Review: Malört—Chicago History in a Bottle
He had been warned. At a recent house concert in Printers Row, Pat Byrne, a soulful Irish troubadour based in Texas, bravely took a swig of the yellow liquid, scrunched […]
Review: Winning through Infrastructure—Muddy Ground: Native Peoples, Chicago’s Portage, and the Transformation of a Continent by John William Nelson
The key moment in John William Nelson’s important, original, and eye-opening history of the place that became the city of Chicago—Muddy Ground: Native Peoples, Chicago’s Portage, and the Transformation of […]
Chicago Is Lit: Printers Row Lit Fest and More September Events
Avid book lovers can be a solitary bunch—after all, it’s hard to lug our stacks (and stacks) of books around a party. But that is exactly what’s about to go […]
Review: 100 Things to Do in Illinois Before You Die, by Melanie Holmes
Everyone knows they’ll die, but few people believe it. For the sole species aware of its mortality, personal nonexistence is inconceivable. Many have come near death. A number of folks […]
Review: Maps and Martyrs, Encounters in the New World: Jesuit Cartography of the Americas, by Mirela Altic
A strikingly drawn and boldly colored map, attributed to the Jesuit priest and explorer Jean de Brebeuf, is the image used on the cover of Mirela Altic’s Encounters in the […]
Review: “A Repugnant Purity”: Al Capone, by Pierre-Francois Radice and Swann Meralli
Chicago is best known for its transplants. Our biggest celebrities come to a pocketful of names—most from elsewhere, but now synonymous with the Windy City. Much like Oprah, Michael, Ditka, […]
Review: The Lost Subways of North America: A Cartographic Guide to the Past, Present, and What Might Have Been, by Jake Berman
From Atlanta to Washington, DC, Boston to Vancouver, Los Angeles to Miami, Montreal to Toronto, cartographer and writer Jake Berman explores the failures and successes of North American transport through […]
Review: Washington, Daley, and Three Other Mayors, Chicago’s Modern Mayors, edited by Dick Simpson and Betty O’Shaughnessy
Chicago’s Modern Mayors, edited by Dick Simpson and Betty O’Shaughnessy, covers a 40-year period during which Chicago, its people, and its region went through great changes under a succession of […]
Review: A Second Breezier History of Chicago’s Great Fire, The Burning of the World: The Great Chicago Fire and the War for a City’s Soul, by Scott W. Berg
As someone who writes books, I felt a pang of empathy for Scott W. Berg when I heard that he’d published in September a new book about the Great Chicago […]
The Haunting of Hemingway House: Four Women Writers Make Hemingway’s Childhood Home a Clean, Well-Frighted Place
Note: The event is sold out, but Ernest Hemingway’s Birthplace Museum continues to present tours and weekly events all year round. As the quintessential literary man’s man, it’s easy to […]
Review: A Sparkling, Gritty, and Compassionate Collection, Dona Cleanwell Leaves Home: Stories, by Ana Castillo
The seven stories in Ana Castillo’s sparkling and new, yet gritty and compassionate collection Dona Cleanwell Leaves Home, share several common themes. Ghosts, for one, including a beautiful naked woman […]
Review: Consuming My Religion: Holy Food, by Christina Ward
No matter how busy they were creating the universe, some gods always found time to lay down the law on what their worshippers should eat. Diets and deities have a […]