes that he, at least, came to an awful end: “Then, then! They dumped his remains in the Tiber River, to be nommed by fish for all eternity.” The entries are arranged in no evident order, and though the backmatter includes multiple booklists, a personality quiz, a glossary, and even a quick Braille primer (with Braille jokes to decode), there is no index. Still, for readers whose fires need lighting, there’s motivational kindling on nearly every page.

Pub Date: May 10, 2016

ISBN: 978-0-14-751813-2

Page Count: 320

Publisher: Puffin

Review Posted Online: Nov. 10, 2015

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2015

CHILDREN'S BIOGRAPHY & MEMOIR

SHIPWRECKED!

The true adventures of a japanese boy.

by Rhoda Blumberg ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 28, 2001

The life of Manjiro Nakahama, also known as John Mung, makes an amazing story: shipwrecked as a young fisherman for months on a remote island, rescued by an American whaler, he became the first Japanese resident of the US. Then, after further adventures at sea and in the California gold fields, he returned to Japan where his first-hand knowledge of America and its people earned him a central role in the modernization of his country after its centuries of peaceful isolation had ended. Expanding a passage from her Commodore Perry in the Land of the Shogun (1985, Newbery Honor), Blumberg not only delivers an absorbing tale of severe hardships and startling accomplishments, but also takes side excursions to give readers vivid pictures of life in mid-19th-century Japan, aboard a whaler, and amidst the California Gold Rush. The illustrations, a generous mix of contemporary photos and prints with Manjiro’s own simple, expressive drawings interspersed, are at least as revealing. Seeing a photo of Commodore Perry side by side with a Japanese artist’s painted portrait, or strange renditions of a New England town and a steam train, based solely on Manjiro’s verbal descriptions, not only captures the unique flavor of Japanese art, but points up just how high were the self-imposed barriers that separated Japan from the rest of the world. Once again, Blumberg shows her ability to combine high adventure with vivid historical detail to open a window onto the past. (source note) (Biography. 10-13)

Pub Date: Feb. 28, 2001

ISBN: 0-688-17484-1

Page Count: 80

Publisher: HarperCollins

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2000

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by Rhoda Blumberg

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New York and Hollywood Lore by Amor Towles (Martini Optional)

“Table for Two” is a collection of six stories and a novella set in two very different cultural capitals.

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The book cover for “Table for Two,” by Amor Towles, shows a black-and-white photograph of a formally dressed couple sitting at a table with drinks.

By Hamilton Cain

Hamilton Cain is a book critic and the author of “This Boy’s Faith: Notes From a Southern Baptist Upbringing.”

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TABLE FOR TWO: Fictions , by Amor Towles

Few literary stylists not named Ann Patchett attain best-sellerdom, but Amor Towles makes the cut. His three lauded novels — “Rules of Civility,” “A Gentleman in Moscow” and “The Lincoln Highway” — hung around on lists for months, if not years. But Towles’s commercial brio belies the care and craft he lavishes on each piece, evidenced now in “Table for Two,” a knockout collection of six stories and a longish novella.

The book spans the 20th century, bringing characters from a range of backgrounds into tableaus of deceit and desire. Beneath his coifed prose Towles is a master of the shiv, the bait and switch; we see the flash of light before the shock wave strikes, often in the final sentence.

“Table for Two” is a tale of two cities, New York and Los Angeles, cultural capitals on opposite ends of the continent but forever tracking the other’s trends and deals, a mutual voyeurism. Towles devotes the first section to New York, its wealthy and famous shuffling against strivers and innocents in La Guardia terminals, musty bookstores or immigrant communities.

“The Bootlegger” depicts a woman’s epiphany after a Carnegie Hall concert. In “The Line,” a naïve Communist builds a lucrative business that steers him to Manhattan, where con games lurk on every corner. In “The Ballad of Timothy Touchett,” an allegory of 1990s excess, a rare-books dealer with the Dickensian name of Pennybrook manipulates the sympathies of his young assistant, who forges autographs of eminent authors until he’s busted by one. “Hasta Luego” tells the unnerving story of an alcoholic snowbound in a Midtown bar on the cusp of the millennium; Towles can’t resist mentions of Motorola and Nokia flip phones, reminding us how far away the near past really is.

