If winter makes us bibliophiles dream about curling up on a cozy sofa under a warm blanket and reading a good book in front of a crackling fire, well, then, summer has us dreaming about kicking back on a chaise lounge with a tall glass of something cold and reading a good book under a canopy of shady trees.
Or maybe that’s just me.
No matter where your summer dreams take you—back yard, beach, poolside, inside with the a/c blasting—reading a good book is easy when you have dozens of new releases to choose from. And that’s just what we have here in our 2016 Summer Preview.
This annual guide is, as usual, packed with a whole lotta titles from local authors and local publishers, as well as new books that tackle local subject matter. That’s not to say that these books don’t have wider appeal because they do. In this wonderful, fabulous, lovely long list, readers from all walks of life with all manner of interests can find something enticing. Fiction and nonfiction. For adults and kids of all ages.
This month-by-month list will have you adding all sorts of good books to your to-read pile between now and September, a sunny season full of opportunities to explore new authors and #ReadLocal.
AVAILABLE NOW
The 9 Arts of Spiritual Conversations
by Mary Schaller and John Crilly
$15.99, paperback, 256 pages
Tyndale House: Evangelism
It can feel scary, awkward, and uncomfortable as we try to navigate loaded questions and different perspectives in conversations with people who have different beliefs than us. Drawing straight from the life and ministry of Jesus, The 9 Arts of Spiritual Conversations offers simple practices to help you build relationships with people who believe differently and encourages readers to create a safe space to have natural, loving, and spiritual conversations with others.
Bob Seger’s House and Other Stories
Michael Delp and M. L. Liebler (eds.), foreword by Charles Baxter
$24.99, paperback, 376 pages
Wayne State University Press/Made in Michigan Writers Series: Fiction
Bob Seger’s House and Other Stories is a collection of short stories written by some of Michigan’s most well-known fiction writers. This collection of twenty-two short stories serves as a celebration not only of the tenth anniversary of the Made in Michigan Writers Series in 2016 but also of the rich history of writing and storytelling in the region.
Boundary
by Zofia Nalkowska (translated by Ursula Phillips)
$35.95, paperback, 272 pages
Northern Illinois University Press: Literature in Translation
Available for the first time in English, Zofia Nalkowska’s modernist novel, Boundary, was originally published as Granica in Poland in 1935. Nalkowska was a pioneer of feminist fiction in Central Europe. Her observation of inequality in the treatment of men and women is at the heart of Boundary, which explores a transgressive love affair and its repercussions.
Brazil’s Dance With the Devil
by Dave Zirin
$17.95, paperback, 276 pages
Haymarket Books: Culture & Media
The people of Brazil celebrated when they learned that in the space of two years their country would host the world’s two largest sporting events: the World Cup in 2014 and the Olympics in 2016. Now they are protesting in numbers the country hasn’t seen in decades. Relying on fieldwork from the most dangerous corners of Rio to the halls of power in Washington, DC, Dave Zirin exposes how sports and politics have collided in spectacular fashion. This updated edition examines the final tally of debt and displacement that accompanied the 2014 World Cup, eyewitness accounts of the militarized police crackdown, and new reporting on the pre-Olympic plans in cities across Brazil.
Broken Ground
by Karen Halvorsen Schreck
$14.99, paperback, 336 pages
Howard Books: Fiction
When a young oil rig widow escapes her grief and the Texas Dust Bowl, she discovers a surprising future—and new passion—awaiting her in California in this lyrically written romance by the local author of Sing for Me. Newly married to her childhood sweetheart, twenty-one-year-old Ruth Warren is settling into life in a Depression-era, East Texas oil town. She’s making a home when she learns that her young husband, Charlie, has been killed in an oil rig accident. Ruth is devastated, but then gets a chance for a fresh start.
The Dealmakers of Downstate Illinois
by Robert E. Hartley
$27.50, paperback, 208 pages
Southern Illinois University Press: History
From 1945 to 1975, downstate lawmakers dominated the Illinois political arena. In The Dealmakers of Downstate Illinois, Robert E. Hartley details the lives and contributions of three influential southern Illinois politicians: Paul Powell, Clyde Choate, and John Stelle. The Dealmakers of Downstate Illinois is a vivid, straightforward tale of fighting in the legislative chambers, backstabbing behind the scenes, and trading special favors for votes in pursuit of not only personal gain but also the advancement of a regional agenda.
Gates of Harvard Yard
by Blair Kamin (ed.), foreword by Ann Marie Lipinski
$15.95, paperback, 96 pages
Princeton Architectural Press: Essays/Architecture
Offering the complete, never-before-told story of the twenty-five gates that form portals to Harvard Yard, this beautiful gift book recounts the aesthetic vision for America’s preeminent university. Written by Pulitzer prize-winning Chicago Tribune architecture critic Blair Kamin, the book discusses the architectural intentions of the gates, as well as the human drama behind their fruition—tales of wealth, power, and institutional and personal ambition. Illustrated with previously unpublished sketches by Roger Erickson, architect and landscape architect; stunning color photographs of each gate by Ralph Lieberman; and a beautiful hand-drawn three-dimensional aerial map of Harvard Yard that denotes the location of each gate by RISD graduate student Christopher Beck.
