Romance: the program

January 23, 2011

 If you are a sucker for the happy ending, if you crave the comfort of a well-told tale of love, if you seek out authors who can satisfy your love of star-crossed couplings, paranormal trysts, romantic suspense, or urban young adult and inspirational romance, then romantic fiction is for you, and you won’t want to miss this February 12 romance […]


Book Trailer of the Week

January 22, 2011

Our next Book Trailer of the Week is for Susan Casey’s riveting investigative study The Wave: In Pursuit of the Rogues, Freaks, and Giants of the Ocean.  A 2010 NY Times Notable Book, The Wave travels around the world and back in time to search out gargantuan walls of water including a 1,740 foot-high monster that pummeled the Alaskan coast in 1958.  Along […]


An Interview with Rebecca Janowitz

January 20, 2011

Rebecca Janowitz is a lawyer, committed public servant, and the author of the fascinating new book Culture of Opportunity: Obama’s Chicago – The People, Politics, and Ideas of Hyde Park.  Written from her informed perspective as a long-time community insider, her book is an engaging exploration of how Hyde Park’s unique blend of independent politics, social activism, and racial […]


Test Prep Goes Mobile and Social

January 20, 2011

Thanks to Watermelon Express, an innovative technology design company, people studying for the SAT, GRE, MCAT, LSAT, and the GMAT will now be able to stop carrying those expensive, humongous test prep books around. The Chicago-based company, founded by Ujjwal Gupta and Ashish Rangnekar, has developed test prep applications for the iPhone, the iPad and the […]


Alliance Francaise de Chicago celebrates “Black Paris”

January 19, 2011

A lecture highlighting the history of Africans and African Americans in Paris, France will be held on February 1 at the Alliance Francaise de Chicago, 810 N. Dearborn. The travel guide discovery of historical African-American Paris will be lead by Kiratiana Freelon, a Harvard graduate who has traveled and lived in over 25 countries, and […]


Overdrive and the ipad…Yes, you can download epub books!

January 18, 2011

There has been a lot of discussion about using My Media Mall (Overdrive) on the ipad.  We can use  Bluefire Reader but books must be first downloaded to the computer then transferred to the ipad.  Bluefire does a great job of explaining this process, but it’s really not ideal. So, we heard some rumors about […]


Elementary, My Dear Readers

January 18, 2011

The Conan Doyle estate has asked author Anthony Horowitz to write a new Sherlock Holmes book for adult readers to be set in traditional Victorian London.  Read more in today’s NYT article.  (Laura H.)


“New” Dashiell Hammett Story to be Published

January 17, 2011

An unpublished  short story by famed mystery writer Dashiell Hammett has been discovered in a library archive. “So I Shot Him,” a 19-page story, will appear in Strand Magazine February 28.  Several others were found and I hope they will also see the light of day. (Hammett’s known for The Maltese Falcon.) Shira S.


Book Trailer of the Week

January 15, 2011

Our latest Book Trailer of the Week is for Dan Chaon’s pulse-pounding novel Await Your Reply.  A fixture on many 2009 best book lists, this haunting tale explores the dangers of reinventing yourself as it traces the oddly interlocking lives of three disparate characters: an 18-year-old orphan who runs away with her high school teacher, a college dropout […]


Antithesis of Parenting with Self-Esteem?

January 11, 2011

“Fresh Air” regular  Maureen Corrigan reviews a fascinating book which is sure to stir up parents, psychologists, and culture experts for the foreseeable future. She notes the  vast differences between Chinese values and current American attitudes toward child-rearing in “Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother.” Education pros generally us warn not to insult or  restrict […]


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