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Reading order

Great Lakes Books in Order

This page lists the complete Great Lakes reading order by William Greenleaf, with book numbers, publication years, and a publication-order view for readers who want to start at the beginning.

Updated 2026-06-22 / 78 books / 1958-2020

Great Lakes Reading Order

01 Independent Man: The Life of Senator James Couzens(By: Harry Barnard,David L. Lewis) 1958 Buy
02 The Detroit Riot of 1967(By: Hubert G. Locke) 1969 Buy
03 Detroit: City of Race and Class Violence(By: B.J. Widick,Horace L. Sheffield Jr.) 1972 Buy
04 Waiting for the Morning Train(By: Bruce Catton,William B. Catton) 1972 Buy
05 Call It North Country(By: John Bartlow Martin) 1986 Buy
06 Danny and the Boys: Being Some Legends of Hungry Hollow(By: Robert Traver) 1987 Buy
07 Michigan Voices: Our State’s History in the Words of the People Who Lived It(By: Joe Grimm) 1987 Buy
08 Seasons of Grace: A History of the Catholic Archdiocese of Detroit(By: Leslie Woodcock Tentler,Edmund Cardinal Szoka) 1990 Buy
09 Cobb Would Have Caught It: The Golden Age of Baseball in Detroit(By: Richard Bak) 1991 Buy
10 John Jacob Astor: Business and Finance in the Early Republic(By: John D. Haeger) 1991 Buy
11 Queen of the Lakes(By: Mark L. Thompson) 1994 Buy
12 Turkey Stearnes and the Detroit Stars: The Negro Leagues in Detroit, 1919-1933(By: Richard Bak) 1994 Buy
13 The Northern Lights: Lighthouses of the Upper Great Lakes(By: Charles K. Hyde,Ann Mahan,John Mahan) 1994 Buy
14 Redevelopment and Race: Planning a Finer City in Postwar Detroit(By: June Manning Thomas) 1997 Buy
15 The Long Winter Ends(By: Newton G. Thomas,William Mulligan) 1998 Buy
16 All-American Anarchist: Joseph A. Labadie and the Labor Movement(By: Carlotta R. Anderson) 1998 Buy
17 Toast of the Town: The Life and Times of Sunnie Wilson(By: Sunnie Wilson,John Cohassey) 1998 Buy
18 Father Abraham's Children: Michigan Episodes in the Civil War(By: Frank B. Woodford,Arthur M. Woodford) 1998 Buy
19 Huron: The Seasons of a Great Lake(By: Napier Shelton) 1999 Buy
20 A Sailor's Logbook: A Season Aboard Great Lakes Freighters(By: Mark L. Thompson) 1999 Buy
21 "Expanding the Frontiers of Civil Rights": Michigan, 1948-1968(By: Sidney Fine) 2000 Buy
22 Graveyard of the Lakes(By: Mark L. Thompson) 2000 Buy
23 Great Lakes Journey: A New Look at America's Freshwater Coast(By: William Ashworth) 2000 Buy
24 History of the Finns in Michigan(By: Armas K.E. Holmio,Ellen M. Ryynanen) 2001 Buy
25 Uppermost Canada: The Western District and the Detroit Frontier, 1800-1850(By: R. Alan Douglas) 2002 Buy
26 Windjammers: Songs of the Great Lakes Sailors(By: Joe Grimm,Ivan Walton) 2002 Buy
27 Michigan's Early Military Forces: A Roster and History of Troops Activated Prior to the American Civil War(By: Leroy Barnett) 2003 Buy
28 Riding the Roller Coaster: A History of the Chrysler Corporation(By: Charles K. Hyde) 2003 Buy
29 The French Canadians of Michigan: Their Contribution to the Development of the Saginaw Valley and the Keweenaw Peninsula, 1840-1914(By: Jean Lamarre) 2003 Buy
30 Beyond the Windswept Dunes: The Story of Maritime Michigan(By: Elizabeth B. Sherman) 2003 Buy
31 A Hanging in Detroit: Stephen Gifford Simmons and the Last Execution under Michigan Law(By: David Gardner Chardavoyne) 2003 Buy
32 Roy D. Chapin: The Man Behind the Hudson Motor Car Company(By: Charles K. Hyde,J.C. Long) 2003 Buy
33 Angels in the Architecture: A Photographic Elegy to an American Asylum(By: Heidi Johnson) 2004 Buy
34 Pulling Down the Barn: Memories of a Rural Childhood(By: Anne-Marie Oomen) 2004 Buy
35 To Keep the South Manitou Light(By: Anna Egan Smucker) 2004 Buy
36 "I Hope to Do My Country Service" : The Civil War Letters of John Bennitt, M.D., Surgeon, 19th Michigan Infantry(By: Robert Beasecker,William M. Anderson) 2005 Buy
37 The Dodge Brothers: The Men, the Motor Cars, and the Legacy(By: Charles K. Hyde) 2005 Buy
