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 […]
Update: Since this review was published in September 2020, Pacfica Quartet’s Contemporary Voices CD won the Grammy Award for Best Chamber Music/Small Ensemble Performance. Congratulations to Pacifica Quartet and everyone […]
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 […]
As part of its Out Back Summer Sessions, the North Shore Center for the Performing Arts will be hosting the Chicago Philharmonic Chamber String Quartet and Music of the Baroque […]
In 1917, as the world was at war and facing a once-in-a-century pandemic, a story emerged out of a rural town in Portugal that would have the faithful calling for […]
Before the Amazon Original Chemical Hearts, a cliché-ridden, mostly flat teen drama about first loves and growing up, filmmaker Richard Tanne made the lovely and underrated Southside With You, a […]
When it comes to Russian horror films, I don’t exactly have a deep expertise. Thankfully, such a viewing history isn’t required to get a thrill out of Sputnik, the latest […]
Sometimes, having its heart in the right place is enough to make a good movie just a little bit more endearing. Case in point: the new World War II-era drama […]
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 […]
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 […]
Well, we’re here. It might be cooler than it is out in California where one particular convention center would normally be packed to the brim with fans of all number […]
Troublemakers: Chicago Freedom Struggles through the Lens of Art ShayBy Erik S. GellmanUniversity of Chicago Press In Troublemakers: Chicago Freedom Struggles through the Lens of Art Shay, historian Erik S. […]