his book isn’t necessarily as stuffy as its title and premise make it out to be. It is, however, erudite throughout, even as it meanders away from what might be considered the thesis down long diatribes about interesting, if only-connected-by-gossamer-threads, side topics. It’s an unusual and intriguing ride, and one bolstered by the author’s unique voice. Honestly, even at the pace with which I coast through a book, I often end up feeling as though I wasted the effort of flicking my eyes from left to right across the page of one as dense as this one–but not so with this particular offering. If you have any interest in the topic at all, the intriguing voice of the author will cart you through the book as long as you’re open to some divergence in motif.

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‘ve decided to keep this simple.

The Good: If you are pregnant, planning on becoming pregnant, or just interested in pregnant fashion and you’re looking for a book that will cover all the basics of “preggo-chic,” you’ve found it. This book is packed with fashionable sketches, many from leading designers such as Nicole Miller, Donna Karan, Milly, Diane von Furstenberg, and Isaac Mizrahi. Honestly, even as a non-pregnant woman (and a never-in-a-million-years-planning-to-be-pregnant woman) I found a lot of the outfits cute and trendy. If you want to remain an A-list stylista while your waistline expands, you will seriously enjoy this book.

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ndrea Syrtash managed to make me enjoy reading her book, even if it wasn’t really saying anything original. The sad truth that many self-help authors must face is that there is a limit to the amount of advice one can dispense about dating: after a certain point, every point becomes a vehicle for telling the reader to have confidence, to not lose faith that there is someone out there worth finding.

But like I said, I didn’t mind the monotony. Being a lover of the self-help genre, I’ve basically heard it all at this point (and not just about dating). Syrtash’s writing was fresh, clear, and—thank the fucking Lord—grammatically correct, so reading this book felt less like an exercise and more like a nice chat with a friend.

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‘m afraid I’m turning into somewhat of a Debbie Downer around here these days, but I can’t help but share my honest opinion of Chicago author Robyn Okrant’s Living Oprah: I don’t really like it. Normally, on this site, you’ll notice that my dislike tends to be a bit more emphatic, but honestly, moderate dislike fits the tone of this book perfectly.

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A Bump in the Road is an easy and entertaining read. It follows Clare Finnegan, who works at an event planning firm in Chicago, and also has her own blog, in which she keeps her readers updated on the everyday happenings in her life as she unexpectedly finds out she is pregnant. This forces Clare and her husband to completely change their newlywed partying lifestyle for a more child friendly one, which takes just about nine whole months for them to do. The book progresses via a timeline as opposed to chapters, where the time is not just kept track of by days, but hour by hour as well. This seems to give the reader a more personal connection to Clare’s character, and makes it easier to relate to her. For example, we all have that night where we know we shouldn’t go out because we’ll end up spending an unnecessarily large amount of money on drinks and cab rides, in addition to looking and feeling like crap the next morning when we actually have important things to do, but we end up going out anyway against our better judgment, which is something Clare is quite accustomed to:

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Red Mud, a rather large collection of poetry by Patricia Goodrich (Or maybe just average-sized. I am far too used to chapbooks these days.), is divided into three progressive sections: Clay, Muck Land, and Red Mud. I found that each section built upon the last. Clay had a feeling of a beginning, just as soft mold-able clay might. Here we find poems about amputation and loss–the narrator has lost a leg in an accident. Throughout the book, and quite heavily in this section we see a connection to nature. The first poem, in fact, details roadkill which makes a stark comparison to the narrators own body, her leg being lost in a motorcycle accident. ¶ View In Entirety… →

t turns out that I missed the boat the first time around on The Time Traveler’s Wife, so in light of the movie’s imminent release, I thought it might be a good idea to see what this novel is all about. As a Chicago resident and book lover, not to mention romantic, I found myself incredibly pleased with this book. At this point, almost everyone in the literary world has either read or heard about this book, and countless others are soon to see the movie (though I recently learned in a conversation with the author, Audrey Niffenegger, the movie might now be worth the ten bucks you’ll spend on it), and now I know why. This book is quite frankly one of the most fantastic love stories I have ever read, and it’s not just a love story.

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or all you guys (and girls) out there who can’t get enough of the crazy partying and philandering portrayed on the HBO show Entourage, get ready to meet Tucker Max. What started out as a website created for the purpose of meeting girls and dedicated to getting a date, soon turned into a blog filled with wildly entertaining, and not to mention hilarious, stories about drinking, partying, and hooking up. Upon the success of Tucker Max’s blog, he decided to go ahead and turn it into a book, each chapter more hilarious than the next. ¶ View In Entirety… →

he thing that struck me when I cracked this book open was that from the first paragraph, the reader is immediately drawn into the exclusive world of professional golf. At first glance, the book may not appeal to those who aren’t interested in the sport, but once you actually decide not to judge the book by its cover, you get to see the excitement that comes with following golf. For those of you who don’t necessarily view golfers as celebrities, the accounts in this book are akin to reading the memoirs of, say, Britney Spears’ or Lindsey Lohan’s personal assistants or bodyguards; someone who is with the “celebrity” day in and day out, seeing a side of them that the public is unable to. In other words, they give us all the juicy stuff.