But the Oscar goes to “Eve in Hollywood,” a novella that unfolds during the filming of “Gone With the Wind.” Towles tricks out the Tinseltown lore in a homage to the heyday of studio moguls and the hard-boiled fiction of Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler, even alluding to actual legends like Errol Flynn’s use of two-way mirrors and peepholes.

Towles plucks a character from “Rules of Civility,” Evelyn Ross, who’d vanished on a Chicago-bound train, picking up her narrative as she’s traveling to California. In the dining car she meets Charlie, a retired L.A.P.D. officer who will later prove an asset. She checks into the Beverly Hills Hotel, where she befriends an eclectic crew: a portly, has-been actor; a chauffeur with stuntman aspirations; and the rising star Olivia de Havilland. Lithe and blond, sporting an upper-class air and a distinctive facial scar, Eve is fearless, equally at home among poolside cabanas and seedy clubs where the music’s loud and the booze flows.

“From across the room you could see that no one had a leash on her,” one petty crook observes. “With the narrowed eyes of a killer, she was sussing out the place, and she liked what she saw. She liked the band, the tempo, the tequila — the whole shebang. If Dehavvy was bandying about with the likes of this one, you wouldn’t have long to wait for the wrong place and the wrong time to have their tearful reunion.”

When nude photos of de Havilland go missing, part of a larger tabloid plot, Eve vows to save her friend’s reputation. She’s a femme fatale turned inside out, matching wits amid an array of villains, including a former cop with a double cross up his sleeve. Towles is clearly enjoying himself, nodding to noir classics such as “The Postman Always Rings Twice,” “Chinatown” and “L.A. Confidential.” The period details are nearly airtight, although I did notice tiny anachronisms about Elizabeth Taylor and the slang term “easy peasy.”

“Table for Two” delivers the kick of a martini served in the Polo Lounge — the cover art is a cropped image of a couple at a bar, dressed in black tie — but there’s more here than high gloss. Both coasts are ideal settings for morality plays about power, as Towles cunningly weaves in themes of exploitation, an allusion to Shelley’s “Ozymandias,” a bust of Julius Caesar glimpsed by Eve on the Ides of March. Whether we’re living in the era of late-stage capitalism is beside the point; money, Towles suggests, will simply mutate into another form, preying on the vulnerable. “When it moves, it moves quickly, without a sound, a second thought, or the slightest hint of consequence,” he writes. “Like the wind that spins a windmill, money comes out of nowhere, sets the machinery in motion, then disappears without a trace.” It’s on us to summon our better angels.

Sharp-edged satire deceptively wrapped like a box of Neuhaus chocolates, “Table for Two” is a winner.

TABLE FOR TWO : Fictions | By Amor Towles | Viking | 451 pp. | $32

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Book Review: NEED TO KNOW by Karen Cleveland

FTC Disclosure: I received a complimentary copy of this book from the publisher via Netgalley. All opinions are my own.

If you’re looking for a gripping thriller that will keep you on the edge of your seat, look no further than Karen Cleveland’s debut novel Need to Know . Not only it is an incredibly timely story with its focus on Russian operatives and sleeper cells in the U.S., but it’s also a well crafted one that takes us through one mother’s journey to see how far she will go to protect her family when she feels they are being threatened. And as if that isn’t enticing enough, I’ve read that Need to Know is also being made into a movie with Charlize Theron in the starring role so there’s that as well!

Need to Know follows the journey of Vivian Miller, a counter-intelligence analyst at the CIA. Incredibly skilled at what she does, Vivian has risen through the ranks and has landed a coveted job in the department that investigates all things Russia. When the novel opens, Vivian and her department have been looking for Russian sleeper cells in the U.S. and Vivian has developed an algorithm that can identify Russian operatives who handle the sleeper cells.