Great Lakes Island Escapes: Ferries and Bridges to Adventure
by Maureen Dunphy
$29.99, paperback, 272 pages
Wayne State University Press: Great Lakes/Travel
Great Lakes Island Escapes: Ferries and Bridges to Adventure explores in depth more than thirty of the Great Lakes Basin islands accessible by bridge or ferry and introduces more than fifty additional islands. Includes helpful information about getting to each featured island, what to expect when you get there, the island’s history, and what natural and historical sites and cultural attractions are available to visitors. Each chapter lists special island events, where to get more island information, and how readers can help support the island.
Places in the Making: A Cultural Geography of American Poetry
by Jim Cocola
$55, paperback, 288 pages
University of Iowa Press: Cultural Studies
Places in the Making maps a range of twentieth- and twenty-first-century American poets who have used language to evoke the world at various scales. Distinct from related traditions including landscape poetry, nature poetry, and pastoral poetry—which tend toward more idealized and transcendent lyric registers—this study traces a poetics centered upon more particular and situated engagements with actual places and spaces.
Redemption Road: From Grief to Peace Through Walking the Camino de Santiago
by Brendan McManus, S.J.
$13.95, paperback, 195 pages
Loyola Press: Self-Improvement
Redemption Road is the story of a broken man putting one foot in front of the other as he attempts to let go of the anger, guilt, and sorrow that have been weighing him down. But the road to healing is fraught with peril: steep hills and intense heat, wrong turns and blistered feet. Worse still, a nagging leg injury could thwart Brendan’s ultimate goal of reaching the Camino’s end and honoring his brother in a symbolic act at the Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela. Constantly tempted to quit his quest, Brendan relies on the principles of Ignatian spirituality to guide him on his journey from desolation to consolation. For anyone going through the process of grieving, Redemption Road offers real hope—not that the path to peace will be easy, but that Christ, who himself suffered and died, will be with us every step of the way and lead us at last to wholeness and healing.
Robert Nixon and Police Torture in Chicago, 1871–1971
by Elizabeth Dale
$32, hardcover, 184 pages
Northern Illinois University Press: History/Regional Studies
Elizabeth Dale uncovers the lost history of police torture in Chicago between the Chicago Fire and 1971, tracing the types of torture claims made in cases across that period. To show why the criminal justice system failed to adequately deal with many of those allegations of police torture, Dale examines one case in particular, the 1938 murder trial of Robert Nixon.
A Self-Made Man: The Political Life of Abraham Lincoln Vol. I, 1809–1849
by Sidney Blumenthal
$35, hardcover, 576 pages
Simon & Schuster: History/Biography
The first of a multi-volume history of Lincoln as a political genius—from his obscure beginnings to his presidency, assassination, and the overthrow of his post-Civil War dreams of Reconstruction. This first volume traces Lincoln from his painful youth, describing himself as “a slave,” to his emergence as the man we recognize as Abraham Lincoln. From his youth as a “newsboy,” a voracious newspaper reader, Lincoln became a free thinker, reading Tom Paine, as well as Shakespeare and the Bible, and studying Euclid to sharpen his arguments as a lawyer.
The St. Louis Cardinals Fans’ Bucket List
by Dan O’Neill, foreword by Adam Wainwright
$16.95, hardcover, 272 pages
Triumph Books: Sports
Every St. Louis Cardinals fan has a bucket list of activities to take part in at some point in their lives. But even the most die-hard fans haven’t done everything there is to experience in and around St. Louis. From visiting Ballpark Village to learning how to do an Ozzie Smith backflip, author Dan O’Neill provides ideas, recommendations, and insider tips for must-see places and can’t-miss activities near Busch Stadium. But not every experience requires a trip to St. Louis; long-distance Cardinals fans can cross some items off their list from the comfort of their own homes. Whether you’re attending every home game or supporting the Cards from afar, there’s something for every fan to do in The St. Louis Cardinals Fans’ Bucket List.
Two Weeks in the Midday Sun: A Cannes Notebook
by Roger Ebert
$16, paperback, 200 pages
University of Chicago Press: Film Studies/Entertainment
More about people than movies, this book is an intimate, quirky, and witty account of the parade of personalities attending the 1987 festival—Ebert’s twelfth, and the fortieth anniversary of the event. Illustrated with Ebert’s charming sketches of the festival and featuring both a new foreword by Martin Scorsese and a new postscript by Ebert about an eventful 1997 dinner with Scorsese at Cannes, Two Weeks in the Midday Sun is a small treasure, a window onto the mind of this connoisseur of criticism and satire, a man always so funny, so un-phony, so completely, unabashedly himself.
