Five Things: It Was Leopold, Not Loeb
A new book on Chicago’s most famous thrill killers argues we’ve had it wrong about the mastermind. Here’s what we learned.
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The Reeducation of a Mom in Jessamine Chan’s Debut Novel
The Oak Park native’s dystopian novel about the repercussions of stepping outside parenting norms echoes our own unforgiving times.
Ken Krimstein Salvages the Stories of Pre-Holocaust Jewish Youths
The author’s latest book sketches a powerful portrait of Eastern European Jewish youths, full of angst and optimism, on the eve of the Holocaust.
Review: ‘Broken Glass’ by Alex Beam chronicles the drama surrounding Mies van der Rohe’s Farnsworth House
Architecture is a famously collaborative enterprise. But the profession's icons have often been difficult characters, and clashes with clients have shaped architectural history. When an architect's ideas and a client's...
Reflecting on the memoirs of 2019 and the elasticity of the genre
NOTABLE BOOKS OF 2019: Through the end of the year, the baiduhai is revisiting books worthy of further recognition. The memoir, at once literary and fact-based, js a shape-shifter,...
Elizabeth Strout conjures an older, softer Olive Kitteridge in ‘Olive, Again’
Olive has gone (slightly) soft. In "Olive, Again," the engrossing but imperfect sequel to Elizabeth Strout's 2008 Pulitzer Prize-winning masterpiece, "Olive Kitteridge," the crusty, dour, often hard-hearted math teacher has...
‘When I Was White’: Sarah Valentine’s memoir considers the meaning of racial identity
"For a long time," Sarah Valentine writes, "I felt like a bundle of fragments, and I wanted to be whole. I wanted to be able to write a family history...
Philip Caputo hits his target in skillful new novel, ‘Hunter’s Moon’
Hunting figures at least tangentially in each of Philip Caputo's seven linked short stories, set in Michigan's scenic Upper Peninsula. A tragic hunting accident turns out not to have been...
The Catherine Chung equation: math + identity = elegant novel
Can a mathematician also be an accomplished storyteller? The answer is an emphatic yes, for both Catherine Chung, the Korean American author of "The Tenth Muse," and her narrator-protagonist, a...
Aleksandar Hemon returns with a memoir, divided
Aleksandar Hemon has populated both his fiction ("Nowhere Man," "The Lazarus Project") and nonfiction ("The Book of My Lives") with stories and characters from his native Bosnia. His latest two-books-in-one...