38 Songquest: The Journals of Great Lakes Folklorist Ivan H. Walton(By: Joe Grimm,Ivan H. Walton) 2005 Buy
39 Under Michigan: The Story of Michigan's Rocks and Fossils(By: Charles Ferguson Barker) 2005 Buy
40 My Forty Years With Ford(By: John Kenneth Galbraith) 2006 Buy
41 House of Fields: Memories of a Rural Education(By: Anne-Marie Oomen) 2006 Buy
42 A Pocketful of Passage(By: Loraine Campbell) 2007 Buy
43 Detroit on Stage: The Players Club, 1910-2005(By: Marijean Levering) 2007 Buy
44 A Badger Boy in Blue: The Letters of Chauncey H. Cooke(By: William H. Mulligan Jr.) 2007 Buy
45 Life with Mae: A Detroit Family Memoir(By: Neal Shine) 2007 Buy
46 When You Come Home: A Wartime Courtship in Letters 1941-45(By: Neal Shine,Robert E. Quirk) 2007 Buy
47 Who's Jim Hines?(By: Jean Alicia Elster) 2008 Buy
48 Storied Independent Automakers: Nash, Hudson, and American Motors(By: Charles K. Hyde) 2009 Buy
49 Maxwell Motor and the Making of the Chrysler Corporation(By: Anthony J. Yanik) 2009 Buy
50 The Color of Law: Ernie Goodman, Detroit, and the Struggle for Labor and Civil Rights(By: Steve Babson,Dave Riddle,David Elsila) 2010 Buy
51 Monopoly on Wheels: Henry Ford and the Selden Automobile Patent(With: David L. Lewis) 2011 Buy
52 Iron Will: Cleveland-Cliffs and the Mining of Iron Ore, 1847-2006(By: Terry S. Reynolds,Virginia P. Dawson) 2011 Buy
53 The Fall and Recapture of Detroit in the War of 1812: In Defense of William Hull(By: Anthony J. Yanik) 2011 Buy
54 Lake Superior Profiles : People on the Big Lake(By: John Gagnon) 2012 Buy
55 The United States District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan: People, Law, and Politics(By: David G. Chardavoyne) 2012 Buy
56 Among the Enemy: A Michigan Soldier's Civil War Journal(By: Mark Hoffman,William Horton Kimball) 2013 Buy
57 The Political Activities of Detroit Clubwomen in the 1920s: A Challenge and a Promise(By: Jayne Morris-Crowther) 2013 Buy
58 The Colored Car(By: Jean Alicia Elster) 2013 Buy
59 Arsenal of Democracy: The American Automobile Industry in World War II(By: Charles K. Hyde) 2013 Buy
60 "Old Slow Town": Detroit during the Civil War(By: PaulTaylor) 2013 Buy
61 Great Girls in Michigan History(By: Patricia Majher) 2015 Buy
62 Race, Religion, and the Pulpit: Rev. Robert L. Bradby and the Making of Urban Detroit(By: Julia Marie Robinson) 2015 Buy
63 Young Henry Ford: A Picture History of the First Forty Years(By: Sidney Olsen) 2015 Buy
64 Justus S. Stearns: Michigan Pine King and Kentucky Coal Baron, 1845-1933(By: Michael W. Nagle) 2015 Buy
65 A Beaver Tale: The Castors of Conners Creek(By: Gerald Wykes) 2016 Buy
66 Lake Invaders: Invasive Species and the Battle for the Future of the Great Lakes(By: William Rapai) 2016 Buy
67 Designing Detroit: Wirt Rowland and the Rise of Modern American Architecture(By: MichaelG.Smith) 2017 Buy
68 To the Copper Country: Mihaela's Journey(By: Barbara Carney-Coston) 2017 Buy
69 Roads to Prosperity: Economic Development Lessons from Midsize Canadian Cities(By: Gary S. Sands) 2017 Buy
70 Survival and Regeneration: Detroit’s American Indian Community(By: Edmund Jefferson Danziger Jr.) 2017 Buy
71 Whaleback Ships and the American Steel Barge Company(By: C. Roger Pellett) 2018 Buy
72 Bold Boys in Michigan History(By: Patricia Majher) 2018 Buy
73 John E. Fetzer and the Quest for the New Age(By: Brian C. Wilson) 2018 Buy
74 Rosie, A Detroit Herstory(By: Bailey Sisoy Isgro) 2018 Buy
75 Greening the Black Urban Regime: The Culture and Commerce of Sustainability in Detroit(By: Alesia Montgomery) 2020 Buy
76 What the Chickadee Knows(By: Margaret Noodin) 2020 Buy
77 A Lincoln Legacy: The History of the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Michigan(By: David Gardner Chardavoyne,Hugh W. Brenneman Jr) 2020 Buy
78 I Hope This Reaches You: An American Soldier’s Account of World War I(By: Hilary Connor) 2020 Buy

