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).
Metropolis: A History of the City, Humankind’s Greatest Invention By Ben Wilson Anchor Books In the 1850s, Swedish writer Fredricka Bremer visited Chicago and, to say the least, was not […]
Note: Stephanie Gangi will discuss her new novel Carry the Dog in conversation with Chicago author Christie Tate at 6pm Wednesday, November 3, in a free virtual event through Barbara’s […]
Sacred City By Theodore C. Van Alst Jr. University of New Mexico Press The Teddy in Theodore C. Van Alst Jr.’s new short story collection Sacred City has a way […]
Bessie Smith: A Poet’s Biography of a Blues Legend By Jackie Kay Vintage Books Bessie Smith, Empress of the Blues, liked to spend money on herself and on her friends, […]
In the Aftermath By Jane Ward She Writes Press Jane Ward’s In the Aftermath is an earnest, even affecting examination of the strong waves of guilt, sadness, and anger among […]
Note: Sandra Cisneros will appear on Tuesday, September 7, at 7 p.m., in a virtual event sponsored by Barbara’s Bookstore in Chicago and the suburbs. For information, visit their site. […]
Note: Sandra Cisneros will appear Tuesday, September 7, at 7 p.m., in a virtual event sponsored by Barbara’s Bookstore in Chicago and the suburbs. For information, visit this site. […]
W.E.B. Du Bois’s Data Portraits: Visualizing Black America—The Color Line at the Turn of the Twentieth Century Edited by Whitney Battle-Baptiste and Britt Rusert Princeton Architectural Press Black Lives 1900: […]
A History of the Chicago Portage: The Crossroads That Made Chicago and Helped Make America By Benjamin Sells Northwestern University Press Let me tell you: I’m a huge Chicago history […]
Fleeting Monuments for the Wall of Respect Edited by Romi Crawford Green Lantern Press Performance artist Jefferson Pinder offers, as a fleeting monument to the long-gone Wall of Respect, a […]
Landscapes of Hope: Nature and the Great Migration in Chicago By Brian McCammack Harvard University Press For African Americans who took part in the Great Migration in the first half […]
Spoon River America: Edgar Lee Masters and the Myth of the American Small Town By Jason Stacy University of Illinois Press It’s ironic that Spoon River Anthology—perhaps the most famous […]