One morning, while remote accessing the computer of a suspected operative, Vivian locates a secret dossier containing information about deep-cover Russian agents who are currently living in the United States. What she finds makes her realize that, if true, most of her life has been a lie, and it threatens not only her job but also her husband and even her children. Vivian has taken a vow to defend the U.S. against all enemies, whether foreign or domestic, but now she finds herself in an impossible situation, one that could get her imprisoned and even charged with treason!

What will Vivian do? How far is she willing to go to protect her family? Is there anyone she can trust to help her or is she on her own?

This is another one of those stories where I feel like I’m going to be vague in what I say so as not to give away any spoilers. Because giving away any spoilers at all would ruin it, please bear with the vagueness.

In a book like this, I need a likeable main character that I can relate to and I liked Vivian right away. She’s smart, savvy, good at what she does, and she’s a great wife and a devoted mother to her four children as well. I found her job at the CIA fascinating and so I enjoyed following her as she accessed the operative’s computer and sifted through his files looking for useful information. That said, I think where I found her the most relatable was her reaction once she uncovers this threatening information and realizes her family could be in danger. As a mom, I completely related to her need to do whatever it took to make sure her children were safe. Even though I didn’t necessarily agree with what she did every step of the way, I understood that the information she found put her in a no-win situation. She was damned if she did, damned if she didn’t so the only course of action that made sense was to at least protect her children at all costs.

Need to Know is presented to the reader from Vivian’s point of view, which was probably my favorite part about the novel. Seeing the story unfold through her eyes and having a bird’s eye view of what’s going on in her head as each new detail unfolded and the threat to her family grew just made the story all the more engaging for me. Her thoughts and fears and her frantically trying to find a way to make everything in her life okay again are what really kept me turning the pages. Her desperation is palpable as is her growing paranoia as she doesn’t know who, if anyone in her life, she can trust. I found myself right there alongside her, questioning everything and everyone and wondering if she would ever be able to find a way out of the mess she was in.

I also think having the story told from Vivian’s point of view added to the suspense and the tension in the novel. As I mentioned, that’s what kept me turning the pages and unable to put the book down once I got started. The suspense builds throughout and keeps the pacing of the story quick. I was easily able to read the book in less than two days and even found myself getting ready for work with my Kindle on the bathroom counter trying to squeeze in a few more pages whenever I could. That’s impressive for any book in my opinion but is truly impressive for an author’s debut novel, which this is.

A final area that really impressed me with Need to Know was how well researched the CIA portion of the novel seemed to be. It felt like I really was watching the inner operations of a counter-intelligence department, and I realized that I basically was once I checked out the author’s bio and learned that she herself had actually worked as a CIA analyst for 8 years, 6 of that specifically in counterterrorism. Karen Cleveland is definitely writing from experience here and I appreciated the authenticity it brought to the story.

I don’t want to say much about this, but if you’re a fan of “Long Cons,” you’ll love this story. It takes the long con to a whole new level!

I did have one issue with the story and that was that I thought there was a little too much focus on the day-to-day family activities in Vivian’s life. I loved that she was a fierce mom who would do anything to keep her children safe, but I felt like I got a little bogged down a few times along the way while I was reading. I’m dying to know what’s going to happen next on the Russia front, but instead I’m sidetracked reading about one of the kids running a fever and needing to be picked up from daycare. As a parent I recognize that those kinds of things are part of life, but as a reader, I was just sitting there like “Hurry up and get back to the juicy stuff!”

Even if you don’t typically enjoy spy thrillers, I’d still highly recommend Need to Know. Even though there is a heavy spy thriller element with the focus on the CIA and the sleeper cells, the story is still basically a story about how far a woman will go to protect her family. That added layer is what really made this a phenomenal read for me, and as much as I enjoyed Need to Know , I look forward to reading more from Karen Cleveland. I’m hopeful that the way the novel ends has left the door open for a sequel because I would love to read more about Vivian.

