Bay Books

A little bookstore with a whole lot of literature. We're here to support your reading needs.

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Reading with… Kevin Alan Lamb

Kevin Alan Lamb is a hopeful romantic, author, and poet baptized by rock and roll. Known to many as 6’7 Kevin—a friendly giant with a big heart—he writes inspirational poetry and reflective prose that move like music: rooted in love, joy, positivity, and flow. A recent recipient of the Château d’Orquevaux Artists and Writers Residency in France, Lamb holds an MA in Communications and Leadership from Gonzaga and a BA in Communications and Philosophy from High Point University. A native of Michigan, Lamb is the author of My Sunshine, Ele Phan-Te, Love Vigilante, Love Is in the Details, Your Daily Guide to Shine, and The Dying Romantic. We are excited to welcome Kevin this April 3rd as part of our celebration of April is Poetry Month!

Author Interview

On your nightstand now: Finished within the last two weeks: I Never Had It Made: An Autobiography of Jackie Robinson; Dog Songs, Mary Oliver; Quietly Wild, Alix Klingenberg; bellyache, Brianna Pastor

Actively reading: Poems By Robert Frost; The Overstory, Richard Powers; You Were Always Growing, Charlotte Freeman 

Favorite book when you were a child: Child is a relative term. I remember loving Goosebumps when I was young, then Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance and A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius in high school.

Your top five authors: Billy Chapata, Atticus, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Emily Henry, Jack Kerouac

Book you’ve faked reading: None that I can remember. 

Book you’re an evangelist for: Into the Wild, Jon Krakauer

Book you’ve bought for the cover: None.

Book you hid from your parents: None. 

Book that changed your life: Into the Wild; Inward, Yung Pueblo; Flowers On the Moon, Billy Chapata; Clemente, David Maraniss 

Favorite line from a book: That’s like asking my favorite lyric from all music ever. 

Five books you’ll never part with: Books are magical because once when you read them, they’re always yours. I regard the proof copies of my own books as sacred. 

Book you most want to read again for the first time: I don’t really operate that way.

Do you have any bookstore rituals? Not yet. I tend to look at the local author sections, but that’s probably just self-serving. I could see myself reading and writing in those with comfy/cozy chairs and nooks. Most of my books have been written in coffee shops. My imprint is Caffeine, Dreams, & Love Publishing. I thrive on the vibes of spaces where I’m likely to observe and interact with dogs, children, and each unique variety of good humans. 

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Reading with Duke Lott

Duke Lott is a Michigan-based author, speaker, and podcast host. He hosts The Duke Lott Show and The Writer’s Block Podcast, and works as a Certified Crisis Prevention Instructor and Diversity Lifestyle Coach. A 2024 Rosalie Petruske Poetry Award recipient, his writing explores race, relationships, and the truths people hesitate to say. His books include 100 Lessons for a Successful Interracial Relationship, Never What We Wanna Say, London Visits London, and The Boardman Watches.

Author Interview:

On Your Nightstand Now

90+ How I Got There
By W. Gifford-Jones, MD

Favorite Book When You Were a Child

The Bible
and
Tales, Poems, Essays
By Edgar Allan Poe

Your Top Five Authors

James Baldwin
F. Scott Fitzgerald
Ernest Hemingway
Ellis Peters
Angela Flournoy

Book You’ve Faked Reading

The Joy of Work
By Scott Adams

Book You’re an Evangelist For

Fasting Made Easy
By Don Colbert, MD

Book You’ve Bought for the Cover

Martyr!
By Kaveh Akbar
(By the way, one of the best books ever.)

Book You Hid From Your Parents

The Book
By Alan Watts

Book That Changed Your Life

Success Through a Positive Mental Attitude
By Napoleon Hill & W. Clement Stone

Favorite Line From a Book

“I am a sign. I am your future. I am James.”
— Percival Everett

So simple. So powerful.

Five Books You’ll Never Part With

The Adventures of Tom Sawyer — Mark Twain
The Spiritual Man — Watchman Nee
Andy Warhol’s Art and Films — Patrick S. Smith
The Way to Wealth — Benjamin Franklin
Profiles in Courage — John F. Kennedy

Book You Most Want to Read Again for the First Time

On Becoming a Novelist
By John Gardner

Do You Have Any Bookstore Rituals?