Women in Blue: 16 Brave Officers, Forensic Experts, Police Chiefs, and More
by Cheryl Mullenbach
$19.99, hardcover, 240 pages
Chicago Review Press: Juvenile Nonfiction
They were called sleuths in skirts, guardian mothers, copettes, and police in petticoats. It would be a long time—well over 150 years—before women in law enforcement were known simply as police officers. Balancing the stories of trailblazers from the past with those of today’s dedicated officers, chiefs, FBI agents, and forensics experts, this collection of riveting biographies traces the evolution of women in policing. Women in Blue is part of CRP’s Women of Action series for young adult readers.
You May See a Stranger
by Paula Whyman
$17.95, paperback, 216 pages
Northwestern University Press: Stories
Miranda Weber is a hot mess. In Paula Whyman’s debut collection of stories, we find her hoarding duct tape to ward off terrorists, stumbling into a drug run with a crackhead, and—frequently—enduring the bad behavior of men. A drivers’ education class pulsing with racial tension is the unexpected context of her sexual awakening. As she comes of age, and in the three decades that follow, the potential for violence always hovers nearby. She’s haunted by the fate of her disabled sister and—thanks to the crack cocaine epidemic of the 1980s, the wars in the Middle East, and sniper attacks—the threat of crime and terror in her hometown of Washington, DC. Miranda can be lascivious, sardonic, and maddeningly self-destructive, but, no matter what befalls her, she never loses her sharp wit or powers of observation, which illuminate both her own life and her strange, unsettling times.
JUNE RELEASES
Adversity and Justice
by Kevin M. Ball
$39.99, hardcover, 296 Pages
Wayne State University Press/Great Lakes Books Series: Legal History
More than a million individuals and thousands of businesses sought relief in the United States’ ninety-three bankruptcy courts in 2014, more than twenty-seven thousand of them in the Eastern District of Michigan. Adversity and Justice presents a chronological history of the United States Bankruptcy Court for the Eastern District of Michigan, the site of the city of Detroit’s landmark bankruptcy case.
The Alliance
by Jolina Petersheim
$22.99, hardcover, 364 pages
Tyndale House: Fiction
Midwestern author Jolina Petersheim looks at what happens when the outside world begins to besiege an Old Order Mennonite community after a national emergency takes America off the power grid and everyone must decide how far they are willing to go to protect their beliefs and their way of life.
The Audacity of Goats
by J. F. Riordan
$24.95, hardcover, 396 pages
Beaufort Books: Literary Fiction
All is not well north of the tension line. A series of unsettling nighttime incidents have left the islanders uncertain whether to be nervous or annoyed. Are they victims of an elaborate teenage prank, or is there a malevolent stranger lurking on the island? Written by Midwestern author J. F. Riordan, Book 2 in the award-winning “North of the Tension Line” series, The Audacity of Goats, is the continuing tale of Fiona Campbell, and her reluctant adventures among the pleasures, mysteries, and exasperations of small town life in Door County, Wisconsin.
The Big Hurt’s Guide to BBQ and Grilling
by Frank Thomas
$19.95, paperback, 176 pages
Triumph Books: Cooking
Hall of Famer and Chicago icon Frank Thomas shares his passion for grilling and cooking with baseball fans everywhere for the first time. Grilling is perhaps as essential and synonymous with American culture as baseball itself, and Frank Thomas is ready to share all of his home run recipes. Whether you’re looking for barbecue basics or grilling greatness, these sizzling steaks, slow-cooked smoked ribs, and mouthwatering burgers are sure to please every palate, from healthy fare to hearty indulgences. Beautiful full-color photographs and easy-to-follow instructions set you up for culinary success alongside legendary former White Sox player Frank Thomas.
The Curve
by Jeremy Blachman and Cameron Stracher
$26.95, hardcover, 229 pages
Ankerwycke: Fiction
The Curve tells the story of students at Manhattan Law School, a decrepit institution on the edge of the toxic Gowanus Canal in Brooklyn, who are geographically-challenged and mad as hell—in debt up to their eyeballs and fighting over the few legal jobs left for those who are far outside the Ivy League. With its colorful cast of eccentrics and law school misfits, a satirical plot that, without too much of a stretch, could be ripped from the headlines, and a proven author duo who know this world and have six previous books between them, The Curve is a hugely entertaining and deeply felt novel that satirizes the current state of higher education and reads like a cross between Dangerous Minds and The Paper Chase.
