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…
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…
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…
Essay: In Defense of “Unregulated” Little Free Libraries
Ald. Raymond Lopez (15th) thinks the little free libraries along many Chicago sidewalks are bad—very bad. They are “unregulated”! And they’re…
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…
Review: Jeffrey Sweet Updates His Second City History—Now With That Elusive Viola Spolin Interview
Forty-five years ago, Jeffrey Sweet wrote a book—the story of Second City, which was then only about a decade old.…
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…
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,…
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…
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…
Review: You Weren’t There, but He Was: Kill a Punk for Rock and Roll, by Marty Perez
According to the foreword of Kill a Punk for Rock and Roll, music photographer Marty Perez is a very likable…
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…
