When Rebecca Graff, a PhD student at the University of Chicago in need of a dissertation, was told by a professor that the view before them from the school’s Ida Noyes Hall was “a hundred years ago the center of the world,” she didn’t see the bucolic splendor of Jackson Park hugging the Lake…
Tag: Chicago
Laziness Does Not Exist: Drilling Down on Procrastination
“This isn’t getting the work of the world done,” my mother used to tell me when I was young and talking on the phone to friends instead of cleaning my room or putting away the dishes or whatever else needed to be done. I still don’t know exactly what the work of the world…
“Central Indiana Interurban” chronicles the state’s electric trains
There was a time when electric railroads, called interurbans, crisscrossed the state, connecting the small villages and large cities of Indiana. “I was about 10 when my mother first started letting me take the interurban on my own,” recalls Lorraine Simon, who was born in East Chicago in 1911. “My mother would put me on…
Chosen Ones
The celebration of the tenth anniversary of the Chosen One’s victory is overtaken by the tragedy of the death of one of their group. But it gets worse. As they gather for the funeral, they learn the battle may not be over. The Dark One may still live and that means the prophecy forecasting his death wasn’t true.
Signed Copies of Derrick Rose’s New Book Available at Anderson’s Bookshops
While supplies last, Anderson’s Bookshop locations have autographed copies of I’ll Show You, by former Chicago Bulls star Derrick Rose. A unique gift for any Bulls fan! I’ll Show You was written by Rose with award-winning sportswriter Sam Smith. From a kid raised in one of Chicago’s roughest neighbors, Derrick Rose showed himself to be capable of…
You Are Awesome: How to Navigate Change, Wrestle with Failure, and Live an Intentional Life
“The reason I began writing my blog, 1000 Awesome Things, and my first book, The Book of Awesome, is because I felt terrible,” he says about those times. “I define resilience as the ability to see that thin sliver of light right between the door and the frame right after you hear the latch click.”
Night Moves
“I didn’t decide to write this book, it was already written,” says Jessica Hopper, a Chicago based music critic with a career encompassing over the last two decades, a time when she not only wrote for New York Magazine, Rolling Stone, Buzz Feed and Bookforum, was an editor at Pitchfork and Rookie and editorial…
Seduction, Sex, Lies and Stardom in Howard Hughes’s Hollywood
When it comes to the #MeToo movement, Karina Longworth, author of the just released Seduction, Sex, Lies and Stardom in Howard Hughes’s Hollywood, is surprised. But not in the way you might expect. “I’m more surprised that people seem to think everything has changed with a snap of a finger,” says Longworth. “Centuries of institutionalized…
Brian Gruley’s Bleak Harbor
Life is indeed bleak for many of the town’s residents in Bryan Gruley’s newest mystery, Bleak Harbor (Thomas & Mercer 2018; $24.95). Carey Peters’ autistic son is missing, lured away by the offer of a milkshake and his mother and stepfather need to come up with $5.145 million to get him back. Carey, frantic…
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…