Meditation and praying for five minutes.
To feel the moment and be thankful.

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Reading with… Ann Goethals

Ann Goethals is a retired high school English teacher who retired in 2020 and has since focused her energies on her own writing. She divides her time between Northern Michigan and Chicago and “The Doublewide,” is her first novel, published by Mission Point Press (2025). She has a sequel, “Sheltering in Place,” tentatively set for 2026 publication.

Author Interview

Bay Books Author Questions

On your nightstand now:

The Entire Sky: Joe Wilkins. A brilliant example of how characters, unflinchingly drawn, and setting, tightly written, make a masterpiece

Favorite book when you were a child:

Hands Down: Charlotte’s Web. Garth Williams filled my anxious little mind with pictures of a world that made sense and promised joy.

Your top five authors: Morrison, Steinbeck, Keegan, Erdrich, Kingsolver

Book you’ve faked reading: anything by Cormac McCarthy

Book you’re an evangelist for: too many to count: today? Jess Walters’ So Far Gone.
I was a high school English teacher and I mourn the passing of certain canonical works that have become politically incorrect: The Grapes of Wrath; The Fire Next Time; The Catcher in the Rye; anything by Toni Morrison.

Book you’ve bought for the cover: mine (j/k)

Book you hid from your parents: none

Book that changed your life: Alice Walker’s The Color Purple

Favorite line from a book: Sixo from Beloved “She is a friend of my mind. She gather me, man. The pieces I am, she gather them and give them back to me in all the right order.”

The Things They Carried. “You can tell a true war story if it embarrasses you. If you don’t care for obscenity, you don’t care for the truth; if you don’t care for the truth, watch how you vote. Send guys to war, they come home talking dirty.”

Five books you’ll never part with: The Grapes of Wrath; Beloved; The Things They Carried; Shelter Me (Juliette Fay; I read it once a year); The Great Gatsby; Charlotte’s Web (my mother bought the first edition)

Do you have any bookstore rituals? I browse the tables as quickly as I can and move to the shelves. I want to see the books that the publishers aren’t paying a front row seat for. I try to talk with an employee; see what they’re reading.

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Reading with Robert Downes

Author Robert Downes has been a respected journalist and historian for over 30 years. He writes books of travel and adventure and lives the life he writes about. He has backpacked through more than 70 countries and Bay Books is proud to carry his books. You can find his most recent one “Raw Deal” next to his other best selling books “Windigo Moon”, “The Wolf and the Willow”, and “Biking Northern Michigan”. The author of seven books, many of which were written on the move around the globe, calls Traverse City his home base. You can also catch his one-man, multi-media show, “Stories and Songs – An Evening with Author Robert Downes” at the Traverse City Opera House on November 20.

Author Interview

On your nightstand now: “Arabia Felix” by Thorkild Hansen about a disastrous Danish expedition to Yemen in 1761. Out of six scientists who set out from Copenhagen only one survived. A gripping tale filled with intrigue and exotic scenes. Having also visited Turkey, Egypt and Mount Sinai in the Sinai desert this book is of personal interest to me.
 
Favorite book when you were a child: All of the Tarzan books; also the Tom Swift and Hardy Boys series.
 
Your top five authors: Bernard Cornwell (the Richard Sharpe novels) T. Coraghessen Boyle (Drop City and The Tortilla Curtain), C. J. Box (modern Western mysteries) Gregory David Roberts (Shantaram), David Grann (Lost City of Z & The Wager).
 
Book you’ve faked reading: Ulysses by James Joyce. Made it a few pages in before giving up. Finnegan’s Wake is even worse – unreadable.
  Also: War and Peace by Tolstoy – a mish-mash of societal intrigue, theological clap-trap and some fine military writing, but a tough read overall. 
 
Book you’re an evangelist for: The Good Earth by Pearl S. Buck, detailing the circle of fate and family among Chinese peasants leading up revolutionary times.
 
Book you’ve bought for the cover: Bearskin by James A. McLaughlin, an excellent thriller about a man hiding out from a Mexican cartel in a nature preserve that’s beset by a bear poacher.
 