GOODREADS SYNOPSIS: In pursuit of a Russian sleeper cell on American soil, a CIA analyst uncovers a dangerous secret that will test her loyalty to the agency—and to her family. What do you do when everything you trust might be a lie? Vivian Miller is a dedicated CIA counterintelligence analyst assigned to uncover the leaders of Russian sleeper cells in the United States. On track for a much-needed promotion, she’s developed a system for identifying Russian agents, seemingly normal people living in plain sight. After accessing the computer of a potential Russian operative, Vivian stumbles on a secret dossier of deep-cover agents within America’s borders. A few clicks later, everything that matters to her—her job, her husband, even her four children—are threatened. Vivian has vowed to defend her country against all enemies, foreign and domestic. But now she’s facing impossible choices. Torn between loyalty and betrayal, allegiance and treason, love and suspicion, who can she trust?

About Karen Cleveland

Karen Cleveland spent eight years as a CIA analyst, the last six in counterterrorism. She has master’s degrees from Trinity College Dublin, where she studied as a Fulbright Scholar, and from Harvard University. She lives in northern Virginia with her husband and two young kids.

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How did Ian Fleming create James Bond? He looked in the mirror.

A new biography, ‘ian fleming: the complete man,’ by nicholas shakespeare, recounts the storied life of the writer behind 007.

Some years ago, I gave a talk to the graduating seniors at a local school. Whatever I said that night — probably something about the importance of books and reading — has utterly vanished from my memory except for three words. During the question period, a young woman stood up and asked, “Mr. Dirda, what fictional character would you most like to be?” A number of possibilities flashed through my mind, and I almost said Jane Austen’s Mr. Darcy, because then I’d be married to Elizabeth Bennet. But instead, I put on my most sardonic smile and silkily whispered into the microphone, “Bond, James Bond.”

It’s hard to imagine that I might have answered “Secretan, James Secretan.” That was what Ian Fleming initially called his hero in the typescript of “Casino Royale,” first published in April 1953. Fortunately, just as Arthur Conan Doyle realized that Sherrinford Holmes wasn’t quite the right name for the greatest of all detectives, Fleming recognized that he needed something punchier than “Secretan” for the greatest of all secret agents.

According to Nicholas Shakespeare, in his huge, immensely detailed new biography, “ Ian Fleming: The Complete Man ,” there may have been two or three sources behind the final, seemingly inevitable choice. The 43-year-old Fleming, who was living two months of each year in Jamaica, regularly consulted “Birds of the West Indies,” by a Philadelphia ornithologist named James Bond. And back when he was working in British Naval Intelligence during World War II, one operation was saved from disaster by a heroic Rodney Bond. Somehow, though, I can’t imagine we’d be watching movies today about Rodney Bond.

One of the strengths — or, arguably, weaknesses — of Shakespeare’s 821-page biography is its length. If not exactly too much of a good thing, there’s always a little more than seems necessary. Take the long central section devoted to Fleming’s wartime intelligence work. While documentation is sketchy, since the relevant records were either destroyed or remain classified, Shakespeare deduces that Fleming was far more than the deskbound assistant to the head of Naval Intelligence and quite probably the department’s guiding mastermind. In these chapters, he describes in detail espionage strategies, meetings with American spymasters and botched operations — all of which may well be catnip to students of military history but will send other readers off for a cat nap. In any event, Fleming almost certainly based Bond on a composite of several agents and commandos he knew, as well as himself and his intrepid older brother, Peter Fleming, who is now remembered mainly for the classic travel book “Brazilian Adventure.”

Overall, though, “Ian Fleming: The Complete Man” is a dazzling, even dizzying achievement, despite that ludicrous-sounding subtitle. A “complete man,” Fleming believed, would resemble one of those swashbuckling Elizabethan all-rounders who were simultaneously poets, courtiers, lovers and soldiers. For Fleming, I think being a “complete man” remained largely aspirational. In his personal life, he was, by turns, a youthful rebel, a resentful mama’s boy, a modern-day Don Juan and a middle-aged melancholiac.

