Sidekicks, comic foils, and other stock and background characters: cinephile and essayist David Lazar loves watching old movie character actors more than the leads. In his latest book, Celeste Holm […]
The Chicago Humanities Festival recently hosted a conversation among Katherine Hill, Merve Emre, and translator Ann Goldstein, all scholars of elusive Italian novelist Elena Ferrante. The discussion is available to […]
Art in the Moment Reported by C.E. Archer-Helke Speaking from separate corners of Chicago, Chicago artists Bob Faust, Edra Soto, and Sadie Woods and art historian Greg Foster-Rice brought warmth, […]
Good Time Party Girl: The Notorious Life of Dirty Helen Cromwell, 1886–1969 Helen Cromwell & Robert Dougherty Originally published in 1966, Good Time Party Girl is the life story of […]
Chicago’s Great Fire: The Destruction and Resurrection of an Iconic American City by Carl Smith Atlantic Monthly Press Devastation is devastation, whether brought about by fire or pandemic. The Great […]
Chicago writer Kathleen Rooney recently released her latest novel, Cher Ami and Major Whittlesey. A fictional retelling of the true story of World War I’s “Lost Battalion” (though mostly regarding […]
Roman Mars and Kurt Kohlstedt have a new book. It’s a beautiful city field guide with almost 400 pages of stories, history and illustrations on the “hidden world of everyday […]
Reported by C.E. Archer-Helke In a Chicago Humanities Festival panel moderated by Chicago journalist Natalie Moore, economist William Darity, legal scholar Matthew L.M. Fletcher, and historian Rebecca K. Marchiel brought […]
In 1842, Edgar Allan Poe published one of his most famous stories, which turns out to be a parable for 2020. The Masque of the Red Death concerns a prince […]
Dr. Herbert West & Astounding Tales of Medical Malpractice By Bruce Brown and Thomas Boatwright Arcana Comics Howard Phillips Lovecraft was once a rare beast. Following a personal literary philosophy […]
Ayad Akhtar’s new novel, Homeland Elegies, begins like a memoir. Written in the first person, it’s about the narrator’s Pakistani immigrant father who believes in the American dream. Father was […]
Taught by Women: Poems as Resistance Language, New and Selected by Haki R. Madhubuti Third World Press One of my favorite poems in Haki R. Madhubuti’s new, career-spanning collection Taught […]