Book you hid from your parents: None – my parents were avid readers and we visited the public library in Grand Rapids at least once a week. They let me do just about anything, bookwise and otherwise. For example, they let me hitch-hike from Detroit to California and back when I was 17. As an aside, I was outraged when a teacher confiscated my book of Mad Magazine Outtakes in the sixth grade.
 
Book that changed your life: The Lord of the Rings taught me the power of friendship. The entire trilogy is a treatise on the value of friendship and people who are willing to die for one-another.  A case in point – the elvin Arwin is willing to forsake eternal life in order to marry her love, the mortal Aragon. 
 
Favorite line from a book: Several from my own books!

  – “Stay down ye cocky rooster, ye don’ know what they can do!” – Croen of Cork in The Wolf and The Willow just before Arab boy Akmed loses a hand to the pirates.
  – “All weapons are cursed,” Lone Dog in The Wolf and The Willow.
 – “Yes, young brother, there is something you can do for me.” Ashagi to a handsome young man in the forest after she learns her husband Misko has cheated on her.
  – “About thirty seconds from now you’re going to be biking with Jesus.” – the serial killer Peter Boeker to Jake in Bicycle Hobo.
 
Five books you’ll never part with: I have a collection of more than 100 books of Native history, anthropology and European explorers that inform my writing that I could never give up. Otherwise: Shantaram, the Aubrey-Maturin seafaring novels, the Bible, The Good Earth and The Illustrated Odyssey.
 
Book you most want to read again for the first time: The Good Earth by Pearl S. Buck.

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Reading with Bryan Gruley

Bryan Gruley is the author of the thriller BITTERFROST, which tells the story of Jimmy Baker, the Zamboni driver in the fictional northern Michigan town of Bitterfrost, who is accused of a brutal double murder. Gruley is a lifelong journalist who shared in The Wall Street Journal’s Pulitzer Prize for coverage of the 9/11 terrorist attacks. He has written six award-winning novels, including the Starvation Lake trilogy set in northern lower Michigan and of course, you can find his books at Bay Books in Suttons Bay! He lives in Traverse City with his wife, Pam, and loves ice hockey and golf. We’re so pleased to welcome him to the National Writers Series on September 5th, at the Alluvion. Get your tickets for this amazing event.

Author Interview

On your nightstand now:
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night, by Mark Haddon
Dunes Review, winter 2025 (including a short story I wrote, “The Gators of Northern Michigan.”
Where All Things Flatten, short stories by fellow northern Michigan writer John Mauk.

Favorite book when you were a child:
Just about any Hardy Boys mystery.

Your top five authors:
Tough question, as I tend to bounce among many authors. But what the heck:
Flannery O’Connor.
J.D. Salinger.
Dennis Lehane.
Jonathan Eig.

Book you’ve faked reading:
A few books I’ve agreed to write blurbs for.

Book you’re an evangelist for:
The Art of Fielding, by Chad Harbach.
Can’t and Won’t, by Lydia Davis.
Small Town Sins, by Ken Jawarowski.

Book you’ve bought for the cover:
Any Green Lantern comic book, when I was a kid.

Book you hid from your parents:
Can’t think of any, although I did sneak to see The Exorcist after my mother forbade me.

Book that changed your life:
The Catcher in the Rye, by J.D. Salinger.
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Next, by Ken Kesey.

Favorite line from a book:
“For poise, I picked up a stone and threw it at a tree.” From “The Laughing Man” in Salinger’s short story collection, Niine Stories.

Five books you’ll never part with:
Nine Stories, by Salinger.
Luckiest Man, by Jonathan Eig.
My last copy of Paper Losses, a non-fiction book by yours truly.

Book you most want to read again for the first time:
A Confederacy of Dunces, by John Kennedy Toole.

Do you have any bookstore rituals?
I always check the mystery-thriller aisle to see if the store carries any of my books.

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Reading with Tanya Anne Crosby

On your nightstand now: I am mostly reading audiobooks at the moment, so nearly every book I have is on my nightstand!However, I also keep a wellness journal there, and I write it in morning and night.This is a good time to remind people you can support your favorite local bookstore by buying audiobooks through https://libro.fm 

Favorite book when you were a child: Can I choose a children’s book I loved as an adult? It’s crazy, but beyond all the “Dick & Jane” books, and “Nancy Drew,” I don’t remember a childhood favorite. However, I have a clear winner as an adult—and as a mom reading to my kids. “The Lorax” by Dr. Seuss holds a special place in my heart.