Consider his family background, tailor-made for psychological disaster. Grandfather Robert Fleming was Britain’s leading banker, one of the richest men in the world. After Ian’s father, Valentine, was killed during World War I, Winston Churchill, no less, wrote the obituary for the Times. From that point on, Val was held up to his four young sons as an unattainable ideal. His widow, Eve, would blackmail the boys into doing what she wanted by invoking their father’s spirit and example. As it happens, the eldest, Peter, excelled at everything effortlessly, from athletics to academics, was dubbed the “king” of Eton and was even regarded as a good bet to become a future prime minister. Born in 1908, Ian, the moody, insecure second son, dwelled in Peter’s shadow until the Bond novels reversed the relationship. The two youngest brothers happily entered the banking business but, like Scottish lairds, spent as much time as possible hunting and fishing on their highland estate.

Eve Fleming ruled Ian through her absolute control of the family purse strings. She even made him break up with the woman he wanted to marry by threatening to cut off his allowance. Mummy herself was extravagant in every way: A maid said that if it were raining, Eve would put on a new pair of shoes to walk to her waiting car and never wear them again. She never remarried, partly because her late husband’s will stipulated that she would then forfeit much of her enormous wealth. But this didn’t preclude an affair with the painter Augustus John, with whom she had a daughter, Ian’s half sister, Amaryllis.

As Ian grew up, he not only discovered an ability to charm women, he also used it. Again and again, Shakespeare notes his subject’s casual seductions, affairs with the girlfriends and wives of his friends, and, most disagreeably, a gigolo-like willingness to accept gifts and money from rich older women in his thrall — one gave him the equivalent of what would today be a quarter-million dollars to build his Jamaican compound, Goldeneye. While obviously whip smart and capable, Fleming nonetheless found nearly all his jobs, starting with a stint as a journalist for Reuters, through the interventions of fond women.

Yet, once hired, he would quickly win the almost paternal affection of his boss, whether Adm. John Godfrey of Naval Intelligence or Lord Kemsley, owner of the Sunday Times, who made him the paper’s foreign editor, with an exorbitant salary and two months of paid holiday each year. Fleming lived luxuriously even before the first Bond movies started to bring in the serious cash. While 007 might occasionally be an agent provocateur, his creator was always an agent-entrepreneur.

Again and again, Shakespeare’s biography reminds us of what a tight little island Britain could be for those of its privileged class. If you’ve read any of the books about the Brideshead generation , you’ll find many of the same people cropping up in Fleming’s life, including the critic Cyril Connolly, a former Eton classmate, and Evelyn Waugh, whose novels Fleming would like to have written more than his own. He even counted the multitalented showman Noel Coward as a confidant and once shared a wealthy girlfriend with Roald Dahl, to whom he gave the idea for a famous story, “Lamb to the Slaughter.”

Then there was the socialite Ann O’Neill (nee Charteris), whose Etonian husband was killed in World War II while she was having an intense affair with the newspaper magnate Esmond Rothermere, whom she eventually married. Soon thereafter, Ann broke Rothermere’s heart by sleeping with their friend Ian Fleming. Against the advice of almost everyone he knew, Ian married Ann in 1952, having kept his mind off the upcoming nuptials by writing “Casino Royale.” It took him just a month. A son was soon born, but the new Mrs. Fleming loved dinner parties and house guests, while her new husband was at his happiest snorkeling and playing golf. Neither was faithful to the other.

