For two generations of Americans, reading Ann Landers's daily column was as important as eating breakfast. For nearly fifty years an entire nation turned to this quick-witted, worldly-wise counselor for advice on everything from dinner etiquette to sex. But who was the woman behind the byline?
Iowa-born Eppie Lederer was first hired by the Chicago Sun-Times to take over the daily advice column in 1955 -- and over the next half-century she helped shape the nation's social and sexual landscape. Award-winning journalist Rick Kogan was Ann Landers's last editor and close friend,...
For two generations of Americans, reading Ann Landers's daily column was as important as eating breakfast. For nearly fifty years an entire nation ...
Winner of 2006 Illinois State Historical Society Book Award-Certificate of Excellence To some he was a humanitarian and builder. Others scorned him as a fake and friend of gangsters with "the carcass of a rhinoceros and the brain of a baboon." This rollicking history traces the rise of William Hale "Big Bill" Thompson, Chicago's famous reform mayor, from his upper class roots to his years as a teenaged cowboy, from his fame as a star athlete to the years as a master politician in a world where the ward boss ruled and whiskey for the voters cost a quarter a shot. Big Bill of Chicago...
Winner of 2006 Illinois State Historical Society Book Award-Certificate of Excellence To some he was a humanitarian and builder. Others scorned h...
In the early twentieth century, John Coughlin and Mike Kenna ruled Chicago's First Ward, the lucrative lakefront territory and nerve center of the city. It was one of the most infamous havens for vice in the entire country, home to gambling palaces with marble floors and mahogany bars, to a mini-city of thugs and prostitutes and down-and-outers, to dives and saloons of every description and a few beyond description. In short, the First was a gold mine. In a city where money talked, it made boisterous Bathhouse John and the laconic Hinky Dink Kenna the most powerful men in town. This classic...
In the early twentieth century, John Coughlin and Mike Kenna ruled Chicago's First Ward, the lucrative lakefront territory and nerve center of the cit...
Combining the incisive pen of a newspaperman and the compassionate soul of a poet, Mike Royko became a Chicago institution in Jimmy Breslin s words, "the best journalist of his time." "Early Royko: Up Against It in Chicago" will restore to print the legendary columnist s earliest writings, which chronicle 1960s Chicago with the moral vision, ironic sense, and razor-sharp voice that would remain Royko s trademark. This collection of early columns from the "Chicago Daily News" ranges from witty social commentary to politically astute satire. Some of the pieces are falling-down funny and...
Combining the incisive pen of a newspaperman and the compassionate soul of a poet, Mike Royko became a Chicago institution in Jimmy Breslin s words...
Louisville native John Jacob Niles (1892--1980) is considered to be one of our nation's most influential musicians. As a composer and balladeer, Niles drew inspiration from the deep well of traditional Appalachian and African American folk songs. At the age of sixteen Niles wrote one of his most enduring tunes, "Go 'Way from My Window," basing it on a song fragment from a black farm worker. This iconic song has been performed by folk artists ever since and may even have inspired the opening line of Bob Dylan's "It Ain't Me Babe."In "I Wonder as I Wander: The Life of John Jacob Niles," the...
Louisville native John Jacob Niles (1892--1980) is considered to be one of our nation's most influential musicians. As a composer and balladeer, Niles...