During a year’s sabbatical from The Baltimore Sun, then-reporter David Simon spent a career-changing year as an intern with Baltimore City Homicide Detectives. The result is the breathtaking Homicide: A Year on the Killing Streets. Simon’s book deals with universal themes of humanity, morality and justice, and doesn’t necessarily focus on the details of the crime scenes. Instead we’re treated to a series of consistently moving and effective chronological essays, following three of the homicide unit’s six squads throughout an entire year. If you’re a fan of true crime, or are interested in Baltimore, this is the book for you.

By focusing on the detectives and their relationships to the cases, Simon finds meaning among chaos. Each detective is characterized in a particular way. Garvey is enjoying the perfect year, Worden is the wise old-school detective of the shift, and Edgerton is the studious and somewhat anti-social loner. As the detectives investigate their cases, we follow along and are encouraged to go beyond the details of the scene to consider the larger impact of events. Simon calls the murder case pursued by Detective Tom Pellegrini “the spine of the book." Pellegrini’s prolonged efforts to identify and successfully charge a suspect in the murder of Latonya Wallace ground and balance everything else that occurs. With this traumatic case as a counterweight, all of the unit’s other triumphs and successes are seen as secondary.

As the book concludes, Simon previews his later work, broadening his scope away from the unit and putting us on the streets with a wounded suspect whose story is quickly unraveling. This foreshadows The Corner, Simon’s attempt to mirror his experience with the city’s detectives by observing events from the sidewalk instead of an unmarked Chevrolet.

Since the publication of these works, David Simon has moved into television, writing and producing multiple landmark series including Homicide, The Corner, The Wire, and Generation Kill. He’s now working alongside former cast members and colleagues, developing Treme, an HBO series about a neighborhood in post-Katrina New Orleans. To explore the roots of these exemplary community stories, check out Homicide: A Year on the Killing Streets.

John Jewitt – Savage Branch

Charm City is a recent title from Crown Journeys, a great series of nonfiction books in which expert authors reflect on a place they know well as they take a walk. In this volume Madison Smartt Bell, author and Professor of Creative Writing at Goucher College, meets up with his friends to tour Baltimore on foot, offering insights into the city along the way.

Bell’s travels take him down Greenmount Avenue to the Harbor with his Goucher colleague Eric Singer, around Dickeyville with Laura Lippman, through Fells Point with Glenn Moomau, and returning north on Charles Street with Jack Heyrman. Each walk gives us an intimate look at a distinctive slice of Baltimore, bringing details, forgotten historical nuggets and personal reminiscences into focus. His north-bound walk on Charles Street through Mount Vernon is particularly fascinating.

By moving at four miles per hour instead of forty, Bell, an engaging tour guide, has a series of “deep” encounters with his home city, and presents the reader with a vivid perspective of Baltimore’s memorable neighborhoods. Read Charm City: A Walk Through Baltimore to experience the charm of Baltimore close-up.

Other outstanding works in the Crown Journeys series include Tim Cahill’s Lost in My Own Backyard: A Walk in Yellowstone National Park, and James M. McPherson’s Hallowed Ground: A Walk at Gettysburg.

John Jewitt – Savage Branch

Ta-Nehisi Coates

In his powerful childhood memoir The Beautiful Struggle, Ta-Nehisi Coates skillfully details life in a very unconventional household on Baltimore City’s turbulent west side during the 1980s. His father Paul Coates fathered seven children by four different women – two of whom he married. Coates, a Vietnam veteran and former Black Panther leader, was an indomitable, larger-than-life icon, especially in the eyes of his sixth child.

Reading and research played a pivotal role in young Ta-Nehisi’s life as he watched his father finish college, complete graduate studies in library science, and build Black Classic Press, a successful publishing company — while raising seven children with their respective mothers. The reader also "travels" with Ta-Nehisi as he navigates the often brutal, misguided world of middle school boys from rough-and-tumble neighborhoods. At the beginning of the book, there is a handy family tree and picturesque map of west Baltimore.

The author effortlessly captures the essence of his father, including his attributes and character flaws. His prose is so lyrical that the words quite literally dance off the pages of this book. This is a gem of a memoir that delivers a walloping psychological punch.

Click here to learn what the author has to say about his life and his book.

Author Ta-Nehisi Coates and publisher Paul Coates will discuss The Beautiful Struggle. Join us as we welcome this gifted young writer and his father. Books are available for purchase and signing. Register online for this event.

Father and Son:  Publisher and Author
Wednesday, February 11; 7:00 pm
Howard County Central Library
10375 Little Patuxent Parkway
Columbia, MD 21044

Elaine Johnson – Central Library

Mark R. Millikin, author of The Glory of the 1966 Orioles and Baltimore, recreates the excitement and drama of Baltimore’s first World Series championship. He recounts fan memories, Frank Robinson’s signing, and news from local sports commentators of the era. Reading this engaging account brought back memories of attending ball games with my family at the “old” Memorial Stadium in Baltimore.

Elaine Johnson – Central Library

Are you still mourning the demise of the stellar TV series Homicide, or perhaps missing your weekly view of Baltimore via HBO’s The Wire? If so, you might want to pick up Another Thing to Fall by Laura Lippman, former Baltimore Sun reporter and wife of David Simon.

While rowing along the Patapsco River at dawn, private investigator Tess Monaghan is thrown into the thick of a drama, Hollywood-style. It seems Tess has chosen to get her exercise at the same time and place that Mann of Steel, a new series set in Baltimore, is being filmed. Unfortunately the time travel show touted as the comeback vehicle for former heartthrob Johnny Tampa has been plagued by a series of troubling events and bad press. Learning of Tess’ occupation, the film bigwigs hire her on the spot to act as a bodyguard for the show’s female lead, incandescently beautiful, but self-centered Selene Waites.

Tess momentarily hesitates, but the money is too good to pass up. Almost immediately Selene gives Tess the slip by doctoring her drink with a mickey. As if losing track of her charge isn’t bad enough, the disturbing pranks have taken a grim twist. The assistant to the director is found beaten to death on the set.

With many possible suspects – a jealous fiance, a blocked scriptwriter, a terminated employee, disgruntled actors – Tess traverses Baltimore looking for answers. As she passes by Little Italy, the Senator Theater, and Greenmount Cemetery (final resting place of Enoch Pratt, John Wilkes Booth, and A. Aubrey Bodine), to mention just a few noteworthy landmarks, take heart – Charm City is alive and well in the mystery novels of Laura Lippman.

Fritzi Newton – Miller Branch