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Handpicked by Dorothy September 2017 |
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The only thing I like better than reading is recommending books to others for them to read! I enjoy most any type of book, but usually am drawn to crime procedurals, narrative nonfiction (especially about history), mysteries with a humorous bent, books set in Chicago or written by Chicago authors, memoirs, books set in countries I've never visited, and books that give me a glimpse into the reality of others' lives.
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This month, in no particular order, are various books I have read that are set in or near Chicago, written by Chicagoans, or, in some fashion, remind me of Chicago: |
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After visiting friends : a son's story by Michael HaineyMichael Hainey had just turned six when his uncle knocked on his family's back door one morning with the tragic news: Bob Hainey, Michael's father, was found alone near his car on Chicago's North Side, dead, of an apparent heart attack. Thirty-five years old, a young assistant copy desk chief at the Chicago Sun-Times, Bob was a bright and shining star in the competitive, hard-living world of newspapers, one that involved booze-soaked nights that bled into dawn. And then suddenly he was gone, leaving behind a young widow, two sons, a fractured family--and questions surrounding the mysterious nature of his death that would obsess Michael throughout adolescence and long into adulthood. Finally, roughly his father's age when he had died, and a seasoned reporter himself, Michael set out to learn what happened that night. Died "after visiting friends," the obituaries said. But the details beyond that were inconsistent. What friends? Where? At the heart of his quest is Michael's all-too-silent, opaque mother, a woman of great courage and tenacity--and a steely determination not to look back. Prodding and cajoling his relatives, and working through a network of his father's buddies who abide by an honor code of silence and secrecy, Michael sees beyond the long-held myths and ultimately reconciles the father he'd imagined with the one he comes to know--and in the journey discovers new truths about his mother. Fascinating true story.
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Native sonby Richard WrightTraces the fall of a young black man in 1930s Chicago as his life loses all hope of redemption after he kills a white woman. Powerful, heart wrenching, shocking at how little has changed since Wright wrote this important novel in 1940.
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The silent wife by A. S. A HarrisonTold in alternating voices, this novel follows the events leading up to the violent dissolution of Jodi and Todd's marriage, a union steeped in lies, infidelity, jealousy, and denial. A Chicago-based thriller.
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A long way from Chicago : a novel in storiesby Richard PeckYear after year, Joey and Mary Alice go to visit their Grandma in her quiet town in Illinois, but with every summer that passes, things become increasingly odd in this collection of amusing adventure stories. This is the first in a series of books that reminisce about his childhood in the thirties by Peck. The audiobook versions are especially charming. Good for all ages; in fact, I think adults may get more out of the stories about Illinois' long ago than the intended audience might.
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Ugly prey : an innocent woman and the death sentence that scandalized jazz age Chicago by Emilie Le Beau Lucchesi"An Italian immigrant who spoke little English and struggled to scrape together a living on her primitive family farm outside Chicago, Sabella Nitti was arrested in 1923 for the murder of her missing husband. Within two months, she was found guilty and became the first woman ever sentenced to hang in Chicago. Journalist Emilie Le Beau Lucchesi leads readers through Sabella's sensational case, showing how, with no evidence and no witnesses, she was the target of an obsessed deputy sheriff and the victim of a faulty legal system. She was also--to the men who convicted her and the reporters fixated on her--ugly. For that unforgiveable crime, the media painted her as a hideous, dirty, and unpredictable immigrant, almost an animal. Lucchesi brings to life the sights and sounds of 1920s Chicago--its then-rural outskirts, downtown halls of power, and headline-making crimes and trials, including those of two other women (who would inspire the musical and film Chicago) also accused of killing the men in their lives. But Sabella's fellow inmates Beulah and Belva were beautiful, charmed the all-male juries, and were quickly acquitted, raising doubts among many Chicagoans about the fairness of the "poor ugly immigrant's" conviction. Featuring an ambitious and ruthless journalist who helped demonize Sabella through her reports, and the brilliant, beautiful, twenty-three-year-old lawyer who helped humanize her with a jailhouse makeover, Ugly Prey is not just a page-turning courtroom drama but also a thought-provoking look at the intersection of gender, ethnicity, class, and the American justice system." Of special local interest: the author lives in OP, the attorney who convinced her partners to appeal Sabella's death row conviction was from OP and still has descendants living in River Forest.
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Whiskey Sourby J. A. KonrathStruggling with a broken relationship, insomnia-inducing credit card bills, the FBI's inaccurate profiling computer, and a band of street thugs, lieutenant Jacqueline Daniels works on a serial murder case alongside her binge-eating partner, Herb.
First in a series, Jack Daniels is more than just a Chicago homicide detective.
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The girl who was taken by Charlie DonleaA year after one of two missing girls becomes famous for escaping from a mysterious abductor, the recovered girl's forensic pathologist older sister discovers clues that may reveal the fate of other missing teens. By the author of Summit Lake. Author is a life-long Chicagoan. And the book is scary.
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How the hell did this happen? : the election of 2016by P. J O'RourkeThe political satirist and best-selling author of Give War a Chance shares irreverent insights into the stranger-than-fiction 2016 presidential election to profile its colorful candidates, primaries, debates and related issues. O'Rourke is a frequent panelist on NPR's Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me, the NPR weekly news quiz which is recorded in front of a live audience in downtown Chicago.
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Only twice I've wished for heaven : a novel by Dawn Turner TriceMoving with her family to a secure apartment complex carved out of a Chicago ghetto, young Tempestt Saville is drawn to the colorful world outside the compound and the dangerous characters who inhabit it. Dawn Turner is a former Chicago Tribune columnist. Her young protagonist lives in Lakeland, a fictitious planned community on the southside of Chicago. The relatively quiet of her new neighborhood drives Tempestt to explore the neighborhood just beyond the surrounding fence. NYTimes called it "touching and memorable."
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An important book. Terrifying to think that this happened at all and chilling to think it is still possible for it to happen again.
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