Great Lakes Books by Publication Order

1958 Independent Man: The Life of Senator James Couzens(By: Harry Barnard,David L. Lewis) #1
1969 The Detroit Riot of 1967(By: Hubert G. Locke) #2
1972 Detroit: City of Race and Class Violence(By: B.J. Widick,Horace L. Sheffield Jr.) #3
1972 Waiting for the Morning Train(By: Bruce Catton,William B. Catton) #4
1986 Call It North Country(By: John Bartlow Martin) #5
1987 Danny and the Boys: Being Some Legends of Hungry Hollow(By: Robert Traver) #6
1987 Michigan Voices: Our State’s History in the Words of the People Who Lived It(By: Joe Grimm) #7
1990 Seasons of Grace: A History of the Catholic Archdiocese of Detroit(By: Leslie Woodcock Tentler,Edmund Cardinal Szoka) #8
1991 Cobb Would Have Caught It: The Golden Age of Baseball in Detroit(By: Richard Bak) #9
1991 John Jacob Astor: Business and Finance in the Early Republic(By: John D. Haeger) #10
1994 Queen of the Lakes(By: Mark L. Thompson) #11
1994 Turkey Stearnes and the Detroit Stars: The Negro Leagues in Detroit, 1919-1933(By: Richard Bak) #12
1994 The Northern Lights: Lighthouses of the Upper Great Lakes(By: Charles K. Hyde,Ann Mahan,John Mahan) #13
1997 Redevelopment and Race: Planning a Finer City in Postwar Detroit(By: June Manning Thomas) #14
1998 The Long Winter Ends(By: Newton G. Thomas,William Mulligan) #15
1998 All-American Anarchist: Joseph A. Labadie and the Labor Movement(By: Carlotta R. Anderson) #16
1998 Toast of the Town: The Life and Times of Sunnie Wilson(By: Sunnie Wilson,John Cohassey) #17
1998 Father Abraham's Children: Michigan Episodes in the Civil War(By: Frank B. Woodford,Arthur M. Woodford) #18
1999 Huron: The Seasons of a Great Lake(By: Napier Shelton) #19
1999 A Sailor's Logbook: A Season Aboard Great Lakes Freighters(By: Mark L. Thompson) #20
2000 "Expanding the Frontiers of Civil Rights": Michigan, 1948-1968(By: Sidney Fine) #21
2000 Graveyard of the Lakes(By: Mark L. Thompson) #22
2000 Great Lakes Journey: A New Look at America's Freshwater Coast(By: William Ashworth) #23
2001 History of the Finns in Michigan(By: Armas K.E. Holmio,Ellen M. Ryynanen) #24
2002 Uppermost Canada: The Western District and the Detroit Frontier, 1800-1850(By: R. Alan Douglas) #25
2002 Windjammers: Songs of the Great Lakes Sailors(By: Joe Grimm,Ivan Walton) #26
2003 Michigan's Early Military Forces: A Roster and History of Troops Activated Prior to the American Civil War(By: Leroy Barnett) #27
2003 Riding the Roller Coaster: A History of the Chrysler Corporation(By: Charles K. Hyde) #28
2003 The French Canadians of Michigan: Their Contribution to the Development of the Saginaw Valley and the Keweenaw Peninsula, 1840-1914(By: Jean Lamarre) #29
2003 Beyond the Windswept Dunes: The Story of Maritime Michigan(By: Elizabeth B. Sherman) #30
2003 A Hanging in Detroit: Stephen Gifford Simmons and the Last Execution under Michigan Law(By: David Gardner Chardavoyne) #31
2003 Roy D. Chapin: The Man Behind the Hudson Motor Car Company(By: Charles K. Hyde,J.C. Long) #32
2004 Angels in the Architecture: A Photographic Elegy to an American Asylum(By: Heidi Johnson) #33
2004 Pulling Down the Barn: Memories of a Rural Childhood(By: Anne-Marie Oomen) #34
2004 To Keep the South Manitou Light(By: Anna Egan Smucker) #35
2005 "I Hope to Do My Country Service" : The Civil War Letters of John Bennitt, M.D., Surgeon, 19th Michigan Infantry(By: Robert Beasecker,William M. Anderson) #36
2005 The Dodge Brothers: The Men, the Motor Cars, and the Legacy(By: Charles K. Hyde) #37
2005 Songquest: The Journals of Great Lakes Folklorist Ivan H. Walton(By: Joe Grimm,Ivan H. Walton) #38
2005 Under Michigan: The Story of Michigan's Rocks and Fossils(By: Charles Ferguson Barker) #39
2006 My Forty Years With Ford(By: John Kenneth Galbraith) #40
2006 House of Fields: Memories of a Rural Education(By: Anne-Marie Oomen) #41
2007 A Pocketful of Passage(By: Loraine Campbell) #42
2007 Detroit on Stage: The Players Club, 1910-2005(By: Marijean Levering) #43
2007 A Badger Boy in Blue: The Letters of Chauncey H. Cooke(By: William H. Mulligan Jr.) #44