Dealing With Dictators: The United States, Hungary, and East Central Europe, 1942–1989
by László Borhi (translated by Jason Vincz)
$68, hardcover, 562 pages
Indiana University Press: History/Politics/International Studies
Dealing With Dictators explores America’s Cold War efforts to make the dictatorships of Eastern Europe less tyrannical and more responsive to the country’s international interests. During this period, U.S. policies were a mix of economic and psychological warfare, subversion, cultural and economic penetration, and coercive diplomacy. Through careful examination of American and Hungarian sources, László Borhi assesses why some policies toward Hungary achieved their goals while others were not successful. The story of the process by which the transition from Soviet satellite to independent state occurred in Hungary sheds light on the dynamics of systemic change in international politics at the end of the Cold War.
The End of Imagination
by Arundhati Roy
$19.95, paperback, 390 pages
Haymarket Books: Essays
The End of Imagination brings together five of Arundhati Roy’s acclaimed books of essays into one comprehensive volume for the first time and features a new introduction by the author. This new collection begins with her pathbreaking book The Cost of Livin—published soon after she won the Booker Prize for her novel The God of Small Things—in which she forcefully condemned India’s nuclear tests and its construction of enormous dam projects that continue to displace countless people from their homes and communities. The End of Imagination also includes her nonfiction works Power Politics, War Talk, Public Power in the Age of Empire, and An Ordinary Person’s Guide to Empire, which include her widely circulated and inspiring writings on the U.S. invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, the need to confront corporate power, and the hollowing out of democratic institutions globally.
The Empty Bottle Chicago: 21+ Years of Music / Friendly / Dancing
John Dugan (ed.), foreword by John Darnielle
$34.95, hardcover, 200 pages
Curbside Splendor: Essays
A collection of stories contributed by the community of fans, former bartenders, bouncers, and performers, including The Flaming Lips, Interpol, OK Go, Low, Girl Talk, and more, retelling the eclectic history of one of Chicago’s landmark music venues. The collection also will include full-color photographs and images of old show posters and ephemera.
The Good Divide
by Kali VanBaale
$15, paperback, 196 pages
MG Press: Fiction
In the lush countryside of Wisconsin, Jean Krenshaw is the ideal 1960s dairy farm wife. She cooks, sews, raises children, and plans an annual July 4th party for friends and neighbors. But when her brother-in-law Tommy, who lives next door, marries leery newcomer Liz, Jean is forced to confront a ten-year-old family secret involving the unresolved death of a young woman. With stark and swift prose, The Good Divide explores one woman’s tortured inner world, and the painful choices that have divided her life, both past and present, forever.
The Inequality Equalizer
by Jena E. Abernathy
$27.95, hardcover, 327 pages
Ankerwycke: General Business/Career
Executive career coach Jena Abernathy, a nationally recognized leader in human capital management, performance excellence, and organizational development, shares the career advice you’ll wish someone had told you years ago. You’ll find insight that you never learned in grad school—and you’ll learn how to get real about getting ahead. Packed with real-world lessons and no-nonsense advice, The Inequality Equalizer shows employees what it takes to level the playing field, achieve their professional goals, and enjoy a long, successful career.
Magruder’s Curiosity Cabinet
by H. P. Wood
$15.99, paperback, 368 pages
Sourcebooks Landmark: Historical Fiction
A hypnotic debut in turn-of-the-century Coney Island, where an abandoned girl collides with a disgruntled ménage of circus freaks. With shades of Water For Elephants and The Museum of Extraordinary Things, Magruder’s Curiosity Cabinet sweeps readers into a mesmerizing world where nothing is as it seems, and where “normal” is the exception to the rule.
New York, 1960
by Barry Gifford
$16.95, paperback, 90 pages
Curbside Splendor: Poetry
Barry Gifford’s newest collection of poetry captures the disarray of a life lived with passion, and in many places. In his signature laconic style, Gifford ponders serendipitous acquaintances, mourns the deaths of old friends and squandered relationships, and writes light and love-filled notes to his daughter and granddaughter. An evocative collection from an enduring voice.
Us Versus Us
by Andrew Marin
$14.99, paperback, 240 pages
NavPress: Religion/Sexuality & Gender Studies
Written by local author Andrew Marin, a world-renowned voice on the intersection of faith and sexuality, this book provides ground-breaking findings for navigating a clear path forward in the battle regarding religion and the LGBT community in today’s culture.
Wisconsin Supper Clubs: Another Round
by Ron Faiola
$35, hardcover, 224 pages
Agate Midway: Cooking/Regional
This highly anticipated follow up to the hugely popular Wisconsin Supper Clubs profiles fifty more family-owned establishments that exemplify Wisconsin’s beloved supper club tradition. Through interviews with the proprietors and local customers, author Ron Faiola once again takes readers deep into the world of this authentic upper Midwestern experience.