As with his excellent biography of the travel writer Bruce Chatwin, Shakespeare has produced one of those books you can happily live in for weeks. It will deservedly become the standard life of Ian Fleming, replacing a fine one by Andrew Lycett that appeared almost 30 years ago. Bond devotees, however, should be aware that there are no close analyses of the novels, and the only films discussed are the early ones with which Fleming was involved. But Shakespeare certainly recognizes that Bond’s creator, especially when young, behaved much like his hero toward women — in fact, much worse. He regularly comes across as a callous, sexist jerk, no matter how vehemently his friends, lovers and admirers testify to the man’s charisma, thoughtfulness and ability to light up a room. Not even Fleming’s book collecting — he focused on works that changed history — wholly improves his image: It seems to have been more for ostentation than for use. However, he did establish and underwrite Britain’s premier bibliophilic journal, the Book Collector, an act that pays many debts.

A far more likable, even mellow Fleming appears in his letters, edited by his nephew Fergus Fleming for the book “The Man With the Golden Typewriter” (2015). The creator of James Bond could be remarkably courteous in answering correspondents, even those who pointed out his factual errors or other slips. Didn’t he know that the perfume Vent Vert came from Balmain, not Dior, and that a Beretta is a lady’s gun rather than a proper weapon for a secret agent? The letters also make plain that the directors of the publisher Jonathan Cape despised the Bond books, regarding them as sadistic trash even though they ended up keeping the firm afloat.

Fleming died in 1964 at the relatively young age of 56 from cardiac disease, to which smoking 60 or more cigarettes a day doubtless contributed. Today, the real question is: Do the original James Bond thrillers stand up to rereading in the 21st century?

All too often, the only version of 007 most people are familiar with is the one created by Hollywood. Until the humorless, even unpleasant, albeit gripping Daniel Craig films, most of the Bond movies could be likened to commedia dell’arte, drawing on a set formula and softening the violence with cheeky quips, double entendres and even a weird campiness, as in the two films featuring Jaws, the assassin with steel teeth. The movies remain, above all, pure eye candy through their glamorous settings, expertly choreographed action sequences and one gorgeous “Bond girl” after another. Not that Bond himself isn’t the ultimate heartthrob. As I once heard a woman sigh, most men are boys, Sean Connery is a man.

Over the years, the movies have paid less and less attention to the Fleming thrillers from which they borrow their titles. In my experience, the original books — a dozen novels and two short-story collections — remain compulsive page-turners, while being grounded in their time, the Cold War era of the 1950s. Bond is nothing if not patriotic and deeply conservative. In “Casino Royale,” he maintains that “women were for recreation,” while in “Live and Let Die” the Black characters are largely stereotypes. Whether working for SMERSH or SPECTRE, Fleming’s villains invariably turn out to be “foreigners”: Even Sir Hugo Drax, from “Moonraker,” was born Hugo von der Drache.

Still, the best novels — “Casino Royale,” “From Russia, With Love,” “Dr. No,” “Moonraker” and “Goldfinger” — surmount any occasional drawbacks, energized as they are by elements from Fleming’s own life as well as by the speed and freshness of his prose. Who else could make a long chapter about a bridge game (in “Moonraker”) so riveting? Little wonder that poet Philip Larkin spoke of Fleming’s “mesmerizing readability.” What’s more, though the books emphasize action and violence, they don’t utterly shy away from elegance and lyricism, or even the occasional philosophical reflection:

“Mania, my dear Mister Bond, is as priceless as genius. Dissipation of energy, fragmentation of vision, loss of momentum, the lack of follow-through — these are the vices of the herd.” Doctor No sat slightly back in his chair. “I do not possess these vices. I am, as you correctly say, a maniac — a maniac, Mister Bond, with a mania for power. That” — the black holes glittered blankly at Bond through the contact lenses — “is the meaning of my life. That is why I am here. That is why you are here. That is why here exists.”

Those last three sentences, and particularly the last, demonstrate that when Ian Fleming is on point, nobody does it better.

Ian Fleming

The Complete Man

By Nicholas Shakespeare

Harper. 821 pp. $45

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59 books by Cleveland authors released in 2020
59 books by Cleveland authors released in 2020
59 books by Cleveland authors released in 2020
59 books by Cleveland authors released in 2020
59 books by Cleveland authors released in 2020
59 books by Cleveland authors released in 2020

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