Dialogs: Considering Contagion with Maddow and Schama at Chicago Humanities Festival Events
This autumn’s Chicago Humanities Festival is chock-a-block with notable writers. That focus is normal for one of the Windy City’s…
Review: Something Out of Nothing—New Book Shares the History and Images of Garage Rock Label Estrus Records
Chris Coyle and designer Scott Sugiuchi will attend a book release party at Quimby’s Bookstore (1854 W North Ave) on…
Shortlist Announced for 2023 Chicago Review of Books Awards
The 2023 Chicago Review of Books Awards shortlist includes literary works ranging in subject matter from queer motherhood to belonging and migration, Chicago’s Black cowboy culture, and women’s overlooked heroism during World War II.
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…
Review: A Limited Concept and Beautiful Prose Make for Mixed Reading in Love and Industry: A Midwestern Workbook, by Sonya Huber
In her new book Love and Industry: A Midwestern Workbook Sonya Huber offers a collection of effective essays mostly about…
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: Truest Metal: Heroes of the Metal Underground, by Alexandros Anesiadis with Yannis Skarpelos
Metal, as a genre, is an amusing blend of arrogance and earnestness. Look past the leather and chains, wind-milling manes,…
Review: A Riveting Account of a Nation of Fear, I Surrender: A Memoir of Chile’s Dictatorship, 1975, by Kathleen Osberger
Kathleen Osberger’s account of her three harrowing months as a religious volunteer with a community of Catholic nuns in Chile…
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,…
