Chicago Author Month Wrap-Up: Chicago Literary Tour Ideas

We had a great time joining Jen Karsbaek at Devourer of Books in her month-long focus on Chicago authors. We discovered some fabulous new books, hosted some really cool authors, and added plenty of other books to our personal wish lists.

Before we sign off on this bookish adventure, we wanted to mention a few of our favorite Chicago books that present some of the best opportunities for book club "field trips." For Chicago area readers, or any other readers planning a visit to Chicago, here are some suggestions for a Chicago Literary Tour.

Sister Carrie (Theodore Dreiser, 1900) is one of my favorite Chicago novels. I recommend Sister Carrie to our local book clubs because it offers moral ambiguity, an early feminist sensibility and layers upon layers of social commentary that are as relevant today as they were 100 years ago.

Sister Carrie is ripe with opportunities for an interesting historical Chicago Literary Tour. The online version of the Pennsylvania edition includes a list of all of the locations mentioned in the book, from Carrie's sister's flat at 354 West Van Buren to Carrie and Drouet's love nest at Ogden Place. I would recommend starting your Sister Carrie tour on State Street, because Carrie was so easily seduced by the charms of department store windows. You could stroll through the old Marshall Fields (it will never be Macy's to me), and then have lunch or a drink in the historic Palmer House Hotel on Monroe Street (where Drouet and Hurstwood stayed in Chapters 24-27). If you're adventuresome, your tour should include a visit to the near west side, particularly Skinner Park (formerly Jefferson Park), where Carrie meets Hurstwood ("on a rustic bench beneath the green leaves of a lilac bush") and they first discuss the possibility of running away together.

Devil in the White City (Erik Larson, 2003) is also set in Chicago's Gilded Age, and like Sister Carrie, shows both sides of the coin. This book combines a chilling true crime story with an insider's view of the planning and building of Chicago's World's Fair in 1893. The Chicago Architectural Foundation currently offers a Devil in the White City Bus Tour. Interest in this book is likely to rise again as they begin filming the movie starring Leonardo DiCaprio as the serial killer.

The Lazarus Project (Aleksandar Hemon, 2008) is another great Chicago novel, a National Book Award Finalist and the winner of a Chicago Tribune Heartland Prize for Fiction. I first raved about this book in a blog post nearly two years ago, and have since hailed Hemon's 2009 short story collection Love and Other Obstacles.

The Lazarus Project is based on a true story from Chicago history. In 1908, Chicago Chief of Police George Shippey murdered Lazarus Averbach, a Jewish immigrant who had gained entry to the Chief's Lincoln Park home. No one really knows why Averbach was there, but Shippey erroneously believed he was a Jewish anarchist who had come to assassinate him.

Shippey's home is located on the 2100 block of North Hudson. Geoffrey Johnson of The Chicago Magazine created a video depicting scenes related to the Averbach story, including Averbach's two burial sites and the foyer of the home where the murder occurred. My dream Chicago Literary Tour would have to include a walk through the Hudson Street area of Lincoln Park in honor of both Hemon and Averbach.

Loving Frank (Nancy Horan, 2007) is based on the love affair between Frank Lloyd Wright and his neighbor Mamah Cheney. It is set in Oak Park, Illinois, where Nancy Horan lived in Oak Park for 24 years. When my book club read this book, we enjoyed an outing to the Frank Lloyd Wright Home and Studio. If you can't get the chance to get to Oak Park, Nancy Horan has a narrated video of a Frank Lloyd Wright Neighborhood Walking Tour on her website. In addition, there is a new Loving Frank Tour at Taliesen, Frank Lloyd Wright's home in Spring Green Wisconsin, which is located approximately 2.5 hours northwest of Chicago.

Our month-long focus on Chicago area authors has shown us that just one month is clearly not enough time. The Bookstore would love to form a Chicago Area Author Book Club, with regular Chicago Literary Tours. To let us know you're interested, please add a comment below, call us at (630) 469-2891, or e-mail justbook475@yahoo.com.

For anyone who can't seem to resist adding more books by Chicago authors to their nightstand, check out this list of books that were included in five and a half years of the Gaper's Block Chicago Book Club. Our Chicago Author Month was clearly just the tip of the iceberg.

Chicago Author Month: Melanie Benjamin as a Celebrity Bookseller

As part of our month long celebration of Chicago area authors, we extended a unique invitation to one of our favorite local authors, Melanie Benjamin. We thought it would be fun if she came to The Bookstore as a Celebrity Bookseller, in order to recommend some of her favorite books to our customers. Melanie gracefully accepted our invitation, even if she is deep into the proofing process of her next book (The Autobiography of Mrs. Tom Thumb, due to be released in July 2011).

