Book review: “The Hussar” by David R. Slavitt
David Slavitt’s novel The Hussar is the story of Lieutenant Stefan F———, a young Austro-Hungarian cavalry officer in 1866, new to his regiment and to military life, who, in [...]
A new look for my website — The Loop!
The top of the homepage at my website — patricktreardon.com — now has a link to pre-order my upcoming book The Loop: The “L” Tracks That Shaped and Saved Chicago [...]
Book review: “The Anarchy: The East India Company, Corporate Violence, and the Pillage of an Empire” by William Dalrymple
The Anarchy: The East India Company, Corporate Violence, and the Pillage of an Empire by William Dalrymple is a richly researched, engagingly told and brutally direct indictment of the [...]
Book review: “Cities of the American West: A History of Frontier Urban Planning” by John William Reps
If you want to know Chicago, you gotta know the grid. If I tell you I live at 6220 North Paulina Street, you know that my two-flat is 62 [...]
Essay: George R. Stewart: Unrestrained by literary borders
A conversation with a writer is, almost always, interesting and insightful. During a long career as a reporter for the Chicago Tribune, I was paid to talk with many, [...]
Book review: “Maskerade” by Terry Pratchett
In his more than four dozen novels, Terry Pratchett was often silly, witty, wacky and goofy. But he was also, always, serious. Pratchett’s delightfully humorous and endlessly readable books weren’t [...]
Book review: “Dorothy Day: Dissenting Voice of the American Century” by John Loughery and Blythe Randolph
Dorothy Day — that radical of 20th century radicals, that voice of conscience in the face of a self-centered, self-indulgent, greedy American culture, that embracer of the neediest, [...]
Poem: Behind the mask
Behind the mask By Patrick T. Reardon (mask) Behind the museum glass, a polished marble scream, frozen, with large round eye openings, pale stone, gray as smoke, [...]
Poem: “Go”
Go By Patrick T. Reardon In remembrance of Maggie Roche, Ben Scheinkopf, George Kresovich and David Reardon Right onto Cermak from Harlem to go west, listening to [...]
Poem: The lost tribes, part 3
The lost tribes, part 3 By Patrick T. Reardon The lost tribes found me alone as she and he stared into each other’s eyes. They found me with [...]