Sixteen Tons, by Kevin Corley.Hardball Press, 2014. These are perilous times for the working men and women of America. Recent elections have swept conservative political leaders into power in state governments across the nation and those elected officials have set their sights on the wages and benefits of workers in the public and private sectors. […]
Books
Posted inArts & Culture
Why Justice Stevens wants to amend the Constitution
SIX AMENDMENTS: How and Why We Should Change the Constitution, by John Paul Stevens. Little Brown Retired Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens has earned the right to weigh in on the Constitution and how the nation can improve the document that governs so much of American life. In 1975, President Gerald Ford nominated Stevens […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Sherman scores a hit
Babe Ruth’s Called Shot: The Myth and Mystery of Baseball’s Greatest Home Run, by Ed Sherman. Lyons Press, $25.95. The 2014 baseball season marks the 100th year of baseball at storied Wrigley Field. It has been a noteworthy century, marked by great baseball history and one excruciating failure, the failure of the Cubs to […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Storyteller with Springfield ties
Two Sons of China, by Andrew Lam, paperback, 466 pages, Bondfire Books, published December 2013. Available through Amazon, iTunes, and via www.TwoSonsofChina.com. Andrew Lam, M.D., who graduated from Springfield High School in 1994, skillfully crafts his historical novel, Two Sons of China, taking the reader to the 1940s and a China which is suffering from […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Photos and documents make Lincoln come alive
A 1919 painting of Lincoln and Stephen A. Douglas during a debate at Charleston, on Sept. 18, 1858. Abraham Lincoln: An Illustrated Life and Legacy, by Thomas F. Schwartz and Thomas Cussans. Thunder Bay Press, San Diego, Calif. 96 pp., $29.99. ’Tis the new year, and a good time for settling in with a good […]
Posted inArts & Culture
The Bears and the wild heart of football
Mike Ditka, who coached the Bears in 1985, still makes a good living off the legend. The 1985 Super Bowl Champion Chicago Bears are a cottage industry. In a city starved for winners and bereft of championship rings, players and coaches of “Da Bears” are recalled and revered with unrequited love. Mike Ditka, who coached […]
Posted inArts & Culture
The story of the Gettysburg Address
A July sunset over South Mountain. Controlling the high ridge was crucial to the Union victory. PHOTO BY ROBERT SHAW A Day Long to Be Remembered: Lincoln in Gettysburg, by Michael Burlingame with photography by Robert Shaw. Published by Firelight Publishing, Heyworth, Ill., in association with John Warner IV, 2013. 220 pages. $34. Photographer Robert […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Illinois, the political battleground of 1948
This is Robert E. Hartley’s ninth book on Illinois history and politics. Battleground 1948: Truman, Stevenson, Douglas, and the Most Surprising Election in Illinois History, Robert E. Hartley, Southern Illinois University Press, 206 pp., illus., notes, bibliography and index. Given our state’s convoluted, complex, and at times outright Byzantine political history, tagging any election as […]
Posted inArts & Culture
It could happen to you…
Children get injured; children get sick. And more often than we might expect, they have medical conditions that even the parents may not be aware of and are yet to be diagnosed. It is every care provider’s fear that something will happen to a child who has been entrusted to his care. So when something […]
Posted inArts & Culture
If you’re headed to Chicago
You didn’t ask for it; but here it is. Chicago Haunted Handbook: 99 Ghostly Places You Can Visit in the Around the Windy City by Jeff Morris and Vince Sheilds. Buy yours today if you’re headed to Chicagoland this Halloween weekend and looking for some hauntingly awesome places to explore. Or purchase one for your next trip. It’s […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Journey of a lifetime
Through Time and Space, $15, by Sarah Hathaway Thomas, 2013. Available from Prairie Archives, The Sly Fox in Virden and Amazon.com. In Through Time and Space, Sarah Hathaway Thomas’ new book, “time” refers to stories of World War II – her parents, aunts, a childhood chum – and brings us to recent time with adventures […]
