After his mother's heart attack, a young man races home to Akron, destined for a 447-day hospital vigil. As her victories become ever-tinier — can she walk? can she breathe on her own? — he takes solace in recalling her work as a nurse and their shared Cavs and Tribe fandom. Sometimes Manning's narrative bogs down in the monotony of drugs, tubes, call-buttons and tests, but he spikes it with dark humor about the Cleveland Clinic's elite orderliness. In the end, his understated candor adds up to a moving memoir of unsentimental devotion. // Erick Trickey

Although the writing itself isn't the most engrossing, Schwarz sheds some light on several Cleveland eccentrics. He dishes on eight people, from a burlesque performer with an unusual talent to a charming con woman who convinced the entire city she was Andrew Carnegie's illegitimate love child. Perhaps the most fascinating is the story of musician Maurice Reedus Jr. Never heard the name? You probably know him better as "that guy who plays sax by The Q." // Shannon Bowens