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ports fans are going to love this.  The Wise Guide series of books presents a succinct, all-inclusive look into what fans of various teams need to know to enjoy their trips to the stadium.  The particular Guide I’m reviewing is for Wrigley Field, home of the Chicago Cubs, but there are also Wise Guide books out for Yankee Stadium, Fenway Park, AT&T Park, Ohio Stadium, and Notre Dame Stadium available at their website.  These books are perfect both for new fans who want the know-how that lifetime fans have built up over the years, and for the old-pros who may want to brush up on some of their stadium knowledge.  Honestly, these books seem like the perfect gift, possibly as stocking-stuffer because of their small size, for any sports fan.

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The Photography

Still photography and moving pictures are important media to me.  After studying cinematography I felt compelled to study the finer points of stills to gather them each in as a distinct medium and have each one instruct the other. The Time After looks at the two media in a different way, imitating one with the other to synthesize a captured memory of an idea more continuous that those normally found in simple static still frames. ¶ View In Entirety… →

The Sad Epistles, by Emma Bolden, is a Dancing Girl Press chapbook comprised of ten letters. Like all of Dancing Girl Press’ titles–and I’ve read quite a few–it’s fantastic. Bolden has a way of evoking incredibly saturated, thick emotions by using well chosen words and a quick pace in her poems. The poems all focus on the ending of a relationship between the narrator and someone she loves. Even though this seems like a used topic (I mean, how many pop songs are about lost/ending love?) she does this in a completely fresh and beautiful way that did not leave me feeling exhausted by the end (a common problem with Celine Dion power-ballads).

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love Ninjatown (The Adventures of Wee Ninja).  It’s probably one of the most adorable things I’ve seen in a long time.  I didn’t even set out to specifically review it, I was simply looking through a bunch of books from Chicago comic book and graphic novel publisher Devil’s Due when I caught a glimpse of the superman-posed ninja on the cover and I was intrigued.

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This is Just to Say is a collection of poems focused on the poem “This is Just to Say” by William Carlos Williams and the story of the fall of man from the Book of Genesis. I’m not sure whether or not it should be labeled a book or a chapbook. It’s a long chapbook but a short book of poetry, and it sticks hard to its theme (which I find is common in chapbooks).  Virtual Artists Collective, the publisher of this book, seems to produce a lot of collections of poetry that are structured in this way.

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he Horrid Henry series is for children, and each book contains four short stories with illustrations by Tony Ross. Horrid Henry is a little boy who is constantly getting into trouble, and can’t seem to get along with anyone around him. I got the chance to read four of Simon’s books, which equaled twenty-eight short stories about Henry attempting to get what he wants, often by throwing tantrums and exasperating his parents and friends. ¶ View In Entirety… →

started out wanting to dislike Bitchin’ Bodies:  Young Women Talk about Body Dissatisfaction.  Why?  Because I’ve read a lot of books on this topic, and I’ve noticed an overwhelming trend in all of them:  a lot of bitching without a lot of action.  Let’s take a moment for me to flesh that out a bit.

Within the subject of women’s studies, there is a huge amount of literature devoted to women’s perceptions of their bodies, and society’s representations of women’s bodies.  Naturally, in the skinny-obsessed culture that we live in, a lot of this literature is simply angry noise about how unfair it is that women are expected to be thin to be beautiful.  You hear the statistic thrown around constantly that all women are expected to look like what only 5% of women actually look like in order to be beautiful.  This literature will often result in a lot of male stereotyping and finger pointing, without proposing solutions or examining the problem.  I was worried that Bitchin’ Bodies was going to be like this, from the title if nothing else, but instead I was pleasantly surprised.
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n occasion it’s worth emphasizing previously stated points, and this is one of those occasions:  Publish Chicago is a supporter of using technology to enhance publishing.  Do we like the Kindle?  Yes, we do.  Do we like blogs?  Yes, we do.  Are we sad that newspapers are struggling?  Yes.  But BBC news online is so much better, in so many ways.  I bring this up because what I have to say about Volunteer Vacations is that it’s a fantastic body of information that would be so much more useful if it were to be placed on the web than it is in its current, printed-book format.

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f you’re looking for something fantastic to do for Earth Day that will help the environment, you should check out the three fantastic new books from Green Sugar Press: Earl the Earthworm Digs for his Life, N is for Nature: An Environmental Alphabet Book, and An Environmental Guide from A to Z. These books take environmentalism seriously from their production right through their content. ¶ View In Entirety… →