2007 Life with Mae: A Detroit Family Memoir(By: Neal Shine) #45
2007 When You Come Home: A Wartime Courtship in Letters 1941-45(By: Neal Shine,Robert E. Quirk) #46
2008 Who's Jim Hines?(By: Jean Alicia Elster) #47
2009 Storied Independent Automakers: Nash, Hudson, and American Motors(By: Charles K. Hyde) #48
2009 Maxwell Motor and the Making of the Chrysler Corporation(By: Anthony J. Yanik) #49
2010 The Color of Law: Ernie Goodman, Detroit, and the Struggle for Labor and Civil Rights(By: Steve Babson,Dave Riddle,David Elsila) #50
2011 Monopoly on Wheels: Henry Ford and the Selden Automobile Patent(With: David L. Lewis) #51
2011 Iron Will: Cleveland-Cliffs and the Mining of Iron Ore, 1847-2006(By: Terry S. Reynolds,Virginia P. Dawson) #52
2011 The Fall and Recapture of Detroit in the War of 1812: In Defense of William Hull(By: Anthony J. Yanik) #53
2012 Lake Superior Profiles : People on the Big Lake(By: John Gagnon) #54
2012 The United States District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan: People, Law, and Politics(By: David G. Chardavoyne) #55
2013 Among the Enemy: A Michigan Soldier's Civil War Journal(By: Mark Hoffman,William Horton Kimball) #56
2013 The Political Activities of Detroit Clubwomen in the 1920s: A Challenge and a Promise(By: Jayne Morris-Crowther) #57
2013 The Colored Car(By: Jean Alicia Elster) #58
2013 Arsenal of Democracy: The American Automobile Industry in World War II(By: Charles K. Hyde) #59
2013 "Old Slow Town": Detroit during the Civil War(By: PaulTaylor) #60
2015 Great Girls in Michigan History(By: Patricia Majher) #61
2015 Race, Religion, and the Pulpit: Rev. Robert L. Bradby and the Making of Urban Detroit(By: Julia Marie Robinson) #62
2015 Young Henry Ford: A Picture History of the First Forty Years(By: Sidney Olsen) #63
2015 Justus S. Stearns: Michigan Pine King and Kentucky Coal Baron, 1845-1933(By: Michael W. Nagle) #64
2016 A Beaver Tale: The Castors of Conners Creek(By: Gerald Wykes) #65
2016 Lake Invaders: Invasive Species and the Battle for the Future of the Great Lakes(By: William Rapai) #66
2017 Designing Detroit: Wirt Rowland and the Rise of Modern American Architecture(By: MichaelG.Smith) #67
2017 To the Copper Country: Mihaela's Journey(By: Barbara Carney-Coston) #68
2017 Roads to Prosperity: Economic Development Lessons from Midsize Canadian Cities(By: Gary S. Sands) #69
2017 Survival and Regeneration: Detroit’s American Indian Community(By: Edmund Jefferson Danziger Jr.) #70
2018 Whaleback Ships and the American Steel Barge Company(By: C. Roger Pellett) #71
2018 Bold Boys in Michigan History(By: Patricia Majher) #72
2018 John E. Fetzer and the Quest for the New Age(By: Brian C. Wilson) #73
2018 Rosie, A Detroit Herstory(By: Bailey Sisoy Isgro) #74
2020 Greening the Black Urban Regime: The Culture and Commerce of Sustainability in Detroit(By: Alesia Montgomery) #75
2020 What the Chickadee Knows(By: Margaret Noodin) #76
2020 A Lincoln Legacy: The History of the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Michigan(By: David Gardner Chardavoyne,Hugh W. Brenneman Jr) #77
2020 I Hope This Reaches You: An American Soldier’s Account of World War I(By: Hilary Connor) #78

Questions readers ask

What is the correct Great Lakes reading order?

The Great Lakes reading order on this page follows the numbered series order where available, with publication years shown beside each book.

How many Great Lakes books are there?

This catalog currently lists 78 Great Lakes books published across 1958-2020.

Who writes the Great Lakes books?

Great Lakes is listed as a book series by William Greenleaf.

Should I read Great Lakes in publication order?

For most readers, publication order is the safest way to read Great Lakes. If a separate series order is available, this page shows that order first and publication years beside each title.

More by William Greenleaf

William Greenleaf books in order and complete bibliography ->

Source note: Sequencebooks organizes author, book, and series records from its catalog data. Publication years and series order are shown when available.