Mad, Bad & Dangerous to Know by Samira Ahmed Penguin Random House Reviewed by C.E. Archer-Helke I don’t often find a book that simultaneously transports me to the best parts of my […]
She was the queen of Brooklyn although she wore no gold crown except in the public’s imagination and on t-shirts. Instead her apparel of choice was a white frilly lace collar that […]
The last time we saw the gang from VGA Gallery, things were a lot different. It was January 2020 and we were crowding the VGA Gallery’s small space on Bloomingdale Ave excited […]
The Streets of Europe: The Sights, Sounds, and Smells That Shaped Its Great Cities By Brian Ladd University of Chicago Press, 320 pages, $30 I’m having a difficult time deciding what, dear […]
He Had It Coming Kori Rumore and Marianne Mather Midway: An Agate Imprint A crime only gains sex appeal after it’s been committed, and it’s usually an ingredient added by those covering […]
We’re living in a strange period of horror shows in politics, health and racial injustice. You never know what type of abomination you’ll find when you turn on your phone, computer or […]
Midwest Futures By Phil Christman Belt Publishing The Midwest is a deeply mysterious place to the coastal essayists, pundits, and politicians. Rarely visiting, save to write clunky closed factory and “Whither Main […]
Valentine by Elizabeth Wetmore Harper, 306 pages, $26.99 Elizabeth Wetmore’s Valentine, set in 1976 rural West Texas, is a novel of relentless and brutally raw outrage. A fury-filled howl of women caught […]
Chicago Apartments: A Century and Beyond of Lakefront Luxury By Neil Harris with Teri J. Edelstein University of Chicago Press, 364 pages, $85 Reading Neil Harris’s Chicago Apartments: A Century and Beyond […]
Michael Zapata is a founding editor of the award-winning MAKE Literary Magazine. He is the recipient of an Illinois Arts Council Award for Fiction; the City of Chicago DCASE Individual Artist Program award; and […]
The Skin You Live In By Michael Tyler Illustrations by David Lee Csicsko Chicago Children’s Museum The Skin You Live In, a book targeted to 4- to 8-year olds, can be enjoyed […]
It was just serendipity that the Chicago Humanities Festival scheduled two screenwriters with hot new novels two weeks in a row for their livestream show. Well, serendipity and the fact that the […]
