• Haunted Lighthouses: Scary Tales of the Great Lakes

    Michigan is home to more lighthouses than any other state and about 40 of those are rumored to be haunted by the spirits of former keepers, mariners and others with ties to these historic beacons. Inside the pages of Michigan’s Haunted Lighthouses, long-time researcher, writer and promoter of all things Michigan, Dianna Stampfler, shares stories of…

  • Jen Lancaster: I Regret Nothing

    Fans of Jen Lancaster, bestselling author of Bitter is the New Black and Twisted Sister, surely know that when she decides to write her bucket list as a big birthday looms,  it isn’t going to entail knitting an afghan or doing an extra set up of push-ups. Indeed, nothing Lancaster tackles—whether it’s emulating Martha Stewart…

  • Sammy Hagar Cocktail Hits: 85 Personal Favorites from the Red Rocker

    Making your holiday gift list or just plain thirsty? Consider this. Rock & Roll Hall of Famer and #1 New York Times bestselling author Sammy Hagar recently released his first cocktail book – and it’s everything needed for a home bar. Sammy knows that some of life’s greatest memories are made over cocktails, and “Sammy Hagar’s Cocktail Hits:…

  • The most popular #BookTok books in every state

    TikTok’s book community “#BookTok” was recently referred to by The New York Times as a “best seller machine.” In this community, creators post literary content to the app, ranging from book recommendations to their emotional reactions during pivotal plot points.  This content has catapulted sales for a select few books, and major book retailers such…

  • The Patron Saint of Second Chances

    is village sadly slipping away, self-appointed mayor and radiator repairman Signor Speranza listens in horror as a water commission official tells him that the water pipes must be replaced or the commission will shut the village’s water supply off — making Prometto uninhabitable. The cost to fix it? Seventy thousand euros — an exorbitant sum…

  • Printers Row Lit Fest

    FULL PROGRAM SCHEDULE ANNOUNCED FOR PRINTERS ROW LIT FEST, THE MIDWEST’S LARGEST LITERARY CELEBRATION, SEPTEMBER 10 & 11 Pulitzer Prize winner and Poet Laureate Natasha Trethewey joins over 100 authors including national bestsellers Jamie Ford, Marie Myung-OK Lee, and Danyel Smith in a jam-packed weekend of free programming This year’s festival highlights Chicago stories and offers fun for all ages, with a poetry tent…

  • First Born by Will Dean

    Two identical twins as different as can be. Molly, anxious and reserved, lives a quiet, contained life in London. Katie, gregarious and fun-loving, is now attending school in New York where she has a great apartment, lots of friends and a handsome, athletic boyfriend. Molly feels betrayed and jealous — until she gets a call…

  • Straight Bourbon: Distilling the Industry’s Heritage by Carol Peachee

    “Bourbon is a legacy of blue grass, water and Kentucky limestone,” Carol Peachee tells me when I ask what makes Kentucky bourbon so prized. Limestone? Water? Bluegrass? What’s that have to do with fine bourbon? Turns out it’s quite simple. According to Peachee, the limestone filters the iron out of the water as it flows…

  • The Verifiers by Jane Pek

    Her brother is on the fast track to a successful career in finance and has plans for his sister to follow along. But in Jane Pek’s debut novel, “The Verifiers,” Claudia Lin secretly drops out of the corporate rat race without telling her siblings or mother and takes a job at Veracity, a new start-up…

  • Breathless: A Mountaineering Thriller by Amy McCulloch

    Breathless, Amy McCulloch’s debut adult thriller, is set on the world’s eighth highest mountain in Nepal. Cecily Wong, is a struggling journalist given the opportunity to interview legendary mountaineer Charles McVeigh but with one catch: she has to summit the mountain as part of his team first. I had a chance to ask McCulloch, a…