Essay: Job 1 is voting
Voting is my job. Voting is your job. It's Job One for us as Americans. When we go to the polling place, enter the voting booth and cast our ballot, [...]
Book review: “The House on Mango Street” by Sandra Cisneros
There is a universal quality to Sandra Cisneros’ The House on Mango Street and also something very specific. This is the story of Esperanza Cordero, and, at its heart, it [...]
Book review: “White Trash: The 400-Year Untold History of Class in America” by Nancy Isenberg
Well, this book is a mess. Given its title, White Trash: The 400-Year Untold History of Class in America by Louisiana State University history professor Nancy Isenberg would seem to [...]
Essay: Chicago’s deadly streets in the late 19th and early 20th century
On the evening of March 9, 1903, Maria Stanton wanted to cross Clark Street at Goethe Street, on the edge of Chicago’s Gold Coast neighborhood, the enclave of many of [...]
Book review: “The Children of Men” by P.D. James
There is something of a happy ending to The Children of Men by P.D. James, but that’s only if you don’t think past the final page. On the plus side, [...]
Book review: “A Dirty Job” by Christopher Moore
A Dirty Job is a book about death. And it’s hilarious. It’s Christopher Moore, after all. As with all really funny books, there’s a deeper meaning to the laughs in [...]
The ten best books about Chicago: a list
There are many very good and even great books about Chicago, and here are the 10 that I think are the best: Nature’s Metropolis by William Cronon Chicago: Growth of [...]
Essay: Chicago’s Trail of Tears
In London during the summer of 1835, demonstration trains began giving free rides along a newly completed section of the London and Greenwich Railway, the first railway of any sort [...]
Book review: “Della Robbia: Sculpting with Color in Renaissance Florence” by Marietta Cambareri
Six hundred years ago in Italy, Luca Della Robbia created an artistic technique that permitted him to fashion what might be called three-dimensional paintings or brightly colored sculpture. It was [...]
Book review: “Rodin” by Raphael Masson and Veronique Mattiussi
I have a key question about Rodin by Raphael Masson and Veronique Mattiussi, but, first, I need to commend the Musee Rodin and the publisher Flammarion for selecting the relatively [...]