JULY RELEASES
All But Normal
by Shawn Thornton
$22.99, hardcover, 320 pages
Tyndale House Publishers: Memoir
A window into the masked realities of mental illness—a rare, untold perspective on the tempestuous nature of family life from behind closed doors—where a mother’s psychological and physical debilitations wreaked havoc throughout the dysfunctional childhood home in which her son grew up. This memoir also looks at how he came to embrace the underrated value of brokenness—and what led him to the profound life lesson that, when it comes to family, normal is a relative term. A heartwarming coming-of-age story, All But Normal is a powerful reminder that sometimes the “broken” people in our lives are the ones who need fixing the least.
Chicago Transformed
by Joseph Gustaitis
$29.95, paperback, 368 pages
Southern Illinois University Press: History
Between 1913 and 1919, Chicago transitioned from a nineteenth-century city to the metropolis it is today, but this period in Chicago has not been documented adequately. Chicago Transformed: World War I and the Windy City fills this gap, covering the important wartime events, developments, movements, and people that helped shaped Chicago.
Disco Demolition: The Night Disco Died
by Dave Hoekstra in collaboration with Steve Dahl, photographs by Paul Natkin, foreword by Bob Odenkirk
$34.94, hardcover, 200 pages
Curbside Splendor: Local History/Music
On July 12, 1979, more than 70,000 White Sox fans rushed the field at Comiskey Park to destroy disco records in retaliation of the genre’s recent rise to popularity to the detriment of rock music. Featuring more than thirty interviews conducted by legendary journalist Dave Hoekstra, with help from Steve Dahl, Disco Demolition examines the night that changed America’s disco culture forever.
The Face of Forgiveness: A Pastoral Theology of Shame and Redemption
by Philip D. Jamieson
$18, paperback, 192 pages
InterVarsity Press: Practical Theology
Utilizing contemporary distinctions between shame and guilt, Philip Jamieson shows how traditional Western atonement models have frequently failed to deal adequately with the full extent of Christ’s victory. Jesus Christ has answered both the problem of human guilt and shame. It is only in facing Christ that we find our sins forgiven and receive a new identity. The author concludes by offering several strategies to aid Christians in understanding and appropriating the fullness of God’s loving and forgiving work.
Impossible People: Christian Courage and the Struggle for the Soul of Civilization
by Os Guinness
$16, hardcover, 239 pages
InterVarsity Press: Cultural Analysis
More than ever, Christians must resist the negative cultural forces of our day with fortitude and winsomeness. What is needed is followers of Christ who are willing to face reality without flinching and respond with a faithfulness that is unwavering. Os Guinness describes these Christians as “impossible people,” those who have “hearts that can melt with compassion, but with faces like flint and backbones of steel who are unmanipulable, unbribable, undeterrable and unclubbable, without ever losing the gentleness, the mercy, the grace and the compassion of our Lord.”
It’s the First Day of Preschool, Chloe Zoe!
by Jane Smith
$12.99, hardcover, 32 pages
Albert Whitman: Picture Books
Chloe Zoe is starting preschool today, but she’s a little nervous. What if she doesn’t like it? Mommy tells her that she will get to sing songs, read stories, and paint pictures. But Chloe Zoe isn’t so sure. She’d rather stay at home and play with her little sister. Will Chloe Zoe discover how fun preschool is before the day is over?
Mickey
by Chelsea Martin
$14.95, paperback, 200 pages
Curbside Splendor: Fiction
After breaking up with her boyfriend Mickey, a young woman struggles to situate her life and her art, and reach her estranged mother. Told in a series of vignettes, Mickey is one young woman’s journey to figuring out life (or not) amidst drunken mistakes, reality TV marathons, bathroom sex, and the daydreamed titles of imaginary art installations.
My Halal Kitchen: Global Recipes, Cooking Tips, and Lifestyle Inspiration
by Yvonne Maffei
$29.95, hardcover, 214 pages
Agate Surrey: Cooking
In this beautiful cookbook, Yvonne Maffei of MyHalalKitchen.com shares more than 100 halal-friendly recipes for classic dishes—from American comfort foods to French, Asian, Latin, and Italian favorites—as well as invaluable tips for sourcing (or making) halal substitutes.
The Necessary Poetics of Atheism
by Martín Espada, Lauren Schmidt, and J. D. Schraffenberger
$15, paperback, 90 pages
Twelve Winters Press: Essays/Poetry
The authors discuss issues related to writing and publishing atheistic poetry in a culture dominated by Christianity, and also how poetry itself is a kind of religion. The collection grew out of the trio’s presentation at the North American Review Bicentennial Conference in 2015. The book includes a foreword by Andrew Sneddon and an introduction by Heid E. Erdrich.
Preston Tucker and His Battle to Build the Car of Tomorrow
by Steve Lehto, foreword by Jay Leno
$27.99, hardcover, 272 pages
Chicago Review Press: Transportation/History
In the wake of World War II, the U.S. automobile industry was fully unprepared to meet the growing demands of the public, for whom they had not made any cars for years. In stepped Preston Tucker, a salesman extraordinaire who announced the building of a revolutionary new car: the Tucker ‘48, the first car in almost a decade to be built fresh from the ground up. Tucker’s car, which would include ingenious advances in design and engineering that other car companies could not match, captured the imagination of the public, and automakers in Detroit took notice. Steve Lehto presents the first comprehensive, authoritative account of the Tucker ’48, its downfall, and its lasting legacy.
