Opinion: A Pre-Obit for the Physical Book
Make no mistake, I love physical books. I love the weighty feel of a book in my hands. I love the aroma of a book when you open it whether a […]
Interview: Sinister Twisters—Author James Kennedy Talks Horror and His New Book, Bride of the Tornado
James Kennedy will appear at the HORRORPALOOZA! event at After-Words Bookstore (23 E. Illinois Street), Sunday, October 29, at 5pm, with fellow horror authors Cynthia Pelayo and Julia Fine and […]
Review: A Feel-Good Novel about Coping Together, Everybody Here Is Kin, by BettyJoyce Nash
BettyJoyce Nash will be at The Book Cellar at 4736 N Lincoln Ave. in Chicago at 7pm on Thursday, October 26, to discuss her new novel Everybody Here is Kin […]
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 Saturday, October 21, beginning at 1 p.m. Another party takes […]
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.
The Haunting of Hemingway House: Four Women Writers Make Hemingway’s Childhood Home a Clean, Well-Frighted Place
Note: The event is sold out, but Ernest Hemingway’s Birthplace Museum continues to present tours and weekly events all year round. As the quintessential literary man’s man, it’s easy to […]
Review: A Sparkling, Gritty, and Compassionate Collection, Dona Cleanwell Leaves Home: Stories, by Ana Castillo
The seven stories in Ana Castillo’s sparkling and new, yet gritty and compassionate collection Dona Cleanwell Leaves Home, share several common themes. Ghosts, for one, including a beautiful naked woman […]
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 what their worshippers should eat. Diets and deities have a […]
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 “popular”! And many of them are planted in city soil! (Collective […]
Review: Bewitching Hollywood Flappers and Fairies in Kathleen Rooney’s From Dust to Stardust
At one point in Kathleen Rooney’s bewitching new novel From Dust to Stardust, the iconic Hollywood flapper Doreen O’Dare says to an interviewer, “What I’ve figured out is that the […]
Dialogs: Zadie Smith’s New Historical Fiction The Fraud Plumbed at Chicago Humanities Festival Event
Fiction is a “medium that must always allow itself…the possibility of expressing intimate and inconvenient truths,” acclaimed London-born author Zadie Smith once said. She recently stopped by Lincoln Park’s Francis […]
Reader of the Banned: City Lit Theater Presents Books on the Chopping Block
Devoting one’s life to banning books undoubtedly cuts into one’s reading time. Those too busy to read the volumes they work so hard to keep others from perusing should consider […]