Review: Overblown and Overly Clever, Patchwork, by Tom Comitta
General readers, beware! Tom Comitta’s new book Patchwork isn’t for you. Patchwork isn’t for someone who wants a novel that tells a story and has characters and settings and scenes. […]
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: Location, Location, Location…and Boosters, Chicago before the Fire, by Louis P. Cain
For much of Chicago’s history, its strident boosters with their overblown assertions of the city’s present and, even more, its future greatness have been a subject of ridicule. In 1952, […]
Review: Ever So Slow Integration, Justice Batted Last, by Don Zminda
Ernie Banks and Minnie Minoso are the headliners in Don Zminda’s book Justice Batted Last: Ernie Banks, Minnie Minoso and the Unheralded Players Who Integrated Chicago’s Major League Teams. But […]
Review: His Mind Constantly on the Go, Lincoln the Citizen, by Henry C. Whitney, edited by Michael Burlingame
Abraham Lincoln’s friend and courtroom colleague Henry Clay Whitney remembered him as a man with an agile and restless mind, as “a versatile genius, whether as a man or boy. […]
Review: A Sweet and Wonder-filled Book, Our Food Grows written by Sarah M. White, illustrated by Tessa Gibbs
Throughout human history, children grew up watching plants grow and become food. They helped plant seeds. They helped tend the field or orchard. They helped harvest the rice or the […]
Review: Sadness at the End of a World, Unstaged Grief: Musicals and Mourning in Midcentury America, by Jake Johnson
The title of Jake Johnson’s latest book—Unstaged Grief: Musicals and Mourning in Midcentury America—is more than a bit jarring. It’s that part about “Musicals and Mourning” that seems so odd. […]
Poem: Vacant Lot Pope
Walk the goofy walk of the Galilee clown, laughing at denarii or spilling the coins in anger amid the pigeons and lambs, music of the heavens, lyrics by sacred hoboes […]
Essay: I Choose the Spring of Hope Instead of Trump’s Winter
Each morning, I wake up to two stories. One is loud and distressing, shrilly demanding attention. The other is quiet, gentle and calm. One is like being caught in a […]
Review: Scream of Protest, Cry from the Heart, For Gaza’s Children: Black, Brown and Jewish Writers and Poets Speak Out, edited by Marc Lamont Hill, Haki Madhubuti, and Keith Gilyard
For Gaza’s Children is a scream of protest against the oppression of Palestinians by those who have suffered oppression themselves. It is a cry from the heart against the destruction, […]
Review: A Spirit of Discord, Reform and Unorthodoxy, The English Soul: Faith of a Nation, by Peter Ackroyd
Peter Ackroyd’s The English Soul: Faith of a Nation, is a rich and odd book. Rich because of the author’s storytelling skill and odd because it doesn’t tell the story […]
Review: The How, When, and Why of Rail Lines, A History of the Railroad in 100 Maps, by Jeremy Black
The 1897 image on pages 110 through11 of Jeremy Black’s A History of the Railroad in 100 Maps is a striking bird’s-eye view of Chicago, looking across downtown to the […]
Review: An Elegant Tour of Great Buildings, The Story of Architecture, by Witold Rybczynski
The 1902 plan to revamp and expand the National Mall in Washington, DC, was the product of a commission of prominent Americans. Three of them worked closely together to produce […]