Books

Untitled Document It’s hot off the press, published Feb. 4 — and hot off the keys, cameras, and many footsteps of our own Carl (retired head of Lincoln Library) and Roberta (retired art consultant, State Board of Education) Volkmann. Here’s what the book is: 128 pages of what the title states, in five sections: “Where […]

Untitled Document As you walk through Oak Ridge Cemetery’s beautiful 365 acres, it’s easy to forget that each tombstone represents a life — a person with friends, enemies, heartbreaks, and dreams. The recently published local book In Lincoln’s Shadow: Oak Ridge Cemetery Chronicles helps us remember. In Lincoln’s Shadow tells the stories of more than four dozen […]

Untitled Document You don’t read just anything when you’re really sick. C.S. Lewis said that at his lowest all that would suffice was The Wind in the Willows. I agree, but, laid up these last few weeks, I’ve been exclusively rereading Jane Austen, occasionally breaking the print paralysis to stumble downstairs and view a BBC Austen […]

Untitled Document The subtitle of David LaVere’s Looting Spiro Mounds is a footnote to perhaps the greatest public grave robbery in history: Howard Carter’s 1924 discovery, opening, and emptying of King Tutankhamun’s tomb in Egypt’s Valley of the Kings. That story, which ran in The Times of London and captured headlines around the world, legitimized treasure […]

Untitled Document Recently, during my family excavations, I unearthed a homemade booklet, “Books Read in 1900,” belonging to my grandmother. She’d have been 30. Inside the cardboard cover she’s quoted, “Wondrous indeed is the virtue of a good book.” She begins Jan. 1 with a virtuous book: Happiness: As Found in Forethought Minus Fearthought (1898) […]

Untitled Document I resisted opening this book, even though it was an autographed gift from the author’s sister-in-law, a longtime Springfieldian. I thought that it was another book hammering me with all the books I ought to read when I already felt guilty enough about all the books I hadn’t yet read, and never would, […]

Untitled Document Politics beats a big drum in Springfield, and those disinclined to march to that drum often seek more harmonious cadences elsewhere. This was true for Mark Foutch. The Springfield native grew up on Whittier Avenue, went for his first airplane ride at age 4, made a name for himself as a musician before […]

Untitled Document Here are two books by area authors: One describes growing up on a farm near Carthage, 1930-1950; the other is the memoirs of a World War II fighter pilot, compiled by his wife, who co-manages a business in Peoria. Both are published by Vantage, an established subsidy press. About such presses: Everyone has […]

Untitled Document Here’s a curious book for June: 26 personal essays on weddings — and, occasionally, nonweddings. They touch on such subjects as plans, preparations, etiquette, gift registries, the dress, the budget, and more, including “Should you have sex on your wedding night?” (Conclusion: You’re exhausted and you’ve already had it anyway, unless you’re buying […]

Untitled Document Springfieldian Sydney Kling wanted to mark her retirement from a nursing career by doing something both different and worthwhile. She gathered her courage, did some investigating, passed tests and panels and at 67, with the blessing of her loved ones, headed for South Africa as a Peace Corps volunteer. There, her nursing and […]

Untitled Document Harry Mark Petrakis’ newest collection consists of eight short stories and a novella. The short stories are vintage Petrakis, rooted in Chicago’s Greek community, spare and eloquent in the telling — and often with surprising endings. In “Beauty’s Daughter,” which takes place on Halsted Street, a mother’s brief happiness with a lover changes […]