Larry W Green, author of Water Tanks of Chicago: A Vanishing Urban Legacy (2007, Wicker Park Press -- www.wickerparkpress.com) will be a featured artist at the 24th Annual Gift of Life Gala. They will feature Larry's colorful paintings and his book
Gift of Life Gala Saturday, November 14, 2009
Navy Pier Grand Ballroom | Chicago, Illinois
For more information go to: http://www.nkfi.org/ and scroll down to Upcoming Events and Programs
Monday, November 2, 2009
Thursday, October 29, 2009
Images from forthcoming book, THE UNCANNY VALLEY: WAXWORKS PHOTOGRAPHS by ELEFTHERIA LIALIOS
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Happy Halloween from Wicker Park Press Ltd: -- proudly announcing the 2010 publication of THE UNCANNY VALLEY: WAXWORKS PHOTOGRAPHS OF ELEFTHERIA LIALIOS
By Eleftheria Lialios
Introduction by Dan Georgakas
Text and Captions by Hatto Fischer
Bibliographic information to come ...
Biography of the author/artist can be found here: http://fnewsmagazine.com/2005-dec/faculty.html
Wednesday, October 28, 2009
Revisiting WATER TANKS OF CHICAGO by Larry W Green
This book continues to sell and generate wide interest. People get really emotional about this book. Here is an online review I uncovered from the online version of FOREWORD MAGAZINE in November 2007:
Photography. WATER TANKS OF CHICAGO: A VANISHING URBAN LEGACY by Larry W. Green (Wicker Park Press, 37 b/w photographs, 50 pages, softcover, $19.95, 978-0-9789676-0-4): digital photographs and paintings depicting the art of historic tanks, iconic symbols of the city; preservationists and architectural enthusiasts are concerned about saving their distinct grand beauty and stark expediency.
Photography. WATER TANKS OF CHICAGO: A VANISHING URBAN LEGACY by Larry W. Green (Wicker Park Press, 37 b/w photographs, 50 pages, softcover, $19.95, 978-0-9789676-0-4): digital photographs and paintings depicting the art of historic tanks, iconic symbols of the city; preservationists and architectural enthusiasts are concerned about saving their distinct grand beauty and stark expediency.
Tuesday, October 27, 2009
Key titles forthcoming in Fall 2009
Nibble & Kuhn: A Novel, David Schmahmann Academy Chicago, Nov 09
ISBN 978-0-89733-592-8, $24.95, Cloth, Fiction
A legal thriller set in Boston; Robert B Parker calls it a “great book!”
Never Trust a Thin Cook, Eric Dregni, Univ. of Minnesota, Sept 09
ISBN 978-0-8166-6745-1, $22.95, Cloth, Travel/Memoir/Cuisine
The author of In Cod We Trust goes to Italy & learns culinary lessons
Triple Time: Stories, Anne Sanow, Univ. of Pittsburgh, Aug 09
ISBN 978-08229-4380-8, $24.95, Cloth, Fiction/Short Stories
2009 Drue Heinz Award -- fascinating tales set in Saudi Arabia
The Last of His Mind, John Thorndike, Swallow Press, Dec 09
ISBN 978-08040-1122-8, $24.95, Cloth, Memoir/Health
Bittersweet account of a son’s final year with his father; a candid portrait
of Alzheimer’s Disease
Kevin Kling’s Holiday Inn, Kevin Kling, Borealis Books, Nov 09
ISBN 978-0-87351-766-9, $22.95, Cloth, Essays/Humor
A playful romp through a year of holidays from the bestselling author of
The Dog Says How
Deadly Voyage: The SS Daniel J Merell Tragedy, Andrew Kantar,
Michigan State Univ. Sept 09, ISBN 978-0-87013-863-8, $16.95, Paper, History
The harrowing story of one of the worst shipwrecks in Great Lakes history
What Comes Down to US: 25 Contemporary Kentucky Poets, Jeff Worley,
Univ. Press of KY, Nov 09, ISBN 978-0-8031-2557-2, Cloth, Poetry
An accomplished collection of KY poets including Wendell Berry, Nikki Finney & James Baker Hall
Glass Ceilings and 100-Hour Couples, Karine Moe, Univ of Georgia, Oct
ISBN 978-0-8203-3404-2, $19.95, Paper, Women Studies/Current Events
A comprehensive and provocative account of the opt-out revolution
Inside Fallujah, Ahmed Mansour, Interlink, Sept 09
ISBN 978-1-56656-778-7, $20.00, Paper, Politics/Middle East/Current Events
A courageous work of journalism by one of the few reporters on the gorund during the US siege of Fallujah in 2004
Hold Onto Your Dreams: Arthur Russell Tim Lawrence, Duke Univ. Nov 09
ISBN 978-0-8223-4485-8, $23.95, Paper, Music/Biography
The first biography of musician and composer Russell, one of the most important but least-known contributors to the NY C downtown scene in the 1970s and 80s
ISBN 978-0-89733-592-8, $24.95, Cloth, Fiction
A legal thriller set in Boston; Robert B Parker calls it a “great book!”
