Chicago’s Very Own

From Steve Coll’s “Drone Delusion” in the New Yorker:
“The Way of the Knife (the title comes from a national-security adviser’s remark that the United States needed to fight terrorism with ‘a scalpel not a hammer’) offers the brisk pace, inside-the-White House scenes, and opaque sourcing of a Bob Woodward procedural.
“In one Situation Room meeting early in Obama’s first term, General James Cartwright, the vice-chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, is said to have asked why the United States was ‘building a second Air Force’ in the form of the C.I.A.’s swelling armed-drone fleet. [Author Mark] Mazzetti quotes Obama’s reply: ‘The C.I.A. gets what it wants.’

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Posted on April 30, 2013

Plus: Kat Von D vs. Jay Farrar

Over the transom and through the woods.
A Souljah, Not a Soldier
“Sister Souljah once rapped with the trailblazing hip-hop group Public Enemy and was denounced by then presidential candidate Bill Clinton for what he called extremist comments on racial violence,” Rashard Zanders writes for DNAinfo Chicago.
“To the more than 200 fans that came to see her speak at a South Side library over the weekend, she is better known as a beloved best-selling author who has written eloquent coming-of-age novels such as 1999’s The Coldest Winter Ever, which sold more than 1 million copies.
“Appearing Sunday at the Carter G. Woodson Regional Library at 9525 S. Halsted St., Souljah – who was born in the Bronx as Lisa Williamson – openly spoke about her career as an activist, musician, public speaker and literary powerhouse. Her resume now includes another book, A Deeper Love Inside: The Portia Santiago Story, a sequel to The Coldest Winter Ever, which was released earlier this year.”

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Posted on April 26, 2013

Plus: Baseball & Poetry Out Loud

Over the transom.
1. Chicago Malaise.
“The Third Coast: When Chicago Built the American Dream” has an elegant, unflinching, non-nostalgic clarity about Chicago that you rarely see in books about Chicago,” the Tribune’s Christopher Borelli writes.
We haven’t read, so can’t say.

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Posted on April 17, 2013

Terror And Moral Failure

Over the transom.
1. Why Chicago Teachers Struck.
“Luis Gabriel Aguilera, the author of Gabriel’s Fire: A Memoir, reminds us that the Chicago teachers strike of 2012 was not about salaries or benefits. It was a counter-attack against the brutality of corporate school reforms,” John Thompson writes for This Week In Education.

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Posted on April 9, 2013

By The Society of Midland Authors

The Society of Midland Authors will present its annual awards May 14 in Chicago, honoring its choices for the best books by Midwest authors published in 2012, in the LaSalle Room at Holiday Inn Chicago Mart Plaza.
The master of ceremonies will be Steve Bertrand, a morning anchor on WGN-AM radio and host of the video podcast “Steve Bertrand on Books,” which features his interviews with leading writers.
Tickets are $75 each. A cash bar opens at 6 p.m., followed by dinner and the awards ceremony at 7 p.m. Reservations can by made by PayPal or check at www.midlandauthors.com.
*
ADULT FICTION
(Two winners in this category.)
WINNERS:
Nick Dybek, When Captain Flint Was Still A Good Man, Riverhead. (Dybek grew up in Kalamazoo, Mich.; his father, Chicago author Stuart Dybek, is a two-time winner of the same award.)
Jack Driscoll, The World of a Few Minutes Ago, Wayne State University Press. (Author lives in Interlochen, Mich.)
FINALISTS:
Peter Geye, The Lighthouse Road, Unbridled Books. (Author lives in Minneapolis.)
Richard Babcock, Are You Happy Now, Amazon Publishing. (Author lives in Chicago.)

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Posted on April 5, 2013

Coming Fall 2013

From Montrose Pictures:
“Algren is the first feature-length documentary that spotlights the creative legacy of one of the most underrated American writers of the twentieth century, Nelson Algren, recipient of the first National Book Award for Man With a Golden Arm (1950); Simone de Beauvoir’s ‘Chicago Bohemian’ lover; a Beat writer before the Beats; a forerunner of the Gonzo movement. Through interviews with internationally known artists, writers, musicians and filmmakers, Algren will re-establish Algren’s huge impact on countless literary and artistic champions, while defining American urban fiction.”

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Posted on April 4, 2013

Plus: Poetry vs. MIT

Over the transom.
1. Poetry Nominated.

The Poetry Foundation, publisher of Poetry magazine, is proud to announce that the magazine is a finalist for a National Magazine Award in the category of “General Excellence, Print.” Poetry shares distinguished company with fellow finalists MIT Technology Review, Mother Jones, The New Republic, and The Paris Review in the group classified as “Literary, Political and Professional Magazines.”

Congratulations to Poetry, but the oddity of that grouping illustrates the futility (and incompetence) of most awards-giving.

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Posted on April 3, 2013