To wrap up this year’s Great Michigan Read, the Michigan Humanities Council will host a grand finale event on Monday, June 25 in Traverse City. This finale will be held at the Dennos Museum Center and feature Arc of Justice author Kevin Boyle. This will be an amazing event, providing an opportunity to reflect on the conversations and discussions generated by the Great Michigan Read throughout Michigan.

Tickets are available for $35 and $100. More information is available at the Michigan Humanities Council. For immediate event updates, keep an eye out on the Council's Facebook page.

17F: the life of Ian Fleming by Donald McCormick

The dead witness: a connoisseur's collection of Victorian detective stories by edited by Michael Sims

The language of flowers [sound recording]: [a novel] by Vanessa Diffenbaugh

Love me to death: a novel of suspense by Allison Brennan

One was a soldier: a Clare Fergusson/Russ van Alstyne mystery by Julia Spencer-Fleming

Let there be Pebble: a middle-handicapper's year in America's garden of golf by Zachary Michael Jack

On Sunset Boulevard: the life and times of Billy Wilder by Ed Sikov

Sam Spiegel by Natasha Fraser Cavassoni

Stuntman!: my car-crashing, plane-jumping, bone-breaking, death-defying Hollywood life by Hal Needham

The Civil War 100: a ranking of the most influential people in the War Between the States by Robert Wooster

The 600th year celebration of the birth of Joan of Arc is being celebrated in 2012. Born in France in 1412, she is considered a national heroine and one of the country's patron saints. Nicknamed the "Maid of Orleans", she was a peasant girl who claimed divine guidance when leading the French army to several significant victories during the Hundred Year's War. Captured by the enemy, she was tried for heresy and burned at the stake when she was only 19. Twenty five years later the pope cleared her name and declared her a martyr. She was beatified in 1909 and canonized in 1920.

Joan of Arc: a Penguin life by Mary Gordon

Joan of Arc and the Hundred Years War by Deborah A. Fraioli

Joan of Arc: her story by Régine Pernoud, Marie- Véronique Clin

Join us in honoring the Legacy of Michigan's World War II heroes and Honor Flight Michigan who provided their trips of a lifetime. The family-friendly documentary will tug at your heart and make you swell with pride for our fathers and grandfathers, a generation of heroes. Please bring Dad or Grandpa along on Thursday, May 3 at 7:00 PM to watch this documentary, hear stories from the people who created the organization and the veterans who lived it.

Do you know anything about your family history?  For example, many families have  descendants that came to America through Ellis Island in New York. April 17 is "Ellis Island Family History Day." More immigrants were processed on this day in 1907, than any other day in history. The statue of liberty was the first glimpse of America for millions of immigrants. Ellis island has a unique and interesting history as America's immigration station with a lot of family history to offer.

Kevin Boyle, historian and author of Arc of Justice, will be appearing at Fox Hills' banquet center on Tuesday, May 29 at Noon for the 26th annual Friends of the Library Plymouth-Canton-Northville-Novi Book and Author Luncheon.

Reserve your seats, which are available using this request form, starting April 15.

April 15, 2012 marks the 100th anniversary of the sinking of the luxury liner RMS Titanic. The largest ship afloat in the world at the time — and widely believed to be "unsinkable" — the Titanic left Southampton, England on her maiden voyage to New York City on April 10. Four days later, the ship collided with an iceberg late in the evening of April 14, and sank in the Atlantic Ocean at approximately 2:20 in the morning of the 15th. The Titanic's passengers included some of the world's wealthiest people, including John Jacob Astor, Isidor Straus, Benjamin Guggenheim, and the 'Unsinkable' Molly Brown. Of these, only Brown survived. In all, 1,517 of the approximatley 2,200 people aboard were lost, mainly because the ship only carried enough lifeboats to accomodate a third of the passengers and crew. Although the wreck of the liner was discovered on the bottom of the sea in 1985, it is gradually disintegrating.

The daily you: how the new advertising industry is defining your identity and your worth by Joseph Turow

Deadly valentines: the story of Capone's henchman "Machine Gun" Jack McGurn and Louise Rolfe, his blonde alibi by Jeffrey Gusfield

God's jury: the Inquisition and the making of the modern world by Cullen Murphy

Somethin' else: the story of Blue Note Records and the birth of modern jazz by Ashley Kahn

Too big to know: rethinking knowledge now that the facts aren't the facts, experts are everywhere, and the smartest person in the room is the room by David Weinberger

The Great Michigan Read 2011-2012 is drawing to a close. This year's selection has inspired displays and discussions across the states in public libraries and schools. The author, Kevin Boyle, received his undergraduate degree from University of Detroit-Mercy and his doctorate from University of Michigan. He is presently teaching at Ohio State University. Arc of Justice won the National Book Award in 2004 and was named Michigan Notable Book in 2005.

Arc of justice: a saga of race, civil rights, and murder in the Jazz Age by Kevin Boyle — the story of a Detroit physician of African-American descent, his family, and trying to move up in the world. The consequences of purchasing a home in a Detroit, middle-class neighborhood in 1925 by Dr. Sweet were terrifying and not a shining moment in Detroit's history.