The final work of the acclaimed Chicago Trilogy, this collection of nonfiction tales reveals Sandburg's "city of the big shoulders," concrete and neon; uptown and downtown; State Street, Michigan Avenue; the river, the lake; the matter-of-factness and poetry of Chicago people-from Mike Royko describing his neighborhood to the observations of newspaper vendors, from Studs Terkel interviewing jazz great Dave Brubeck to dinner with Petros in Greek Town. Written with a keen eye, Blei's stories evoke a vanished Chicago, a city of gritty and colorful neighborhoods and their gritty and colorful...

Weaving a tapestry of lives and landscapes, past and present, earth and water, Norbert Blei celebrates the unique heritage of Door County, Wisconsin, a spectacular peninsula reaching into Lake Michigan. Blei ponders the balance of nature in a place where locals, tourists, and developers vie with the native flora and fauna of forests and lakeshore.