Lit, Nonfiction, Photography

Review: The Adventures of an Urbex Photographer in Abandoned Chicagoland: Rust on the Prairies

Abandoned Chicagoland: Rust on the Prairies By Jerry Olejniczak Arcadia Publishing I’ve always been drawn to—and repelled by—demolition sites. Crumbling walls, shattered by a  wrecking ball and revealing shards of […]

Nancy S Bishop /
Lit, Music, Nonfiction

Review: Mellencamp Biography Reveals a Belligerent, Multi-Talented Artist

Mellencamp By Paul Rees Atria Books/Simon & Schuster Release date September 14, 2021 The first music he loved was Motown soul music that he listened to on AM radio stations […]

Nancy S Bishop /
Fiction, Lit

Review—Jane of Battery Park Escapes Evangelicalism and Finds Love

Picture of the author

Jane of Battery Park By Jaye Viner Red Hen Press Jane, a nurse who escaped an ultra-conservative evangelical upbringing to live in hiding in LA, runs into her college crush […]

Terry Galvan /
Fiction, Interviews, Lit

Interview: Sparrows, Hutches, and Growing into an Ending, Sandra Cisneros Discusses Her New Novella

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. […]

Patrick T. Reardon /
Fiction, Lit

Review: A Sparrow in a Dirt Bath, Martita, I Remember You, by Sandra Cisneros

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.   […]

Patrick T. Reardon /
Chicago history, Design, Lit, Nonfiction

Review: Visualizing and Honoring Black America, the Story W.E.B. Du Bois Told at the 1900 Paris Exposition

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: […]

Patrick T. Reardon /
Chicago history, Design, Lit, Nonfiction

Review: Why Chicago Is Chicago, A History of the Chicago Portage, by Benjamin Sells

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 […]

Patrick T. Reardon /
Fiction, Interviews, Lit, Nonfiction

Interview: Willa, Ernest, William, and Scott—A Talk with Dr. Michelle Moore about Chicago and American Modernism

Dr. Michelle Moore is a professor of English at the College of DuPage whose most recent book is Chicago and the Making of American Modernism: Cather, Hemingway, Faulkner and Fitzgerald […]

Dan Kelly /
Art & Museums, Essays, Lit, Nonfiction, Painting & sculpture, Poetry

Review: Complex, Dynamic, and Unruly, Fleeting Monuments for the Wall of Respect, edited by Romi Crawford

Picture of the author

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 […]

Patrick T. Reardon /
Chicago history, Lit, Nonfiction, Parks and zoos, Reviews

Review: Hope, Nature, and Racism, Landscapes of Hope: Nature and the Great Migration in Chicago, by Brian McCammack

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 […]

Patrick T. Reardon /
Fiction, Lit

Review: Renée Rosen Brings Readers on a Jaunty Tour of Gilded Age High Society in The Social Graces

Picture of the author

The Social Graces By Renée Rosen Penguin Random House Chicago author Renée Rosen turns east in The Social Graces, a romp through Gilded Age New York’s High Society. From outspending […]

Caitlin Archer-Helke /
Beyond, Blues, Chicago history, Lit, Music, Travel feature

On the Road: Drizzle and Blues in Grafton, Wisconsin

Is Wisconsin the furthest state from the Mississippi Delta? Culturally, perhaps. Yet the land of butter burgers and cheese curds played a big role in preserving the blues. While 78 […]

Dan Kelly /