Customer Reviews

Mackinac Island: Historic Frontier, Vacation Resort, Timeless Wonderland

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I think Mackinac Island: Hisotric Frontier, Vacation Resort, Timeless Wonderland is the best all around book about Mackinac Island that is on the market today. It has detailed information about the Islands history and geological evolution that is still very readable. This book covers the many vacation and resorty aspects of the Island also. If you are looking for a readable text book with all the general information about Mackinac Island you could every want, this is the book for you!

I read an older edition of this book from the library (1988, I believe). It's very informative and entertaining to read, and even covers some landmarks on the island which are no longer existent--something I have not come across in other Mackinac Island guides just yet. The authors even made use of "flashbacks" to try to transport the reader into past eras--a soldier in Fort Mackinac, Victorian visitors to the island, a yacht race, etc. (Though these did get a little silly at times.)

However, the entire text was filled with numerous horrible typos, spelling errors, and grammatical errors which should have been learned about in grade school and eradicated in a simple line edit. As informative as the text was, I quickly lost a lot of respect for the authors seeing as they didn't comprehend simple English. It was a library book and I itched to use a red pen throughout the entire thing. Does nobody use copy editors anymore?

I sincerely hope that in subsequent editions of the book, including this one, the authors checked out a grammar manual and fixed their errors so that the book would read more professionally, as any published document should. This would have been a great book, deserving of four stars, if not for such simple yet repetitive and irritating problems.