When an eight million-volume library system won’t cut it
Dani Brecher, Chicago Maroon
Articles
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Lahiri speaks on life, literature, and libraries
Pulitzer prize-winning author gives talk as this year’s Kestnbaum Writer-in-Residence
Out of the limelight, a cappella groups work in harmony
The singers and beat boxers in A Cappella Council are finally poised to take center stage. Compared to a cappella groups at universities like Yale or Brown, the U of C a cappella scene is relatively young, and it’s still forming.
Pepperland, the “Frisbee Frat,” to party again
“We think it’s a social building,” a MAC representative said. “The combination of the courtyard and the history is part of what’s here.”
Too Much Happiness has all the beauty without the brains
By the end of the collection, the reader is left to wonder what Munro might accomplish if she were to try her hand at writing stories about women who suffer less.
Dubious discovery drives Steppenwolf’s original drama
The contrapuntal structure of the play is almost symphonic, with each scene serving to amplify and complement those preceding and following.
Noah’s Ark Goes Green in Atwood’s Feminist Flood
This year’s looming flu season brings along with it Margaret Atwood’s new novel The Year of the Flood to help feed our microbe-induced hysteria.
Coward caper gets dose of girl power with Elliott’s Virtue
Stephan Elliott’s Easy Virtue may be more Andre than Dom Perignon, but it still manages to deliver a pleasurable two hours.
Chick lit tropes crash The Divorce Party
In her new novel The Divorce Party, Laura Dave works with good material and ideas but falls back on standard chick lit plotting in the end.
Bizarre thriller relates Dickens’ last decade through eyes of rival novelist Collins
Drood, a fictionalized account of the last years of Dickens’s life, is an enjoyable, if overly long, thriller, complete with cameos from famous literary figures, practitioners of Egyptian occultism, and denizens of an underground city in the sewers of London.
Boyle builds juicy melodrama on Wright’s fickle foundations
T.C. Boyle creates a beautifully written potboiler full of of sex, revenge, and beautiful language.