Two men, each handsome and unusually adept at his chosen work, embodied an element of the great dynamic that characterized America₂s rush toward the twentieth century. The architect was Daniel Hudson Burnham, the fair's brilliant director of works and the builder of many of the country's most important structures, including the Flatiron Building in New York and Union Station in Washington, D.C. The murderer was Henry H. Holmes, a young doctor who,...

Popular Chicago weatherman Dave Spritz (Nicolas Cage) has a shot at the big time when a national morning television show calls him for an audition. Professionally, Dave is on top of the world, but his personal life is in complete disarray. The harder he tries to hold on, the more he loses his grip. His painful divorce, his Pulitzer Prize-winning dad’s (Michael Caine) illness, and trouble with his kids have Dave poised on the knife’s edge between...

"A dazzling new novel of friendship and redemption in the face of tragedy and loss set in 1980s Chicago and contemporary Paris, by the acclaimed and award-winning author Rebecca Makkai. In 1985, Yale Tishman, the development director for an art gallery in Chicago, is about to pull off an amazing coup, bringing in an extraordinary collection of 1920s paintings as a gift to the gallery. Yet as his career begins to flourish, the carnage of the AIDS epidemic...

V.I. Warshawski travels to Kansas to investigate the disappearances of a young film student and a faded Hollywood star, but long-simmering racial tensions stir up more mysteries as the body count rises.

"Now a documentary narrated by Common, produced by Grant Hill, Dwyane Wade, and 9th Wonder, from filmmaker Mary Mazzio. The moving true story of a group of young men growing up on Chicago's West side who form the first all-black high school rowing team in the nation, and in doing so not only transform a sport, but their lives. Growing up on Chicago's Westside in the 90's, Arshay Cooper knows the harder side of life. The street corners are full of...

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • “When it comes to creating character, evoking place, and writing crackling and convincing dialogue, Sara Paretsky has no peer—and Hard Time proves it once again.”—Chicago Tribune

“Terrific . . . expertly plotted . . . This book [is] her best.”—The New York Times Book Review

In an instant, the lives of two women...

"With his colleagues at the People's Law Office (PLO), Taylor has argued landmark civil rights cases that have exposed corruption and cover-ups within the Chicago Police Department (CPD) and throughout the city's corrupt political machine. The Torture Machine takes the reader from the 1969 murders of Black Panther Party chairman Fred Hampton and Panther Mark Clark--and the historic thirteen years of litigation that followed--through the dogged pursuit...

"From the beloved author of The House on Mango Street: a richly illustrated compilation of true stories and nonfiction pieces that, taken together, form a jigsaw autobiography: an intimate album of a literary legend's life and career. From the Chicago neighborhoods where she grew up and set her groundbreaking The House on Mango Street to her abode in Mexico, in a region where "my ancestors lived for centuries," the places Sandra Cisneros has lived...

One of the surprise bestsellers of 1991, this is the moving & powerful account of two remarkable boys struggling to survive in Chicago's Henry Horner Homes, a public housing complex disfigured by crime & neglect. "Alex Kotlowitz joins the ranks of the important few writers on the subject of urban poverty."

"A dramatic and inspiring novel based on the true story of the Jane Collective and the brave women who fought for our right to choose, from the USA Today bestselling author of The Paris Bookseller. Chicago, early 1970s: Who does a woman call when she needs help? Jane. The best-known secret in the city, Jane is an underground women's health organization composed entirely of women helping women, empowering them to live lives free from the expectations...