As many of our customers and local book clubs know, Melanie has always been a big reader. At book club visits, she is often asked to share her favorite reads, and has even thought about putting together a list of book recommendations to hand out. In the meantime, here is the list of books we gathered for Melanie's own Celebrity Bookseller Picks:

March by E. L. Doctorow (Melanie's favorite historical fiction)

Homer & Langley by E.L. Doctorow

Howards End by E. M. Forster (turn of the century British literature)

Brief History of the Dead by Kevin Brockmeier (Melanie: "so creative")

Mrs. Kimble by Jennifer Haigh (fiction: the three wives of Mr. Kimball)

Later, at the Bar by Rebecca Barry (similar to Olive Kitteridge)

On Melanie's recommendation alone, I brought home a copy of Later, at the Bar. I love it when I get an enthusiastic recommendation for a book that's completely new to me. Customers enjoyed talking to Melanie, and quite a few even picked up a copy of Melanie's current book, Alice I Have Been.

We even had a fun moment of bookstore serendipity when a customer identified herself as Brigid Pasulka's mother-in-law, and I was thrilled to be able to tell her, "I love Brigid's book - I just blogged about it as a part of Chicago Writers Month!" (A Long, Long Time Ago & Essentially True, October 13, 2010 post)

Bookstores are like that. They bring good people and good books together. A special thanks to Melanie for sparing some of her time as a busy writer to come hang out with us at The Bookstore!

Pictured above is the paperback cover of Alice I Have Been, which will be released on December 21st. Although I loved the cover in hardcover, I love the new paperback cover in a whole different way. The Bookstore is hosting a reception for Melanie after the holidays on Thursday, January 27th at 7pm. Mark your 2011 calendars now!

Chicago Author Month: John McNally Appearing October 14th

Ghosts of Chicago by native Chicagoan John McNally has been released in paperback just in time for Halloween.

I know what you're thinking: creepy noises in the middle of the night, a cold white mist? Actually, not that kind of ghost. The ghosts in this book are different, and so much better. They're lost souls, dead or alive, searching for someone to listen to their lovely, haunting stories.

This short story collection includes a series of stories written in the imagined voices of lost Chicago legends, including John Belushi, Gene Siskel, Walter Payton, Richard J. Daley, George Pullman and Nelson Algren. This is really creative stuff: imagine Walter Payton and Refrigerator Perry on a road trip after the '85 Superbowl, Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert in a snowball fight, or John Belushi remembering the acres of pot fields near Champaign, Illinois. For native Chicagoans, there is even a story about WGN's Creature Features and the silent goose. (The same goose my husband's side of the family always brings up when they're "in their cups" and reminiscing about their Chicago area childhood.)

One of the things I love about short story collections, especially for book clubs, is the way you can pick out your favorite stories and compare your list with others. My favorites in this book included The Immortals and the strange and funny so-called Contributor's Notes at the end. At first you wonder why anyone's Notes would be so long (26 pages), but you give McNally the benefit of the doubt. An introductory paragraph is the funniest and most honest author biography I've ever read, but you'll be left puzzling for days, how much is fiction? Check it out:

"After attending a famous writers' workshop in the Midwest, he worked as a short-order cook, bouncer, grave digger, lumberjack, carnival barker, florist, disc jockey, and busboy. Most recently, he was employed as a groundskeeper. He has no permanent place of residence. He owns a 1976 Ford LTD, inside of which he could, if necessary, store all his worldly possessions, This is his first published story."

For fans of McNally's novel After the Workshop, Contributor's Notes offers more sharp wit and McNally's smart, satirical take on the pretensions and idiocy of the publishing world and the creative writing programs that feed it.


Perfect, then, that McNally has also written The Creative Writer's Survival Guide: Advice From an Unrepentant Novelist, a "subjective and idiosyncratic take on the writing life." It's an honest guidebook for aspiring writers who want the truth, and not just the "you can do it!" reassurance of family, friends and many magazines and writing conferences.

Whether you're an aspiring writer or merely a reader who appreciates good, smart fiction, please join us for an evening of cocktails, cheese and crackers with John McNally on Thursday, October 14th from 7:00-8:30pm. We will mingle and chat from 7-7:30, and then we'll hear John talk about his books. (I for one am dying to know about John's supposed jobs as a lumberjack and carnival barker.) Book signing to follow. Please call The Bookstore at (630) 469-2891 or e-mail us to let us know you're coming. We'd hate to run out of cheese.

