Books

This novel of historical fiction, on the Springfield race riot of 1908 by Springfieldian Melinda McDonald, is told from a unique point of view. Sheba Tully, a young black woman, obtains a housemaid position in the home of Susan Lawrence Dana. Dana is at the pinnacle of Springfield society, as well as its richest woman, […]

Some college literary magazines exist primarily to publish the scribblings of a group of friends. I edited — OK, perpetrated — a couple of them back in the day. Then there are those with higher goals. SCOPE, published by the Southern Illinois University School of Medicine, is in its 15th year (go to www.siumed.edu/oec/SCOPE/index.htm to […]

This isn’t the Kingsolver you’ve grown to love. It’s nonfiction, about herself and family; in fact, it’s partially written by her husband, Stephen Hopp, a biologist, and her daughter Camille, who has her mother’s talent. And it’s about food. It does tell a story — of the family’s exodus from Tucson, where almost all food […]

Everybody knows of the exploits of outlaws Frank and Jesse James, but who remembers Ed and Lon Maxwell, two Illinoisans who captured the nation’s attention in the early 1880s? The brothers graduated from petty theft to stealing horses to murder, and made national headlines as they eluded capture for months. The law finally caught up […]

Every now and then I tune in to my head to see what’s playing there: sometimes nothing, sometimes a childhood song, sometimes an annoying advertising ditty, sometimes a symphonic bit I can identify, or can’t. When my sister called this noon I asked, “What’s playing in your head?” “Just bills.” “What’s this?” I sang her […]

Untitled Document Andrew Ferguson’s personal saga tracing the Lincoln industry and influence began when he was a kid, visiting New Salem and other Lincoln shrines (thus called until recently) with his family, following the Lincoln Heritage Trail. My brother-in-law, with Wisconsin Public Radio, read Land of Lincoln over the air and pressed it on me: […]

Untitled Document Book lovers, if you haven’t already discovered Jasper Fforde, don’t. Danger: addiction. Where else will you find Thursday Next, a literary detective who can jump into books and save the world for Reading? In this latest Next novel there are actually three Thursdays, the “real” one (the quotes are for you), who lives […]

Untitled Document You don’t expect a story that begins: “The brassiere is off, Louella” to gently break your heart, and that’s precisely what makes Springfield writer Carol Manley’s first collection of short stories irresistible. Church Booty, the runner-up for the third annual Tartt Fiction Award, has just been published by the University of West Alabama’s […]

Untitled Document Imagine sitting in your favorite coffeehouse, surrounded by paintings done in a riot of color. A wise friend is sharing a latte, along with stories from her life that make you smile in recognition. Subtract the caffeine and you’ve got the experience of reading Celia Wesle’s Light: Paintings and Poems. Now retired from […]

Untitled Document I’ve been reading, over the past week, the 61 poems and their commentaries that make up Dan Guillory’s The Lincoln Poems. It’s been a more moving experience than I thought possible — not that I doubted the poems, but I’ve never been a “sustained” poetry reader, and I have also been so surrounded […]

Untitled Document Christy Cameron of Pana, in addition to raising two boys adopted from Russia and a recently born daughter, managing a farm household, sometimes driving a grain truck, and frequently teaching community-college English classes, has also published two books. Who’s Watching the Kids is a lighthearted romp in the romance genre. The heroine, applying for […]

Untitled Document At one point in Daniel Pinchbeck’s fantastical personal exploration of apocalyptic myth and reality in 2012: The Return of Quetzalcoatl, he elaborates on the Global Consciousness Project of Princeton University, mentioning that one of the researchers speculates that they are “witnessing the early phases of the self-organization of a global brain.” Pinchbeck believes […]