Category: Chicago
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Book review, signing: New book offers fresh take on Gary/Chicago resident, Nelson Algren
Mary Wisniewski was a college student when she first discovered the writings of Chicago writer Nelson Algren. “Many of his books were set in Wicker Park where my family was from which intrigued me,” says Wisniewski, noting that though Algren’s novels are about shady characters, drug addicts, grifters, drifters and those on the margins of…
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Night of Miracles by Elizabeth Berg
It’s a dark world at times and New York Times bestselling author Elizabeth Berg feels compelled to make it just a little nicer through her novels. In her latest, Night of Miracles (Random House 2018; $26) she takes us back toMason, Missouri, an imaginary town where kindness reigns and there are happy endings. …
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Bill Kim “Korean BBQ: Master Your Grill inSeven Sauces”
My friend Kimiyo Naka asked if I’d like to interview Bill Kim, a Chicago chef/ restaurateur and James Beard Award nominee who had a new cookbook out on grilling Korean-style who would be doing a demonstration at the Japan Pavilion at this year’s National Restaurant Association. I’ve wanted to…
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Art Deco Chicago: Designing Modern America
sleek and glorious as any Art Deco masterpiece whether it be the grand Palmolive Building built in 1922 or the much lowlier but still spectacular Bell telephone Model 302 designed not by a noted artist or architect but instead by George Lum, a Bell Labs engineer in 1937, Art Deco Chicago: Designing Modern America (Yale…
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Swedish Settlements on the South Shore
Northwest Indiana is famously known as a melting pot, a coming together of a vibrant amalgam of people from many countries and different cultures, making the area rich in diversity. But what may be surprising to those of us who grew up in the Region, the first non-English speaking people to move into the Indiana…
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Pure: Inside the Evangelical Movement that Shamed a Generation of Young Women and How I Broke Free
Inside the purity culture, girls and women are not only responsible for their own sexual thoughts and actions but also those of the boys and men around them says Linda Kay Klein, author of Pure: Inside the Evangelical Movement that Shamed a Generation of Young Women and How I Broke Free (Touchstone 2018 $26). …
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Good and Mad: The Revolutionary Power of Women’s Anger
Women’s anger is complicated, dating back to the days before they were allowed to vote and when all but a few careers were available to them. Even in the last generation or so, women have fought against discrimination in pay, employment—consider that former Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor could at first only get a…
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Who Murdered the Supreme Court Candidate: Mental State, a mystery novel by Law Professor M. Todd Henderson
The murder of a good friend and fellow law professor inspired M. Todd Henderson to write Mental State (Down and Out Books 2018; $17.95), his first mystery novel. “He was a professor at Florida State University and had just dropped of his kids and was pulling out of the driveway when he was shot,” says…
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A Cloud in The Shape of a Girl
Intrigued by the passage of time, the choices we make and the constraints life forces upon us, Jean Thompson, a New York Times bestseller and National Book Award finalist author, let a swirl of happenings and thoughts combine to create her latest novel, A Cloud in The Shape of a Girl (Simon & Schuster 2018;…
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Not for Long: The Life and Career of the NFL Athlete
Robert Turner II was the first member of his family to go to college, attending James Madison University on an athletic scholarship. But he did so because of his love of football and a desire to play at a professional level. “I majored in communications because that’s what the other players did,” says Turner who…
Shelf Life 