If you are a regular reader of this column, you know there is a bounty of homegrown writers in the Rochester area. Not only do our authors have a variety of backgrounds and interests, but they also write about a range of topics. You can support our authors by buying their books or requesting and checking them out from your local library.
Backyard Birding and Butterfly Gardening
By Randi Minetor & Nic Minetor
Lyons Press, 2022, paperback, $26.95
Flowers bloom. Plants flourish. Insects pollinate. Birds and butterflies abound! If you want to make your property into a blooming paradise for your local flying species—or just to know the names of the birds who already eat from your feeders—this book will help you out. Full color photographs and manageable tips seal the deal on this reference guide.
While it may seem odd to feature a garden book in a fall/winter issue, this book is just one sample of the breadth of work Minetor writes. (Besides, who doesn’t want a reminder of spring right now?) Also check out her engrossing and grisly “Death in the Parks” series and informative travel and hiking books. Plus, this book has stellar photographs—that is where Nic comes into the picture.
Randi and Nic Minetor are regular travelers who have co-created the content for more than thirty books. Randi on her own has written more than ninety books! Randi is the president of the Rochester Birding Association, with an “encyclopedic knowledge” of America’s national parks, while Nic is the lighting designer for the Eastman Opera Theatre and Memorial Art Gallery. Learn more about them at minetor.com, and read more about Randi Minetor in the July/August 2024 issue of (585).
Community: The Awakening
By Nicole Meredith
Golden Star, 2023, paperback, $16.99
The Community, created to protect the last humans on an otherwise uninhabitable Earth, houses 20,000 people underground, safely continuing the population under the control of the governor and his advisors. When Seren learns that her mother is pregnant, a crime against population control for which she can be killed, Seren’s view of her home and government turns. With nothing else to believe in, she finds herself in the middle of a deadly rebellion.
This book is pitched as for fans of The Hunger Games, and it delivers on a local scale. The writing is great, the story is fluid, and the tension runs high. Readers will grab the sequel, Community: The Reckoning, published in June.
Nicole Meredith spent most of her childhood performing in local theaters. While attending Webster Thomas High School, she had two perfect jobs: the “Big Head Character” mascot for Strong Museum and a bookseller at Barnes & Noble. She wrote some of Community in Java’s in Rochester “with an Aztec Mocha in one hand and a huge cookie in the other.” Meredith attended Villanova University and now lives in Denver, Colorado, though she hopes to one day return to the Flower City. @nicolemeredithauthor
The Book of Losman
By K. E. Semmel
Santa Fe Writer’s Project, 2024, paperback, $15.95
Daniel Losman is a single American dad living in Copenhagen. Though he yearns to write his own novel, he translates others’ works while living with Tourette syndrome and fearing his son will inherit it. When he sees a flyer for a drug trial that may help him get to the root of his Tourette’s, he signs up. But the effect of the medication is more than he bargained for.
The view of Denmark through an American ex-pat offers a cool point-of-view, as does the insight into his translation work. Losman comes across as depressed as he struggles with his tics and failed relationship, though his love for his son is genuine. The plot soars through Losman’s perilous decisions and ends with some hope and spirit. A unique and refreshing read.
Like his protagonist, K. E. Semmel is also a writer and translator who fell for a Danish woman and spent time in Denmark. His childhood reading skills developed as he pored over the Democrat & Chronicle sports pages (go Cardinals!), and his favorite thing to do now is watch his son play baseball and grow. Semmel has published work in Lithub, The Washington Post, and other journals, and currently works as the communications manager of the Western New York Land Conservancy. See what’s next in the pipeline for Semmel: kesemmel.com.
The Rosewood Hunt
By Mackenzie Reed
HarperTeen, 2023, hardcover, $19.99
After Lily’s father dies and her mother leaves for parts unknown, Lily moves in with her wealthy grandmother. Despite her grief, Lily is poised and ready to take over Gram’s family fashion business. But when Gram dies and leaves behinds clues to her fortune, Lily must work with three seemingly random teens to find the truth about her family.
Fans of twisty mystery adventures will enjoy this novel. The clues, chases, friends, family, and foes keep the pages turning. This book is cast as a standalone and has a solid ending, but some remaining questions may never be answered. Good thing Reed’s next young adult mystery, The Wilde Trials, comes out in January 2025.
Mackenzie Reed has a deep love for her mom’s cannolis, Hungry’s plates, and Melo’s strawberry burrata toast. When she’s not noshing on her favorite foods—or sometimes while she is—she can be found writing or rereading Holly Black’s Folk of the Air series. See what else this Charlotte pier-walker, former (585) editorial intern, and Nazareth University graduate is up to at: mackenziemreed.com.
Tourists and Trade: Roadside Craftsmen and the Highway Transforming Craft
By Bruce A. Austin
SUNY Press, 2023, paperback, $32.95
In the 1920s, the popularity of the automobile brought a new form of business to Western New York: the roadside shop. These stores offered unique and utilitarian pieces, sometimes showcasing the craftsmen themselves at work. Due to their locations on Routes 5 and 20, the businesses survived for decades during a period when money was scarce and years before I-90 was built.
This thoroughly researched history book will appeal to collectors of Arts & Crafts style wares and local history buffs. Black-and-white photos and copious end notes complete the full picture. Interested readers may also enjoy the author’s A Symbiotic Partnership: Marrying Commerce to Education at Gustav Stickley’s 1903 Arts & Crafts Exhibitions (RIT Press, 2022), which is a photography-heavy look at furniture. RIT communications professor Bruce A. Austin has been writing about, appraising, and dealing in arts and antiques for forty years. He also knows an inordinate amount about movie theater audiences, from Hollywood blockbusters to cult films (“Let’s do the time warp again!”). Austin is currently researching the location of the missing ceramic Rochester skyline drinking fountain that was originally installed in the New York Central Railroad downtown station. It is hoped his next book will let us know if he’s found it. rit.edu/directory/baagll-bruce-austin
This article originally appeared in the November/December 2024 issue of (585).
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