Never Trust a Thin Cook, Eric Dregni, Univ. of Minnesota, Sept 09
ISBN 978-0-8166-6745-1, $22.95, Cloth, Travel/Memoir/Cuisine
The author of In Cod We Trust goes to Italy & learns culinary lessons
Triple Time: Stories, Anne Sanow, Univ. of Pittsburgh, Aug 09
ISBN 978-08229-4380-8, $24.95, Cloth, Fiction/Short Stories
2009 Drue Heinz Award -- fascinating tales set in Saudi Arabia
The Last of His Mind, John Thorndike, Swallow Press, Dec 09
ISBN 978-08040-1122-8, $24.95, Cloth, Memoir/Health
Bittersweet account of a son’s final year with his father; a candid portrait
of Alzheimer’s Disease
Kevin Kling’s Holiday Inn, Kevin Kling, Borealis Books, Nov 09
ISBN 978-0-87351-766-9, $22.95, Cloth, Essays/Humor
A playful romp through a year of holidays from the bestselling author of
The Dog Says How
Deadly Voyage: The SS Daniel J Merell Tragedy, Andrew Kantar,
Michigan State Univ. Sept 09, ISBN 978-0-87013-863-8, $16.95, Paper, History
The harrowing story of one of the worst shipwrecks in Great Lakes history
What Comes Down to US: 25 Contemporary Kentucky Poets, Jeff Worley,
Univ. Press of KY, Nov 09, ISBN 978-0-8031-2557-2, Cloth, Poetry
An accomplished collection of KY poets including Wendell Berry, Nikki Finney & James Baker Hall
Glass Ceilings and 100-Hour Couples, Karine Moe, Univ of Georgia, Oct
ISBN 978-0-8203-3404-2, $19.95, Paper, Women Studies/Current Events
A comprehensive and provocative account of the opt-out revolution
Inside Fallujah, Ahmed Mansour, Interlink, Sept 09
ISBN 978-1-56656-778-7, $20.00, Paper, Politics/Middle East/Current Events
A courageous work of journalism by one of the few reporters on the gorund during the US siege of Fallujah in 2004
Hold Onto Your Dreams: Arthur Russell Tim Lawrence, Duke Univ. Nov 09
ISBN 978-0-8223-4485-8, $23.95, Paper, Music/Biography
The first biography of musician and composer Russell, one of the most important but least-known contributors to the NY C downtown scene in the 1970s and 80s
Monday, October 26, 2009
Wrong Place, Wrong Time is a timely analysis of young Black men's lives
John A Rich is a medical doctor from Boston's inner city. He managed to escape bad odds and create an impressive life for himself. And he's also written a great book here - Wrong Place, Wrong Time: Trauma and Violence in the Lives of Young Black Men (Johns Hopkins UP, Dec 09, 978-0-8018-9363-6). It's all in the first-person, which makes the writing style accessible, and you can see the author's point-of-view throughout the book. Rich relates the stories of Black men such as Roy, a sensitive young man from the streets of Jamaica Plain in Boston, who Rich met in what's called pre-release, a kind of halfway house between jail and freedom. Rich talks to Roy and engages him in a fundamental way so he can be inspired to turn his life around. The stories related here are fascinating, and they teach us compassion and the ability to look deeper to the real people who are struggling with trauma and perpetual violence in their communities. He lets them speak for themselves, and their voices are eloquent. This is a needed book and hopefully will reach a wide audience.