Russian Realisms
by Molly Brunson
$59, paperback, 264 pages
Northern Illinois University Press: Russian Studies/Art History/Literature
In this original study, Molly Brunson traces many paths that converged to form the tradition of nineteenth-century Russian realism. Brunson integrates the lesser-known tradition of Russian painting with the familiar masterpieces of Russia’s great novelists, highlighting both the common ground in their struggles for artistic realism and their cultural autonomy and legitimacy.
You and Me, Always
by Jill Mansell
$14.95, paperback, 384 pages
Sourcebooks Landmark: Fiction
On Lily Harper’s twenty-fifth birthday, she receives the last letter written by her deceased mother—all about the first and only love of her life. Before long, secrets begin to emerge, and Lily’s friends and family become involved. In the beautiful Cotswold village of Stanton Langley, nothing will ever be the same again.
AUGUST RELEASES
Come to the Family Table
by Ted & Amy Cunningham
$14.99, paperback, 224 pages
NavPress: Family
Prioritizing mealtime slows us down long enough to enjoy our food, each other, and Jesus. Inspired by the slow food movement, Come to the Family Table seeks to encourage families with intentional strategies to engage one another and create the table as a space for practical ministry to their community.
Courageous Women of the Civil War: Soldiers, Spies, Medics, and More
by M. R. Cordell
$19.99, hardcover, 256 pages
Chicago Review Press: Juvenile Nonfiction
Courageous Women of the Civil War reveals the exploits of sixteen of these remarkable women who served as medics, spies, battlefield helpers, and even soldiers on the front lines. Meet fascinating figures such as Maria Lewis, a former slave who fled with the Union Army as it swept through Virginia. Disguised as white male soldier, she “put the fear of Hell” into Confederate enemies. Kady Brownell supported her husband’s Rhode Island regiment as a vivandière, training with the soldiers, fighting in battle, and helping the injured. Mary Carroll, a Missouri Rebel, forged a copy of a jail cell key to break her brother out before his scheduled execution.These and other little-known stories are told through gripping narrative, primary source documents, and contextualizing sidebars. Civil War history is woven throughout, offering readers a clear overview of the era and the war.
The Darkness Knows
by Cheryl Honigford
$15.99, paperback, 352 pages
Sourcebooks Landmark: Mystery
It’s October 1938, and radio is king. Vivian Witchell is determined to be a star, and with her new role in the popular detective serial The Darkness Knows, everything she’s dreamed of is finally within her grasp. Until the night she steps into the employee lounge and stumbles upon the body of the station’s biggest—and most reviled—actress. Clutched in the dead woman’s hand is a threatening letter that targets Vivian as the next victim. Suddenly, Viv’s biggest worry isn’t remembering her lines—it’s staying alive.
Down, Out, and Under Arrest: Policing and Everyday Life in Skid Row
by Forrest Stuart
$27.50, hardcover, 352 pages
University of Chicago Press: Political Science/Current Events
This book presents a close-up look at the hows and whys of policing poverty in the contemporary United States. Stuart reveals a situation where a lot of people on both sides of this issue are genuinely trying to do the right thing, yet often come up short—sometimes in ways that do serious harm.
The Five Life Decisions: How Economic Principles and 18 Million Millennials Can Guide Your Thinking
by Robert Michael
$20, paperback, 232 pages
University of Chicago Press: Economics/Self-Improvement/
Using basic economic concepts and data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth, Robert T. Michael provides a framework for young adults who want to make better decisions about college, career, partners, parenting, and health.
The Gift of Hard Things: Finding Grace in Unexpected Places
by Mark Yaconelli
$16, paperback, 151 pages
InterVarsity Press: Self-Help
In many ways society teaches us to try to have everything under our control. If we are honest, we tend to think that this can be true even of our spiritual lives. Using extraordinary stories from his own life and the lives of others, Yaconelli offers a narrative journey through ways in which disappointments have turned into gifts. In these pages are is wealth of spiritual practices that will carry us deeper into the grace we find in unexpected places.
Is It Sukkot Yet?
by Chris Barash;
illustrated by Alessandra Psacharopulo
$16.99, hardcover, 32 pages
Albert Whitman: Picture Books
The first sights of fall arrive—pumpkins, gourds, and colorful leaves—and that means Sukkot
is almost here. Sukkot is the Jewish holiday celebrating the fall harvest and commemorating the time when the children of Israel spent forty years wandering the desert and living in temporary shelters (rebuilt as a sukkah during Sukkot). Soft illustrations and thoughtful, gentle text pair for a charming invitation for children to celebrate the joyful holiday.