Oh, and I also love “And to Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street” – another Seussian treasure.

Your top five authors: Yikes, so hard! Living or dead? I have SO MANY faves! I have many dear friends who are also authors, so I try to stay away from this question generally. These days, I’m reading a lot of fantasy, both YA and adult. However, I adore Emily Brontë, Daphne du Maurier, Juliet Marillier, Joyce Maynard, and Barbara W. Tuchman.

And… I love Pamela Morsi and Judith McNaught. I am so fortunate that Pamela was my dearest friend in life. How lucky was I to know her?

Book you’ve faked reading: Les Misérables by Victor Hugo –though, actually not faked. I just never correct people when they assume I’ve read it. If you ask me straight out, I won’t lie!

Book you’re an evangelist for: Simple Jess by Pamela Morsi. 

Book you’ve bought for the cover: Most recent: The Wren in the Holly Library by K.A. Linde, Ink Blood Sister Scribe by Emma Törzs, Anathema by Keri Lake, Spark of the Everflame by Penn Cole, and Morrighan by Mary E. Pearson

Book you hid from your parents: Strangely, the Bible (which I’ve read three times), because as a Spanish Catholic, my mother wasn’t familiar with the King James Bible.

Book that changed your life: Two of them:Conversations With God by Neale Donald Walsch and Please Understand Me by David Keirsey

Favorite line from a book: “You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view… Until you climb into his skin and walk around in it.” –Atticus Finch

Read Tanya’s Series: The Golden Child Prophecy

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Reading With… Nancy Houser-Bluhm

About Nancy Houser-Bluhm

Nancy Houser-Bluhm, born in Michigan and returning after living in Colorado for several years, has changed from years of rock climbing and skiing to biking, skiing, yoga-ing, breathing in nature and daily doses of writing with a variety of groups. Her most recent novel is The Nickel Loop, released July 22nd, 2024. 

She retired as a worker bee following a career in Speech-Language Pathology and having once been described as a ‘thinker’,  Nancy strives to leave readers with something to ponder and she is committed to sliding environmental issues into her engaging fictional writing.

The Nickel Loop, a time travel romance that takes place in the 1930s.

The main character, Emmeline, steps from a train in a small Colorado town into the year 1938 only to meet a man who has traveled forward from 1898. As they struggle to make sense of it all, love seems to spark, but can it endure?

Join us at Bay Books on April 22nd at 5:00 for a live interview, a time for questions and answers, and book signing of “A Nickel Loop” by Nancy Houser-Bluhm.

Bay Books Author Questions

On your nightstand now: Legacy by Shannon Falken, The Seasons of Henry’s Farm A year of food and life on a sustainable farm, A Year in Balance, Happy Place, Bended Love-Kat Caldwell

Favorite book when you were a child: Little House on the Prairie books but even more so Half Magic a YA time travel series.

Your top five authors: I don’t have many ‘favorite authors’. I rarely read more than a couple by the same author. Just not a series girl. Authors I have sought out a 2nd book because of the first?…
Peter Heller, Daniel Quinn, Carolyn Myss, Kat Caldwell, Mitch Albom

Book you’ve faked reading: American Gods. (No judgement, I’m an anomaly)

Book you’re an evangelist for: The Mists of Avalon; first real fan fiction that rewrote the Arthurian legend making women the good ‘guys’.

Book you’ve bought for the cover: A Dog’s Purpose – A Novel for Humans

Book you hid from your parents: When I say No, I Feel Guilty

Book that changed your life: Ishmael by Daniel Quinn

Favorite line from a book: “The kind of long, slow kiss reserved for beautiful beginnings for two hearts ready to get back up and try again.” (The Uncharted Flight of Olivia West)

Five books you’ll never part with: Tao of Pooh, Ishmael, The Celestine Prophecy, The Mists of Avalon, The Big Leap

Book you most want to read again for the first time: Timeline- Loved the entire book; sad the movie didn’t measure up.

What are your bookstore rituals? Enter, delight in the calm, scan, look at the gifts and cards. Wander sections such as local author, historical fiction, romance. Buy something-could be a book, a card, a journal.

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