Nearly four decades ago, historian Gary Wills explained how Abraham Lincoln used his Gettysburg Address to redefine — rededicate — the United States by enshrining the Declaration of Independence as [...]
Philip Jose Farmer’s 1975 novel Venus on the Half-Shell was based on a gimmick, so it’s not surprising that it’s filled with gimmicks, most of which, to my mind, seem [...]
The Hebrew Bible is big on prophets and big on sin. There are four major prophets: Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel and Daniel. And a dozen minor prophets who wrote shorter books [...]
This essay originally appeared in the Chicago Tribune on 3.15.21. Well, Pope Francis, I disagree. I respect much of what you’ve done in the papacy, Holy Father, but this statement [...]
I’m a stranger here myself. The Little Black Dress by Andre Leon Talley with photographs by Adam Kuehl is the elegant and lavish catalogue of an exhibition at the Savannah [...]
Midway through Glendon Swarthout’s 1988 novel, The Homesman, Mary Bee Cuddy wakes up and, from her bedroll by the frame wagon, hears the good-for-nothing cull Briggs, the claim-jumper she saved [...]
A little more than a century ago, in one of the world’s largest cities, Chicagoans lived a lot closer to nature than we do today — as in closer to [...]
I can’t think of another Elmore Leonard book that has a subtitle like his 1980 City Primeval: High Noon in Detroit. That’s also a pretty portentous, if not to say [...]
Sixteen-year-old Nomi opens her story by telling the reader that she lives with her father, Ray Nickel, in “that low brick bungalow” out on Highway 12. Her audience is someone [...]
Some guy on ESPN the other day was complaining again about men who bring a mitt to Major League Baseball games, and I just don’t get it. Maybe that’s because [...]
