411 Seven Days in Chicago: Frame Games
Chicago’s 2006 Gay Games may have happened over a year ago, but that doesn’t mean people are done reflecting on the event’s success. A recently published photo book, “Gay Games VII: Where the World...
View Article411 Seven Days in Chicago: Ghost Games
Billy goats, black cats and guys nicknamed “Shoeless.” Any local baseball fan should recognize what these things have in common, as they have been among the reasons given by many for the championship...
View ArticleAuthor Visit: Fight Night
Catching up with Eugene Robinson requires a considerable amount of stamina. The journalist, spoken-word artist, musician, mixed-martial-arts cage fighter and, most recently, author, has a pretty full...
View Article411 Seven Days in Chicago: Menace on the Mound
You can’t take the New Yorker out of Society of Midland Authors’ recent award-winning biographer and St. Charles resident Judith Testa, and you certainly can’t wash out the dirty mouths of...
View ArticleNonfiction review: Run, Boy, Run
Run, Boy, Run Thirty years ago, Japanese novelist Haruki Murakami owned a jazz club in Tokyo. It was a tiny place. During the day, he served coffee; at night, the club became a bar. Murakami closed up...
View ArticleNonfiction Review: “Said in Stone: Your Game, My Way” by Steve Stone
By Eric Lutz Steve Stone is one of those odd public figures, in sports or elsewhere, who can be simultaneously one of his field’s best minds and also one of its most pompous blowhards. He’s like that...
View ArticleNonfiction Review: “Sweetness” by Jeff Pearlman
RECOMMENDED If you ever saw Walter Payton run, you’ve never forgotten it—not just his elusive speed, but the power that routinely broke tackles. Then there was that exuberant kick with which he...
View ArticleFiction Review: “Gold” by Chris Cleave
Watching the bodies of Olympic athletes move so beautifully and powerfully, we want to get inside their heads. We want to be them, and we believe if we can get inside their heads, maybe, just a little...
View ArticleNonfiction Review: “After Artest” by David J. Leonard
RECOMMENDED And you thought watching sports was innocuous. How could it be? Savagery’s long been our best bet at crowding our toughest thoughts out of the brain, so when you’re yelling LET’S GO and WIN...
View ArticleTransition Game: Longtime Reader Editor Michael Lenehan on Race, Basketball...
By Brian Hieggelke I’ve known Michael Lenehan for more than twenty years, in that distant friendly way you know your competitors. He was the top editor of the Chicago Reader from the time we started...
View ArticleNonfiction Review: “Thrown” by Kerry Howley
RECOMMENDED Disclaimer: I’m not a fan of fighting. My teen son was a wrestler and endured his share of cauliflower ear, knee injuries, concussion and all-or-nothing coaches. My husband made a...
View ArticleUnionizing College Football: Ben Strauss Discusses “Indentured”
Even after researching and writing “Indentured: The Inside Story of the Rebellion Against the NCAA,” a searing indictment of college sports’ governing body, author Ben Strauss still can’t resist the...
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