Printers Row on Saturday: A Celebration of Community
Near the end of Saturday at this year’s Printers Row Lit Fest, an 80-year-old Italian painter from the North Shore told me she’s going to have a huge party if […]
Patrick T. Reardon is a Chicago historian, essayist, poet and writer who was a Chicago Tribune reporter for 32 years. He is the author of nine books including The Loop: The ‘L’ Tracks That Shaped and Saved Chicago (SIU Press).
Review: A Riveting Account of a Nation of Fear, I Surrender: A Memoir of Chile’s Dictatorship, 1975, by Kathleen Osberger
Kathleen Osberger’s account of her three harrowing months as a religious volunteer with a community of Catholic nuns in Chile a half century ago brings the reader deep into the […]
Review: Wonder and Joy and Questions, The Happy Prince & Other Tales, by Oscar Wilde
It’s something of a surprise to be reminded that Oscar Wilde—the author of The Picture of Dorian Gray and the subject of a scandalous 1895 trial over consensual homosexual acts—wrote […]
Review: An Important Story, Lost in the Details, Jolliet and Marquette: A New History of the 1673 Expedition, by Mark Walczynski
The expedition of discovery Louis Jolliet, a merchant-explorer, and Jacques Marquette, a Jesuit priest, undertook with five other men in 1673, was a pivotal moment in the history of North […]
Review: Fighting for the Marginalized, Ed Marciniak’s City and Church: A Voice of Conscience, by Charles Shanabruch
In late 1972, Ed Marciniak, a perennial social critic and justice activist, became president of the Institute of Urban Life, a small program affiliated with Loyola University Chicago. He had just […]
Review: Tall Towers as Tools of Profit and Racism, Chicago Skyscrapers, 1934–1986, by Thomas Leslie
Thomas Leslie’s Chicago Skyscrapers, 1934-1986 is an impressive and important book that ranks with other works providing the deepest insights into what makes Chicago, Chicago: Nature’s Metropolis by William Cronon, […]
Review: A Harrowing Novel of Resilience in the Face of Racism, Last Summer on State Street, by Toya Wolfe
Toya Wolfe’s debut novel Last Summer on State Street is a harrowing, poignant, and visceral evocation of life and death in the Robert Taylor public housing development in its final […]
Review: Against All Odds, The Lincoln Miracle: Inside the Republican Convention That Changed History, by Edward Achorn
In a year or so, the 2024 Democratic National Convention is coming to Chicago, marking the 27th time the city has played host to one or both of the major […]
Review: The Epic Question Mark of Western Lit, Homer: The Very Idea, by James I. Porter
Nobody knows anything about Homer except what’s in the Iliad and the Odyssey, and, even there, it gets dicey, as James I. Porter details in his challenging and provocative Homer: […]
Review: When Illinois Base Ball (sic) Was for Fun, Ballists, Dead Beats, and Muffins: Inside Early Baseball in Illinois, by Robert D. Sampson
In the handful of years after the Civil War, Illinoisans went crazy for baseball, a game that was then spelled as two words “base ball.” By 1868, however, an editor of […]
Review: Ignoring and Then Extracting Ghetto Gold, White Burgers, Black Cash, by Naa Oyo A. Kwate
Naa Oyo A. Kwate, the author of White Burgers, Black Cash: Fast Food from Black Exclusion to Exploitation, will be in conversation with Stacey Sutton on Thursday, April 27, at […]
Review: Democracy from the Inside and Outside, Democracy’s Rebirth: The View from Chicago, by Dick Simpson
Dick Simpson is one of those rare political scientists who has also been a politician. He knows how the sausage is made, even if there is much he doesn’t like about […]