John Lennon vs. The USA
by Leon Wildes, foreword by Michael Wildes
$35, hardcover, 267 pages
Ankerwycke: History/Legal Studies
For the first time, noted New York immigration attorney Leon Wildes tells the incredible story of this landmark case—John Lennon vs. The U.S.A.—that set up a battle of wills between John Lennon, Yoko Ono, and President Richard Nixon. Although Wildes did not even know who John Lennon and Yoko Ono were when he was originally retained by them, he developed a close relationship with them both during the eventual five-year period while he represented them and thereafter. This is their incredible story.
A Prairie State of Mind
by Larry Kanfer
$34.95, hardcover, 128 pages
University of Illinois Press: Photography
With A Prairie State of Mind, celebrated photographer Larry Kanfer shows the American heartland as he can, taking readers over fields fertile and fallow and through the eternal cycle of the seasons.
Sorrow Road
by Julia Keller
$25.99, hardcover, 368 pages
Minotaur Books: Fiction
In 1944, three young men from a small town in West Virginia are among the American forces participating in D-Day, changing the fortunes of the war with one bold stroke. How is that moment aboard a Navy ship as it barrels toward the Normandy shore related to the death of an old man in an Appalachian nursing home seventy-two years later? In Sorrow Road, the latest mystery from Pulitzer Prize-winning local author Julia Keller, two stories—one set in the turbulent era of World War II and one in the present day—are woven together to create a piercingly poignant tale of memory and family, of love and murder.
SEPTEMBER RELEASES
The Art of the Blues: A Visual Treasury of Black Music’s Golden Age
by Bill Dahl
$35, hardcover, 224 pages
University of Chicago Press: Art/Music
This stunning book charts the rich history of the blues, through the dazzling array of posters, album covers, and advertisements that have shaped its identity over the past hundred years. The blues have been one of the most ubiquitous but diverse elements of American popular music at large, and the visual art associated with this unique sound has been just as varied and dynamic. There is no better guide to this fascinating graphical world than longtime music journalist and historian Bill Dahl.
Baring Witness: 36 Mormon Women Talk Candidly About Love, Sex, and Marriage
by Holly Welker (ed.)
$19.95, paperback, 320 pages
University of Illinois Press: Religion/Current Events
In Baring Witness, Welker and thirty-six Mormon women speak to a diversity of life experiences: what happens when one partner rejects Church teachings; marrying outside one’s faith; the pain of divorce and widowhood; the horrors of spousal abuse; the hard journey from visions of an idealized marriage to the everyday truth; sexuality within Mormon marriage; how the pressure to find a husband shapes young women’s actions and sense of self. An unflinching look at the earthly realities of an institution central to Mormon life.
Boy, 9, Missing
by Nic Joseph
$15.99, paperback, 336 pages
Sourcebooks Landmark: Fiction
This suspenseful debut explores the ramifications of revenge, justice, and the aftermath of a terrible night in the lives of two families. It should have been just a quiet evening with friends. But Francis lost his brother that night in what was ruled a tragic accident. He’s tried to move on in the past twenty-three years, even though his father certainly hasn’t. Indeed, his father still blames the lone witness, Sam, the nine-year-old son of friends. Perhaps if Sam would have just said something, anything, about what happened that night, but Sam still seems unable—or unwilling—to utter a word about the accident. And now, twenty-three years later, Sam’s own nine-year-old son has disappeared.
Chicago’s Block Clubs: How Neighbors Shape the City
by Amanda I. Seligman
$30, paperback, 312 pages
University of Chicago Press: History/Social Science
Omnipresent yet evanescent, block clubs are sometimes the major outlets for community organizing in the city—especially in neighborhoods otherwise lacking in political strength and clout. Drawing on the stories of hundreds of these groups from across the city, Seligman vividly illustrates what neighbors can—and cannot—accomplish when they work together.
Debating Darwin
by Robert J. Richards and Michael Ruse
$30, hardcover, 320 pages
University of Chicago Press: Science/History
Charles Darwin is easily the most famous scientist of the modern age, and his theory of evolution is constantly referenced in many contexts by scientists and nonscientists alike. And yet, despite how frequently his ideas are evoked, there remains a surprising amount we don’t know about the father of modern evolutionary thinking, his intellectual roots, and the science he produced. Debating Darwin seeks to change that, bringing together two leading Darwin scholars—Robert J. Richards and Michael Ruse—to engage in a spirited and insightful dialogue, offering their interpretations of Darwin and their critiques of each other’s thinking.
Grant Park
by Leonard Pitts
$16, paperback, 408 pages
Agate Bolden: Fiction
This is the first paperback edition of Grant Park, the critically acclaimed third novel by Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist Leonard Pitts, Jr. Pitts delivers a powerful, emotionally resonant story that follows two veteran journalists whose personal stories extend from Martin Luther King’s final days in Memphis to the 2008 presidential election of Barack Obama.
