Category: Uncategorized
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Identity Unknown: Rediscovering Seven American Women Artists
Call it the case of the disappearing sculpture for that’s what started Donna Seaman on her quest to chronicle the lives and works of the seven female artists featured in her just released book, Identity Unknown: Rediscovering Seven American Women Artists (Bloomsbury 2017; $30. “I remember going to the Chicago Art Institute and seeing this…
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Max’s Story: A Dog’s Purpose Puppy Tale
Author W. Bruce Cameron wasn’t planning on writing a series of books about dogs. Instead, he was wooing his future wife into letting another dog into her life. Wondering if that was going to be a deal breaker, Cameron, whose had dogs since he was young, decided to tell her a story while they were…
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CAPSIZED! The Forgotten Story of the SS Eastland Disaster
The SS Eastland was still tied to the pier about to take 2500 passengers and 70 crew members on an excursion across the southern edge of Lake Michigan to Michigan City and the dancing in the ballroom had already begun. It was all part of the fun on that July 24, 1915 when the ship…
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The World Is Awake, A Celebration of Everyday Blessings by Linsey Davis
Though she often reports on what’s worst in our world (the Las Vegas massacre, the Boston Marathon bombing and the sexual predator assertions against Harvey Weinstein), Linsey Davis, an Emmy award winning news correspondent for ABC News, wants us to look at the world in a more positive way, enjoying its delights with a sense…
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Chicago’s Only Castle
It’s been more than 40 years since Errol Magidson first saw The Castle with its crenelated towers, stone walls, parapets and arched doorways and windows. Only this castle, rising on top of a hill with even, we’re not kidding here, slit-like windows perfect for archers to fire at marauders, wasn’t located in Europe but…
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Al Capone: His Life, Legacy, and Legend
Deirdre Bair wasn’t that familiar with Al Capone. Beyond the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre, she’d been more focused on literary biographies, racking up numerous awards including the National Book Award. But when she was contacted by a friend who had a friend who knew someone (yes, it went like that) who wanted help in solving…
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Lost Recipes of Prohibition: Notes from A Bootlegger’s Manual
When I was writing my book, A Jazz Age Murder in Northwest Indiana (History Press), about Nettie Diamond, a wealthy widow and pharmacist who was murdered by her fifth husband, a much younger bootlegger named Harry in Indiana Harbor on Valentine’s Day 1923, one of the things I learned was that it was relatively easy…
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The Death of Mrs. Westaway: A New Psychological Thriller by Ruth Ware
Tarot cards, a threatening stranger and a mysterious will propel Hal, a young vulnerable orphan to spend her remaining cash for a railway ticket to the funeral of a woman who solicitors believe is her grandmother. Hal, who makes her precarious living reading Tarot cards, a skill she learned from her mother who was killed…
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Jon Meacham’s The Soul of America
For those who are worried that we have entered dark days as country and are uncertain what the future might hold, Pulitzer Prize–winning author and presidential historian Jon Meacham explores other eras in America’s history, pointing out that in the end, by following “our better angels” we became a stronger and better America. “Lincoln got…
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Cheers to the Publican, Repast and Present: Recipes and Ramblings from an American Beer Hall
Invited by a friend to dine at Blackbird, Paul Kahan’s first restaurant, when it first opened in 1997, I was somewhat taken about upon first entering about how totally different it was from many of the restaurants of the time. The menu was farm-to-table way before the term had become a cliché, the setting minimalist…
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