Sunday, June 21, 2009
University of Texas Press issues English-language translation of a modern Mexican classic
And Let the Earth Tremble at Its Centers, by Gonzalo Celorio
Translated from Spanish by Dick Gerdes, Foreword by Rubén Gallo
The world comes crashing down at the very center of the Mexican universe as the hero of this contemporary novel by scholar Celorio feels his life ebb away from excessive drinking and an inexplicable gunshot wound. He lies naked and vulnerable at the base of the flagpole that supports the huge red, white and green ensign, in the very midst of Mexico City’s own version of Tiananmen Square called the Zocalo.
The hero and the reader can see the irony of his situation in the predawn hours in the abandoned main square: -- dying utterly alone in the most populous city in the world. Statues in the Main Cathedral start to come loose from their perches where they have stood since the Spanish tore down the immense Aztec Pyramid and used the stones to build the vast Zocalo. Our hero is getting swept away much like the native culture of Mexico was by the colonists. In many ways it’s his own damn fault, but you get the sense reading this incredibly urbane and profane novel that essential history is being forgotten with the passing of our hapless hero. And especially Mexico City itself, the downtown area (El Centro) of which is also a main character in the book; Mexico City is found to be hurling itself forward into an unknown oblivion, its past crushed and relegated to mere garbage.
And let the earth tremble at its centers is a line from the Mexican national anthem. You have the idea of rebirth and redemption when you walk along the dark and seedy confines of the Zona Historico in Mexico City with our well-read and knowledgeable hero. It’s all so uncertain, but Celorio is a master storyteller and the reader is riveted by our hero’s fateful walk through history, and then onto the next world.
Dick Gerdes and University of Texas Press have done English readers an immense favor by bringing this stark and original novel to print.
Translated from Spanish by Dick Gerdes, Foreword by Rubén Gallo
The world comes crashing down at the very center of the Mexican universe as the hero of this contemporary novel by scholar Celorio feels his life ebb away from excessive drinking and an inexplicable gunshot wound. He lies naked and vulnerable at the base of the flagpole that supports the huge red, white and green ensign, in the very midst of Mexico City’s own version of Tiananmen Square called the Zocalo.
The hero and the reader can see the irony of his situation in the predawn hours in the abandoned main square: -- dying utterly alone in the most populous city in the world. Statues in the Main Cathedral start to come loose from their perches where they have stood since the Spanish tore down the immense Aztec Pyramid and used the stones to build the vast Zocalo. Our hero is getting swept away much like the native culture of Mexico was by the colonists. In many ways it’s his own damn fault, but you get the sense reading this incredibly urbane and profane novel that essential history is being forgotten with the passing of our hapless hero. And especially Mexico City itself, the downtown area (El Centro) of which is also a main character in the book; Mexico City is found to be hurling itself forward into an unknown oblivion, its past crushed and relegated to mere garbage.
And let the earth tremble at its centers is a line from the Mexican national anthem. You have the idea of rebirth and redemption when you walk along the dark and seedy confines of the Zona Historico in Mexico City with our well-read and knowledgeable hero. It’s all so uncertain, but Celorio is a master storyteller and the reader is riveted by our hero’s fateful walk through history, and then onto the next world.
Dick Gerdes and University of Texas Press have done English readers an immense favor by bringing this stark and original novel to print.
Sunday, June 7, 2009
Northern Illinois University Press to debut new fiction series
NIU Press is taking a departure into fiction with the establishment of a new series called Switchgrass Books - http://www.switchgrass.niu.edu/switchgrass/ - and they are billing it as “authentic voices of the Midwest.” One of the first books in the intriguing new series is by Chicagoan Joseph G. Peterson, called Beautiful Piece. What follows is a brief review of this book:
Plinking at the dump
Joe Peterson hits a bull’s-eye with his new novel, Beautiful Piece. The narrator of this stark tale, set during a brutal heat wave in Chicago, acquires a Glock 10 mm automatic almost by accident and through sheer happenstance. “Odd, a gun,” he says. “I wouldn’t own a gun even if I could.” But that’s not all he comes to own, as he takes up a torrid affair with Lucy, a girl he meets at the gas station in the middle of a blistering hot day. Problem is that Lucy is engaged to another man, a certain Matthew Gliss, who the narrator, named Robert, knows and likes. This realization of love is new to Robert, who finds himself at thirty-five years old living alone in a one bedroom dump, as he calls his apartment, and desperately lonely.