The Natural Heritage of Illinois: Essays on Its Lands, Waters, Flora, and Fauna
by John E. Schwegman
$24.50, paperback, 240 pages
Southern Illinois University Press: Nature
A collection of ninety-four essays on the lands, waters, plants, and animals of Illinois, this book discusses how wind, water, glaciers, earthquakes, fire, and people have shaped Illinois’ landforms, natural habitats, and rivers and streams, and the ways in which native plants and animals have thrived, survived, or died out.
The Virginity of Famous Men
by Christine Sneed
$26, hardcover, 320 pages
Bloomsbury USA: Fiction/Stories
The Virginity of Famous Men, award-winning story writer Christine Sneed’s deeply perceptive collection on the human condition, features protagonists attempting to make peace with the paths they have taken thus far. Long intrigued by love and loneliness, Sneed leads readers through emotional landscapes both familiar and uncharted. These probing stories are explorations of the compassionate and passionate impulses that are inherent in—and often the source of—both abiding joy and serious distress in every human life.
—Kelli Christiansen
Well, fellow bibliophiles, here we are at the end of 2017 and it’s been a long while since we here at Chicago Book Review have posted a review or shared a feature story. So, it is with a heavy heart that I find it’s time to say au revoir.
Atlas of an Anxious Man
Imagine if W. G. Sebald went on a trip around the world and you’d pretty much have this book. Atlas of an Anxious Man is a memoir, history, travelogue, and seemingly everything else imaginable, written in near-perfect prose and struggling with what it means to be human,
Bone Gap
Bone Gap is a beautiful work of magical realism, set in a rural town, about a girl who is kidnapped and the boy who witnessed the crime, but can’t seem to identify the kidnapper. Ruby has a unique and poignant voice, telling a story that’s both quiet and deceivingly high-concept.
Girl Waits With Gun
The Meursault Investigation
The protagonist of this novel is Harun, the brother of ‘the Arab.’ Musa (with no name in The Stranger) is killed by Meursault, Albert Camus’s anti-hero in The Stranger. The opening line of The Stranger is “Mother died today.” Kamel’s The Meursault Investigation opens with “Mama is still alive today.” It is Daoud’s homage to Camus and a wonderful retelling of the story from the Arab’s perspective.
High School students join a new social networking site that grants them what they most Need, but as they soon learn, that gift comes with a hefty price. I found the story compelling—it reminds me of Lois Duncan’s thrillers for teenagers. So I recommended it to my twelve-year-old son, Alex, and he’s halfway through it already. I asked him what he thought and said, “I really just want to know what comes next!”
The Nightingale
I couldn’t put it down. So sad. And brave. And surprising. In books about World War 2, we tend to overlook the fact that people in the occupied countries suffered as well. This was a gentle but
In this compelling collection of contemporary short stories, Cyn Vargas plumbs the depths of loss, need, family, desire, and otherness, in situations great and small. Here is the man who works at the DMV and longs for the new driver behind the wheel; here is the daughter whose mother disappears while they are on a family trip to Guatemala; here is the young woman who comes face-to-face with her first abusive, then absent father at her grandmother’s funeral. There is no sugar coating on these stories, and that is part of what I love most about them. That, and the beautiful, straightforward voice and sense of story, the way Cyn lures me in with the ease of her storytelling, the way she holds me in the pages, reading, reading, reading, satisfied, but still (like her characters) wanting more.
Pretend I’m Dead
Meet Mona, a twenty-four-year-old house cleaner. She falls in love with a heroin addict, she moves away, she meets odd characters, such as the hippies next door who build their own instruments and make their own “music.” I simply couldn’t put this book down; Beagin creates characters and situations so vividly, you can see them. Like the hippies—I could hear their awful music. Through Mona’s journey, she uncovers some deep-buried secrets. You’re crying for her and laughing through this book.
Fatigued by the culture wars, hypocrisy, and scandals, Rachel Held Evans lost interest in attending church but could never fully let go. In this timely, beautifully written book, Evans echoes the cry of her millennial peers as she wrestles with her uprooted faith and searches for a spiritual home. It’s difficult to leave the evangelical world because it is uniquely gifted at forging committed, generous community; but when that generosity does not extend to friends who are LGBTQ, feminists, immigrants, and from other disenfranchised corners of society, it’s difficult to reconcile the divide. I loved reading this book because, as a former evangelical, I could identify with the tension Evans describes.
Fracture: Life & Culture in the West, 1918–1928
The period between the wars (i.e., WWI and WWII) fascinates me, that strange mix of peace and optimism with war mongering and unfinished business. Philipp Blom divides this period into two spans: postwar and prewar, focusing on everything from music to technology to politics, noting that “progress and innovation were everywhere met with increasing racism and xenophobia.” P
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