Elizabeth Taylor

When I need a weekend away, I go to college. Not for the all-nighters, roommate hassles or coin-operated laundry. For the green expanses, fabulous places to eat (budget meals and...

Richard Lewis? He seems so, well, coastal. Either one. For our Howard Reich, though, Richard Lewis really is Chicago. This city has such a legendary history with stand-up comedy, it...

These days, getting away for the summer doesn't necessarily mean traveling to a second home. Genius is the offspring of desperation, and times are tough. That humble summer lake cottage...

'Why We Make Mistakes: How We Look Without Seeing, Forget Things in Seconds, and Are Pretty Sure We Are Way Above Average' By Joseph T. Hallinan Broadway Books, 283 pages,...

Necessity is the mother of invention, and in these trying times, improvisation and ingenuity are more essential than ever. We're not thinking of quick, get-rich schemes, but great acts of...

"Dogged Pursuit: My Year of Competing Dusty, the World's Least Likely Agility Dog" By Robert Rodi Hudson Street Press, 273 pages, $24.95 Despite inevitable comparisons with "Marley and Me," this...

"Netherland" By Joseph O'Neill Vintage Contemporaries, 256 pages, $14.95 (paperback) The literary power rivaling Oprah, the other O -- President Barack Obama -- propelled this novel, published last year to...

Chicago has a thing for gorillas. Bushman, a 550-pound giant in the Lincoln Park Zoo, drew international visitors during the Century of Progress world's fair in 1933-1934. With his death...

The PEN / O. Henry Prize Stories 2009 Edited and with an introduction by Laura Furman with prize jury selections by A.S. Byatt, Anthony Doerr and Tim O'Brien Anchor Books,...

Here in Illinois, we're a land of lawyers. Beginning with the rail-splitting Lincoln, and on to the dramatic Clarence Darrow, there is a tradition of courtroom lawyers taking on the...