Ghosts of Chicago was another great discovery for Chicago Area Author Month. You can find this and McNally's other books on our new Chicago Area Author Shelf at The Bookstore. Highly recommended.

Meet Our Book Blogging Partner, "Devourer of Books"

Over the last year, we've been partnering with Jen Karsbaek, an area book blogger known as "Devourer of Books." Maybe you've met her at some of our author events and parties, or seen her book blogger bookmarks inside her favorite books at the store, but here's a chance to get to know her better.

Jen is a 20-something wife and mom to an adorable little boy named Daniel (seen in the photo "reading" Pat the Bunny). She's a former history major who grew up in California, but came to Chicago to teach in the inner city with Teach for America. She currently lives in Palatine.

This gal can read! The folks at The Bookstore read a lot, but even we're no match for Jen. She has a passion for reading and a depth of knowledge that spills out in every conversation -- no wonder we're such good friends! We rely on her to give us a heads-up about books she's loved, authors to watch and publishers to meet. In turn, she spreads the good word about independent bookstores. Once she even came to The Bookstore as "Bookseller For A Day," which she found "exhausting but fun." We recently sat down and had a chat.

Margie: How and when did you ever get the crazy idea to be a book blogger?

Jen: I first heard that there were people who wrote about books on the internet from a thread on Library Thing and I basically thought "Hey, I love to read! I have opinions! Everyone in my real life is sick of hearing them all the time, maybe the internet would be interested!" This was January of 2008, and I started my blog in February of that year, after poking around a bit to see what people were doing.

Margie: How many books can you devour in a good week? A bad week?

Jen: Last week was a good week and I finished six books, but that is a bit misleading because I had two books I'd been working on and had almost finished at the beginning of the week. One was also an audiobook -- and one was "Mockingjay," which I stayed up late to read. I don't think I can read much more than that in a week. A bad week I'll finish two to three books and one of those will definitely be an audiobook. I consider a month 'good' if I read eighteen or more books, generally.

Margie: How do you manage to get so much reading done with a one year-old? Any tips? Mothers will want to know!

Jen: My number one tip is to have a book with you at all times. Daniel has a habit of falling asleep in the car from time to time, and that is prime reading time. I always make sure I have a book in my purse I can pull out. I make time to read: I'll do it instead of turning on the TV, and I'll often choose to settle down with my book after he goes to bed instead of picking up his toys. He's just going to get them out tomorrow anyway, and I'd rather get some reading time in than have a clean floor for ten hours overnight. Also, audiobooks! I have about a 40 minute commute each way to work, that used to be wasted reading time, but now I grab an audiobook and that's an extra book per week that I can read. Plus when I do break down and clean everything up, I throw in my audiobook to make it a more pleasurable experience.

Margie: What has been your biggest discovery you've made while book blogging?

Jen: The magic of publishing houses and their imprints! Finding an editor/imprint that you love is like finding an author you love, only much more prolific. Some of my favorites are Amy Einhorn Books, Harper Perennial, Algonquin Books, and Unbridled Books. I am also discovering W.W. Norton at the moment. Before blogging I never paid attention to who published the books I was reading, and I was really missing out.

Margie: What are your top 3 (or so) books that you've read since you started blogging, if possible?

Jen: Not even possible, I don't think. I've read too many great ones. Some of my top reads of the last few months have been Nobodies Album by Carolyn Parkhurst, Red Hook Road by Ayelet Waldman, and The City and The City by China Meiville.

Margie: And of course, what about Daniel's favorite books?

Jen: Babies Nose to Babies Toes is his number one, he's loved it since he was 3 months old and still does at 14 months. He had a deep and abiding love for Pat the Bunny, but not quite so much anymore. Lately he has been enjoying Just Like Daddy, The Very Busy Spider, and The Baby Bathtime Book. Also, his entire room is decorated in The Very Hungry Caterpillar decor.

Margie: I guess I'll let you go, I'm sure I'm holding you up from a really good book right now! Thanks for sharing.

Jen and The Bookstore are planning to collaborate on a special Chicago Literature Month in October. For more information, go to Jen's blog. We're planning reviews of a wide variety of Chicago area authors, including John McNally, Kevin Guilfoile, Sara Paretsky, Charlene Baumbich, Joelle Charbonneau, Laura Caldwell and more. Stay tuned for news about two very special Chicago Author Events at The Bookstore in October!