Book Review: South Side Chick Lit, Saving Ruby King by Catherine Adel West
Saving Ruby King by Catherine Adel West Park Row Books, 312 pages, $27.99 In the closing pages of Catherine Adel West’s Saving Ruby King, two men and two women can […]
Essay/Book Review: Founding American Towns on Paper, Cities of the American West, Part 2
Cities of the American West: A History of Frontier Urban Planning By John W. Reps Princeton University Press, 827 pages, out of print, available on the internet starting at $40 […]
Book Review: The Problem of Being Female—Rodham: A Novel
Rodham: A Novel By Curtis Sittenfield Random House We think we should all know her by now. After decades in the limelight, Hillary Rodham Clinton remains, for many, an enigma. […]
Essay/Book Review: The Vast Chicago Street Grid, Cities of the American West, Part 1
Cities of the American West A History of Frontier Urban Planning By John W. Reps Princeton University Press, 827 pages, available on the internet starting at $40 Part One of […]
Book Review: Radical of Radicals, Formed in Chicago, Dorothy Day by John Loughery and Blythe Randolph
Dorothy Day: Dissenting Voice of the American Century By John Loughery and Blythe Randolph Simon and Schuster Dorothy Day—that radical of 20th century radicals, that voice of conscience in the face of a […]
Book Review: Banned Book Club—By Kim Hyun Sook, et alia
Banned Book Club By Kim Hyun Sook, Ko Hyun-Ju, and Ryan Estrada Iron Circus Comics Alongside guns, flags, and cats, few things spark people’s passions more than books. And why […]
Book Review: “The Best Color for Everything Anyway”—Stateway’s Garden by Jasmon Drain
Stateway’s Garden By Jasmon Drain Penguin Random House There are many reasons to read Stateway’s Garden, Jasmon Drain’s debut story collection, but perhaps the most unexpected is the case it […]
Book Review: Fighting Racism with a Teacup, Roots of the Black Chicago Renaissance, edited by Richard A. Courage and Christopher Robert Reed
Roots of the Black Chicago Renaissance: New Negro Writers, Artists and Intellectuals 1893–1930 Edited by Richard A. Courage and Christopher Robert Reed University of Illinois Press, 296 pages, $28 In […]
Book Review: Gritty, Oppressive, but Not Ugly Enough, “The Jungle” by Upton Sinclair Gets the Graphic Novel Treatment
The Jungle by Upton Sinclair, adapted and illustrated by Kristina Gehrmann, translated by Ivanka Hahnenberger Ten Speed Press, 384 pages, $24.99 Kristina Gehrmann’s graphic novel version of Upton Sinclair’s 1906 […]
The 10 Best Books about Chicago—and One Clunker
Many very good and even great books have been written about Chicago, and, based on my half century of writing about the city, here are the 10 that, at the […]
Book review: Mexican and Catholic and Chicagoan, Chicago Catolico: Making Catholic Parishes Mexican by Deborah E. Kanter
Note: Deborah Kanter will speak about Chicago Catolico at 2 p.m. on Saturday, February 8, at the National Museum of Mexican Art, (1852 W. 19th St., Chicago). Chicago Catolico: Making […]
Book Review: The Buddha in Racine—Saturday Night Sage by Noah C. Lekas
Saturday Night Sage by Noah C. Lekas Blind Owl Reviewed by Carr Harkrader In Noah Lekas’ new poetry collection, Saturday Night Sage, Buddha’s divine path is paved over with Wisconsin […]