Book review: “The Law at Randado” by Elmore Leonard
The 29-year-old Elmore Leonard had been a professional writer for just three years when, in 1954, he published his second novel The Law at Randado. It’s a book that displays [...]
List: Ten albums
I just finished one of those challenges on Facebook, this one wanting me on consecutive days to post an image of an album that influenced my musical taste, without [...]
Book review: “The Art of Guido Cagnacci” by Xavier X. Salomon
Xavier X. Salomon ends his short, beautifully produced, extravagantly illustrated 2016 book The Art of Guido Cagnacci by quoting two words from a letter that two Italian luminaries exchanged nearly [...]
Book review: “The Satanic Verses” by Salman Rushdie
On the surface, Salman Rushdie's 1988 novel The Satanic Verses is about two highly controversial verses that may or may not have been in Qur'an. Certainly, that’s what got Rushdie [...]
Book review: “Everest 1953” by Nick Conefrey
The scribbled telegram text, sent by messenger from the top of Mount Everest, was bleak — but also a bit odd. Snow conditions bad stop advanced base abandoned yesterday stop [...]
Poem: Lamentation
Lamentation By Patrick T. Reardon Let Israel now say, let Aaron now say, give thanks, mercy endures, mystery forever his majesty. Bulleted chaste gazelle, backyard cement, [...]
Chicago history: Seven Chicago Books by Non-Chicago Authors
When you’re looking for a good novel about Chicago, you’re most likely to turn to those writers identified as Chicago writers, such as Saul Bellow (The Adventures of Augie March) [...]
Chicago history: The ten best books about Chicago — and a clunker
There are many very good and even great books about Chicago, and, based on my half century of writing about Chicago, here are the ten that, at the moment, I [...]
Poem: Blessed, a poem for a pandemic
Blessed, a poem for a pandemic By Patrick T. Reardon Blessed are the dead and the dying. Blessed, the mourn-filled good-byes to loves behind glass, behind [...]
Book review: “The Jungle” by Upton Sinclair, adapted and illustrated by Kristina Gehrmann, translated by Ivanka Hahnenberger
Kristina Gehrmann’s graphic novel version of Upton Sinclair’s 1906 novel The Jungle is suitably gritty and oppressive, but probably not ugly enough. I’m not sure it would be possible [...]