Books

Untitled Document William Russell Arrington — best known as Russ — was a familiar face and factor in the Illinois General Assembly from 1945 to 1973. Moreover, he was one of history’s most dominant legislators, with ideas that influenced state government, especially the Senate, for decades. Many of the state’s elected leaders have since honored […]

Untitled Document Looking for emotion, struggle, determination, and accomplishment? They’re all there in Megan Marshall’s The Peabody Sisters, a fascinating look at the lives of three women who helped light up American culture in the early history of our Republic. Pulling information from newly discovered letters and diaries, Marshall tells us about Sophia, Mary, and […]

Untitled Document I do not like thee, Doctor PearlThe reason why is not mere churlBut you’re so smart — and hence my qu’rrel —Well, leaving the nursery verse, seeing as how I can’t find an appropriate final rhyme, your books, Dr. Pearl, just ought to be better than they are. Last summer I read the well-reviewed […]

Untitled Document Arcadia Publishing’s series Images of America enlists various authors to research the history of a certain town or area. Endnotes in the books state that Arcadia is the leading local history publisher in the United States, with more than 3,000 titles in print. Formats are similar and attractive: about 130 pages, a few early […]

Untitled Document Billions of bilious blue blistering barnacles! In a thundering typhoon! This is the 100th birthday of Belgian author/artist Hergé. The complete Tintin isn’t the book you’ve all been waiting for, though it should be. Right now there’s a lot of hype about graphic novels, stories told pictorially, with balloon conversations. But these aren’t […]

For many central-Illinois natives, the subject of Robert Mazrim’s new book, The Sangamo Frontier: History and Archaeology in the Shadow of Lincoln, is a surprise — the concept of archaeological research in Springfield seems as remote as the idea of growing soybeans in Egypt’s Valley of the Kings. But, as Mazrim notes, archaeology is everywhere […]

Carol Manley is one of the best writers in Illinois today, but you can’t buy a book with her name on the cover — yet. She is a contributing editor to the “People’s Poetry” column in Illinois Times and occasionally contributes an article, so you may have gotten a sense of her talent. This year, […]

Abraham Lincoln said goodbye to Springfield in a succinct, emotion-filled speech on Feb. 11, 1861. “To this place, and the kindness of these people,” Lincoln said, “I owe every thing.” Residents of the capital city should know the Farewell Address: It’s been republished frequently, and the full text is on display at the presidential museum. […]

I once had a political-science professor who believed that air conditioning had destroyed the fabric of our society. Before air conditioning, he said, people spent summer nights sitting outdoors on stoops and porches and park benches — and they told stories. They shared common beliefs. We don’t have those stories anymore. Our stories come from […]

Mary, a new novel by Janis Cooke Newman, gives Mary Todd Lincoln the opportunity to tell her turbulent life story in a voice that rings true to her bold and unconventional persona. There’s no shying away from the controversy that followed Mrs. Lincoln for most of her life: Mary tells of the First Lady’s frivolous […]

If you like books, if you really like books — if you are the kind of person whose books overrun your house, whose book budget exceeds your food budget, the kind of person who can spend an afternoon or the whole weekend in a bookstore, the BookExpo America convention is something like paradise . . […]