Patrick T Reardon | Patrick T Reardon | Writer, Essayist, Poet, Chicago Historian

Book review: “The Merchant’s Curse” by Antony Barone Kolenc

Book ReviewsJanuary 10, 2023229Views 0Likes 0Comments

Antony Barone Kolenc’s The Merchant’s Curse is a historical mystery with a strong supernatural element, set in 12th-century England and written for children and young teens. Even more, it’s a kind of morality play, designed to teach lessons about faith and right living. This is a book written for a Christian readership from the Catholic…

Book review: “1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus” by Charles C. Mann

Book Reviews, TempJanuary 5, 2023399Views 0Likes 2Comments

Prior to publishing 1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus in 2006, Charles C. Mann had co-authored a few books on science and technology. But he had specialized in writing magazine pieces on scientific subjects for such publications as Fortune, Smithsonian, Technology Review, Vanity Fair, Science, the Atlantic Monthly and Wired. Indeed, at many…

Book review: “The Reformation: A History” by Patrick Collinson

Book ReviewsJanuary 3, 2023297Views 0Likes 0Comments

It’s a rare book of religious history — to say nothing of one about the cantankerous and violent era known as the Reformation — to be called sprightly. Yet, that’s a term that can aptly be applied to Patrick Collinson’s 2004 The Reformation: A History. Which isn’t to say Collinson’s book isn’t also erudite, astute…

Book review: “Maximum Bob” by Elmore Leonard

Book ReviewsDecember 29, 2022313Views 0Likes 0Comments

Elmore Leonard’s 1991 novel Maximum Bob features, in no particular order: A goofy judge who enjoys giving the hardest time to convicted felons and who comes up with a scheme to use an alligator to rid himself of his airy-fairy wife. The airy-fairy wife, a devotee of crystals and second sight and spirit guides. A…

Book review: “Posse from Hell” by Clair Huffaker

Book ReviewsDecember 27, 2022264Views 0Likes 0Comments

Clair Huffaker’s 1958 western Posse from Hell is a book of stereotypes twisted out of shape. It takes, for example, the good guy/bad guy dichotomy and shatters it into a kaleidoscopic array of moral ambiguity. Well, not for the really bad guys — four convicts who, in May, 1881, escape from the death house at…

Book review: “And All Through the House” by Ed McBain, illustrated by Victor Juhasz

Book ReviewsDecember 25, 2022261Views 0Likes 0Comments

And, at the 87th precinct house, in the moments after midnight on Christmas morning, a suspect in the squad’s lock-up, like all the others there, heard the cry of a baby boy, new born behind a wall of filing cabinets, and said: “Behold, a virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and his name shall…

Poem: “Goddess”

PoemsDecember 22, 2022308Views 0Likes 0Comments

Goddess By Patrick T. Reardon . The Mexican goddess enfleshed in McDonald’s with a wide smile under her wide mountain nose and her children, all girls under eight, alert to the kiosk choices, and her thin husband, studying the receipt and, for no reason, remembering when he was thinner, younger, and stood waiting for work…

Poem: “Canticle”

PoemsDecember 20, 2022275Views 0Likes 0Comments

Canticle By Patrick T. Reardon . Water-splashed forehead. Product of times. Cheek slapped, new name, chrism. Child of century. Sign of. . Communion of saints. Myrrh burial. Finger ringed. Deathly afraid. Rolling frenzy. . Praying the uncertainties. Intoning the mysteries. Chanting the doubts. . Frankincense body. All the days of my life.…

Book review: “A Taste for Death” by P.D. James

Book ReviewsDecember 15, 2022275Views 0Likes 0Comments

As soon as I finished the 1986 mystery A Taste for Death, I went online to find out if Inspector Kate Miskin would appear in any of P.D. James’s later books. And I was heartened to see that she had a role in nearly all of the seven to come that featured Adam Dalgliesh, the…

Essay: Reporting History —How to look at Chicago and, well, at all of humanity as a reporter, historian and poet.

EssaysDecember 13, 2022243Views 0Likes 0Comments

I was asked by the Chicago Literary Club, a very old social organization in the city — now in its 149th season — to give the Arthur Baer Fellowship Address on December 12. When Dan Pyne, the immediate past president, invited me, I was honored but a bit unsure what to talk about. Dan said…