Review: Lynn Sloan’s Midstream Carries Readers on a Cinematic Tour de Force
Unlike the turbulent 1970s she lives in, Polly Wainwright is determined to be calm, competent, and professional. She’s got a…
Review: Kathleen Rooney’s Where Are the Snows Meets the Present with Wry Humor and Hope
The title of Where Are the Snows, Kathleen Rooney’s new, award-winning collection of poetry, serves as both question and commentary…
Essay: Walking Graceland Cemetery with—and Without—Adam Selzer’s New Book
Near the end of my hourlong walk around Graceland Cemetery the other day, I went past a stone obelisk, maybe…
Review: Making Friends With a Poet, The Poet’s House, by Jean Thompson
Carla Sawyer is a tall, smart-alecky 21-year-old who’s working for a landscaping company until she figures out what to do…
Review: The Seed-Germ King: Louis Sullivan’s Idea, by Tim Samuelson and Chris Ware
Louis Sullivan’s Idea, a biography of the 19th century Chicago architect, by Chicago’s first cultural historian Timothy Samuelson, is, in…
Review: All Those People, All Those Lives, Where Are They Now?, Graceland Cemetery, by Adam Selzer
Chicago is young. Compared with the large cities of Africa, Asia, and Europe—hell, compared with the Native American metropolis that…
Review: Wildly Contorted and Reimagined: Don’t Make Me Do Something We’ll Both Regret, by Tim Jones-Yelvington
In his story collection Don’t Make Me Do Something We’ll Both Regret, Chicagoan Tim Jones-Yelvington zestfully recasts gay men and…
Essay: How Many Books Can $30 Buy at the Newberry Book Fair?
When I visited the Newberry Library Book Fair on Friday, I knew I had to come up with a strategy. …
Review: Poetry Jagged and Anguished, A Boy in the City, by S. Yarberry
The pain that S. Yarberry suffers as a transgender person is strikingly described in their new book of jagged, anguished…
Poem for Today: Freedom
It happened in Ferris Bueller’s hometown In the Mayberry of the Midwest I first heard about it while listening to…
Dialogs: Haymarket Books Launches Maya Marshall’s All the Blood Involved in Love
Haymarket Books describes itself as a radical and independent publisher, and in light of current events, I am grateful that…
Review: Talkin’ about Early Bob Dylan, The Dylan Tapes
Bob Dylan is having a bit of a late-career cultural moment. His most recent album, Rough and Rowdy Ways, was…
