Book review: “The Sympathizer” by Viet Thanh Nguyen
At the end of Viet Thanh Nguyen’s 2015 novel The Sympathizer, the unnamed narrator and central character asks a series of questions: What do those who struggle against power do [...]
Book review: “The Mystery of the Charity of Joan of Arc” by Charles Peguy, adapted by Jean-Paul Lucet, translated by Jeffrey Wainwright
In Charles Peguy’s play The Mystery of the Charity of Joan of Arc, there are three characters: Joan, her friend Hauviette and a nun called Madam Gervaise. The year is [...]
Book review: “Death Comes for the Archbishop” by Willa Cather
It’s been 90 years since Willa Cather published Death Comes for the Archbishop, and what’s particularly striking about the novel is how it seems to exist outside the fashions and [...]
My Top Fourteen Books of 2016
Last year, it was my top eleven. This year, it’s the top fourteen. Why? I could tell you that I’d already left a lot of good books off this list. [...]
Meditation: Snow in Jerusalem
It snows in Jerusalem. Somebody told me that, so I looked it up. In 1950, there were storms that dumped a couple feet of snow on the city and even [...]
Book review: “Walks with Men” by Ann Beattie
Walks with Men is Ann Beattie’s very short 2010 novel about two vacuous but affluent New Yorkers who have an affair, break up, marry and then really break up. This [...]
Chicago History: The great adventure of Chicago May. “Queen of the Underworld”
During the first three decades of the 20th century, the Chicago newspapers, including the Tribune, couldn’t get enough of an Irish woman who became an international celebrity criminal on four [...]
Book review: “Tomatoland: How Modern Industrial Agriculture Destroyed Our Most Alluring Fruit” by Barry Estabrook
Tomatoland: How Modern Industrial Agriculture Destroyed Our Most Alluring Fruit by Barry Estabrook is really two books that co-exist uneasily in the same binding. Book one: For foodies One [...]
Book review: “Out of Sight” by Elmore Leonard
Jack Foley and Karen Sisco meet cute. In Elmore Leonard’s 1996 novel Out of Sight, Karen is a U.S. Marshall who arrives one late winter afternoon in the parking lot [...]
Poem: “Then”
At Christmas, there is me. Then David. Then Mary Beth. Then Eileen. Then Tim. Then John. Then Rosemary. Then Laura. Then Marie. Then Kathy. Then Teri. Then Geri. Then [...]