Book review: “Snuff” by Terry Pratchett
On Discworld, goblins live on — are beat up on, are exploited on, are starved on, die on — the edges. They stink. They steal chickens. They eat their young. [...]
Erasing Comiskey Park from the Face of the Earth
This essay will be a chapter in a book about Comiskey Park, edited by Floyd Sullivan, to be published probably in 2013 It's a frigid weekend in March, and I've [...]
Book review: “Frank Lloyd Wright” by Ada Louise Huxtable
Sometime, apparently in the mid-1890s, Daniel Burnham set up a meeting with Frank Lloyd Wright to present him with an extraordinary offer. At the time, Burnham was basking in acclaim [...]
Thinking the thinkable
Recently, I sat down and wrote out a plan for my funeral service. A couple days later, I wrote about it in the Chicago Tribune. You can find it here: [...]
Book review: “Continent” by Jim Crace
There is a vague, marshy border between poetry and prose. Marshy, as in rich with life, rich with the intermingling of earth and water and sunlight, crawling things, buzzing, flitting, [...]
“Father Bernardin”
During a career as a news reporter that spanned nearly 40 years, I interviewed my share of high-ranking officials. When I was part of a small group of journalists to [...]
Cardinal Joseph Bernardin: Model pastor, “saintly man”
For a long time, Eugene Kennedy was certain that Joseph Bernardin, the soft-spoken, bridge-building archbishop of Cincinnati, would become the first American-born Pope. "He was a perfect candidate for it," [...]
Book review: “Life Itself” by Roger Ebert
Roger Ebert's "Life Itself" is a newspaperman's memoir, which is to say it's breezy, fact-filled and rather light on emotions. That makes sense, of course. For all his fame as [...]
“A full hour before the party reached the city…” — a presentation at the Chicago Historical Society, Saturday, February 18, 2006
Consider this scene: A full hour before the party reached the city they had begun to note the perplexing changes in the atmosphere. It grew darker all the time, and [...]
Book review: The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot
In an often-reproduced photograph, Henrietta Lacks stands in a matching skirt and jacket, her hands at her hips, her hair complexly coiffed, a smile brightening her face. An attractive, lively [...]