• An Honest Living

    “Noir land is always smoke and mirrors, and for those who like entering that world, be assured that Murphy is already at work on his next book.” Anchored in life by little except a few friends, a love of books and cinema, and his nascent law practice—a downward slope from his previous position with a…

  • Jobs For Girls With Artistic Flair

    June Gervais, author of Jobs For Girls With Artistic Flair (Pamela Dorman Books 2022 available in hardcover, Kindle edition and on Audible), talks about her highly praised first novel. What inspired you to write about an aspiring tattoo artist? Why did you decide to set it in the 1980s?  My fascination with tattoos was sparked…

  • Learning Korean: Recipes for Home Cooking

    Returning to the flavors of his very earliest years, chef Peter Serpico was born in Seoul, Korea and adopted when he was two. Raised in Maryland, he graduated from the Baltimore International Culinary School and cooked professionally at such well-known restaurants as Momofuku Noodle Bar in New York City’s East Village. Serpico worked with David…

  • Healthier Southern Cooking: 60 Homestyle Recipes with Better Ingredients and All the Flavor

    Can true Southern cuisine—think fried chicken, mashed potatoes and gravy, macaroni and cheese, and fried okra—be transformed into healthier fare without losing the flavors and tastes that make this type of cookery so satisfying? While most of us would say no way, Eric and Shanna Jones, authors of Healthier Southern Cooking: 60 Homestyle Recipes with…

  • Girl in Ice

    A gifted linguistic professor who is fascinated by such extinct languages as Old Norse and Old Danish, Val Chesterfield is so frightened of the world that she has immured herself at the university where she teaches and treats her overwhelming anxiety with pills and bottles of Amaretto and merlot. Beyond that, she’s mourning the loss…

  • The Night Swim

    True crime podcaster Rachel Krall arrives in Neapolis, a small resort town on the Atlantic Ocean, to cover the trial of Scott Blair—a local hero—a swimming star who may be destined for Olympic glory. That is, of course, if he can avoid being found guilty of rape. His hot shot attorney crafts a defense that…

  • AIA Guide to Chicago, Fourth Edition

    Celebrate Chicago’s architecture in AIA Guide to Chicago, Fourth Edition.

  • Plant Powered Mexican: Fasy, Fresh Recipes from a Mexican-American Kitchen

    Unless you’re deeply committed to a life of vegetables, words like plant-based can be a turnoff when it comes to menus and cookbooks. Sure, many of us, myself included, want to expand our vegetable repertoire but still need to indulge their inner carnivore—particularly when we think of a bleak future with nothing but quinoa and…

  • The Marsh Queen

    Far from the marshland where her family grew up and that claimed her father’s life, Loni Mae Murrow has found a quiet niche where she creates intricate life-like drawings of birds for the Smithsonian. It’s a rare talent and a job that Murrow, who started drawing at an early age, loves. But there are undercurrents…

  • Kentucky Trinity: Burgoo, Barbecue and Bourbon

    Burgoo, barbecue and bourbon, historically acknowledged as the trinity of good taste in Kentucky, have traditional roots going back to the days of Daniel Boone. Albert W.A. Schmid, a chef and food historian, delves deep into the cultural heritage of these foods in his book, Burgoo, Barbecue, and Bourbon: A Kentucky Culinary Trinity (University Press…