The unrelenting heat of the Chicago summer goes a little bit to Robert’s head and he starts fantasizing about dying alone in his one bedroom dump. His upstairs neighbor, simply called the Vet, also lives alone. The Vet is severely damaged from his tours of Vietnam during that war. These two unlikely types form an alliance, and they agree to call each other every morning just to make sure each one is still alive. Robert has a rough time getting along with the Vet, who is so much older and worldly wise, but comes to respect and admire him with all his eccentricities. Robert has another friend named Epstein. Epstein is a mystic who can turn into a stone while they go fishing on the Des Plaines River. Epstein is well-adjusted and has a wife and kids, and lives in a different world from Robert. Robert has Epstein call him up every third morning just in case he was to expire from the heat and no one would know. This is his contingency plan to stay connected with the outside world.
Robert goes to the dump on the outskirts of town with the Vet to go plinking with the Glock. There is a certain poetic meaning to the way the gun goes off and rearranges everything. The Vet loves the mechanicals, and Robert starts to rethink his relationship with the world. His instincts tell him to try and be more like the mystical Epstein and try to be one with the natural world, but his love for Lucy upends everything for him.
There is a wry humor and interesting sentence construction that make up this raw tale of urban lost souls. There is a compulsive repeating of information and unorthodox narrative construction that reminded me of Joseph Heller’s Something Happened. It’s more than just a stylistic exercise in fiction writing; Peterson has something fundamental to say about human nature here, and the tale is funny and heartbreakingly wise.
Plinking at the dump
Joe Peterson hits a bull’s-eye with his new novel, Beautiful Piece. The narrator of this stark tale, set during a brutal heat wave in Chicago, acquires a Glock 10 mm automatic almost by accident and through sheer happenstance. “Odd, a gun,” he says. “I wouldn’t own a gun even if I could.” But that’s not all he comes to own, as he takes up a torrid affair with Lucy, a girl he meets at the gas station in the middle of a blistering hot day. Problem is that Lucy is engaged to another man, a certain Matthew Gliss, who the narrator, named Robert, knows and likes. This realization of love is new to Robert, who finds himself at thirty-five years old living alone in a one bedroom dump, as he calls his apartment, and desperately lonely.
The unrelenting heat of the Chicago summer goes a little bit to Robert’s head and he starts fantasizing about dying alone in his one bedroom dump. His upstairs neighbor, simply called the Vet, also lives alone. The Vet is severely damaged from his tours of Vietnam during that war. These two unlikely types form an alliance, and they agree to call each other every morning just to make sure each one is still alive. Robert has a rough time getting along with the Vet, who is so much older and worldly wise, but comes to respect and admire him with all his eccentricities. Robert has another friend named Epstein. Epstein is a mystic who can turn into a stone while they go fishing on the Des Plaines River. Epstein is well-adjusted and has a wife and kids, and lives in a different world from Robert. Robert has Epstein call him up every third morning just in case he was to expire from the heat and no one would know. This is his contingency plan to stay connected with the outside world.
Robert goes to the dump on the outskirts of town with the Vet to go plinking with the Glock. There is a certain poetic meaning to the way the gun goes off and rearranges everything. The Vet loves the mechanicals, and Robert starts to rethink his relationship with the world. His instincts tell him to try and be more like the mystical Epstein and try to be one with the natural world, but his love for Lucy upends everything for him.
There is a wry humor and interesting sentence construction that make up this raw tale of urban lost souls. There is a compulsive repeating of information and unorthodox narrative construction that reminded me of Joseph Heller’s Something Happened. It’s more than just a stylistic exercise in fiction writing; Peterson has something fundamental to say about human nature here, and the tale is funny and heartbreakingly wise.
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