In praise of 'One Book, One Chicago'

Sep. 27, 2012
There are immense pleasures in our city’s tradition of reading together. 

Writing the city with Stuart Dybek

Oct. 7, 2011
A disclaimer: Stuart Dybek is my favorite writer. Full stop. I make everyone I care about read Coast of Chicago, his collection of short stories that explores the nostalgia of childhood and the haunted quality of some of the city’s post-industrial neighborhoods.

Saul Bellow’s Chicago

Sep. 21, 2011
In Saul Bellow’s Chicago of the 1930s and ‘40s there were millinery factories in the Loop and Humboldt Park was more Polish than Puerto Rican.At age 9, the Nobel laureate immigrated to Chicago from Canada and grew up on the near West Side in a two-flat on Augusta Boulevard.

Chicago Public Library selects ‘Augie March’ for ‘One Book’

Aug. 18, 2011
Chicago Public Library has chosen the next book for the city's "One Book, One Chicago" program: Saul Bellow's The Adventures of Augie March.The 10-year-old program encourages all Chicagoans to read the same book at the same time.