Open-Hearted: A Review of Sahar Mustafah’s The Beauty of Your Face
This novel is as much about Chicago as the individuals inside the city.
Creepy Men: A Review of Lori Rader-Day’s The Lucky One
Creepy men populate Lori Rader-Day’s new novel and not just garden-variety creepy men. They come in all shapes and sizes. Something bad is about to happen.
Ode to An Icon: A Review of John F. Hogan’s The Chicago Water Tower
By skillfully mixing historical facts with local lore, Hogan takes the reader back to shortly after the Civil War when Chicago was the new frontier.
Fairytale, Séance, Manifesto and One Million Chickens: A Review of Deb Olin Unferth’s Barn 8
While I liked the fresh eggs, I never found an appreciation for chickens until reading “Barn 8,” a coming-of-age tale about a hen on the lam.
Social Distancing: Virtual Readings for Literary Fans At Home
If you’re looking for some literary inspiration during this period of lockdown, here’s a compilation of upcoming readings in March and April.
Necessary Too: A Review of Ama Codjoe’s Blood of the Air
This short series of poems link together to explore mythic characters and assume the voices of women who have not always had their say.
Cloud Cover: A Review of Kay Ulanday Barrett’s More Than Organs
Kay Ulanday Barrett got their start as a poet here in Chicago and was deeply involved with Asian spoken word community in the nineties.
Ghost Lights: A Review of Paul Lisicky’s Later: My Life at the Edge of the World
Lisicky’s gorgeous and haunted new memoir is a book I wish I could take back to my younger self to prove to him that being gay isn’t something to run from.
Touching Wounds: A Review of Postcolonial Love Poem by Natalie Diaz
Diaz’s poems illustrate how love is not just physical or sexual but all the ways in which it is tied to how we interact with the natural world.
Witnessing History: A Review of Justus Rosenberg’s “The Art of Resistance: My Four Years in the French Underground”
From the title, you might think Justus Rosenberg’s book is a World War II version of the “The Anarchist Cookbook.” However, it reads like a John Le Carre novel.
