Whether you're in a relationship or not, here are a few events leading up to Valentine's Day you might want to keep your eye on. more ›

By: Maggie Hellwig more ›

What do you get when you take Harlem Renaissance literature and adapt it to a one-man stage performance? Well, here's your chance to find out. more ›

Non-fiction Pulitzer Prize finalist Luis Urrea is a renowned writer of all genres and one of the creative writing professors at UIC. Next week he appears at one of Trib Nation's Events. more ›

A gas station at the corner of Rosemont and Western in 1962 Chicago. That's the setting for this brand new story from author Barry Gifford. more ›

The Empty Bottle kicks off the first meeting of Books, Booze & Brunch this Sunday with a discussion of Hunter S. Thompson’s The Rum Diary. more ›

For many Chicagoans, most of what they've seen of Dmitry Samarov is from the back seat of his Scion cab, or what they've gleaned from his observations of the city via his paintings and pencil drawings. Now that University of Chicago Press has released Samarov's first book, Hack: Stories From a Chicago Cab, the artist, writer and cab driver is showing up everywhere, from the pages of The Trib to Bob Edward's Talk of the Nation to an art show at Saki Records with musician Chris Brokaw (see the info for tonight's opening reception of "Music and Baseball" at the end of the interview). more ›

It may be the only exclusive comic Ware draws for an iPad. more ›

Dan Sinker has taken over the feed for Huffington Post's Books section to write an exclusive story. more ›

Dan Sinker has compiled all six months of the twitterstream into The F***ing Epic Quest of @MayorEmanuel, a book which adds bits of context. Is it still funny? more ›

Girl in Translation, the debut novel by Jean Kwok that’s now available in paperback, is a story about growing up in poverty while navigating a foreign culture and language. Kimberly, the novel’s young protagonist, quickly learns she’s the only one who can make a better life for her family in America. But first, she must also learn how to speak English, to conquer a foreign education system and to help her mother finish sewing hundreds of skirts before bed each night. more ›

Today's listings include a dance recital, a choral recital and a reading from a novelist's debut.. more ›

Jen Lancaster's If You Were Here tells the story of two new homeowners with a “fixer upper” on their hands and the adventures encountered through its renovation. Lancaster just kicked off her book tour, and she’ll be in reading in Chicago this weekend. She kindly answered our questions and spoke about her transition from personal writing to fiction, being funny, and what she learned from being an unemployed author. more ›

We’re having trouble dragging ourselves out of this wintertime rut, which means we’re also having trouble motivating ourselves to write much. It’s seems like it’s always raining these days, and we’d much rather complain about the weather than crack open our MacBooks and type away. So maybe the solution is getting out of the city for some writerly inspiration. Here are some out-of-town opportunities to kick start your writing. more ›

When we heard Chicago Delle Arte was performing another installment of The Literati, we hurried on over to the first performance we could make. The thing is, although we do love reading and books and those sorts of intelligent things, we also have social lives and jobs and stuff, so it’s hard to read everything we should. And when it comes to all those frou-frou classics, if we didn’t read it in a college humanities class, then we probably never will. That’s why The Literarti is a great idea. Three actors of the acting group Chicago Delle Arte have taken 25 works of literature and adapted them into 10 to 25 minute plays. With the roll of a die, audience members select the five different works the trio will perform throughout the show. Audience members have a one in 3,125 chance of seeing the same show twice. And although the actors have 7.5 hours of material locked and loaded, each audience only sees about 90 minutes of it. more ›

We were able to sit down with author David Sirota and ask some questions about the ideas behind his new book Back To Our Future: How The 1980's Explain Our Culture, Our Politics, Our Everything. more ›

Way before politicians co-opted the term "Main Street" to mean "Real America," author and former United States Poet Laureate Robert Pinsky lived in a small town where the main street was named Broadway and he captured the highs and lows of living in Long Branch, New Jersey in his 2009 book Thousands of Broadways: Dreams and Nightmares of the American Small Town. more ›

The launch of the Fear No Art Podcast earlier this month reinforced the world’s constant ask for info on-the-go. We’re busy people, Chicagoans are, with places to go and buses to catch. And although podcasts are nothing new (P.S. check out ours!), we’re intrigued by the idea of an art podcast. Because a lot of art is visual, right? more ›

Patrick Somerville’s momentum has been gaining momentum. His first book of stories, Trouble, was published in 2006 and Time Out Chicago named it the year’s Best Book by a Chicago Author. He then published The Cradle, his first novel, in 2009 and was also awarded the 2009 21st Century Award, given annually by the Chicago Public Library. And now, he’s back again with another collection of stories. The Universe in Miniature in Miniature is about a guy who is given a supernatural helmet that allows him to see inside the minds and souls of people around him. The short stories in the book are their stories. The book release for The Universe in Miniature in Miniature is Thursday night at The Hideout, so we chatted with Somerville about the book and his writing. Stay tuned for more on the book tomorrow. And if you’d like to learn more about the author, check out this interview with Bookslut. more ›

If the literary world has learned one thing about its sometimes rocky relationship with the Web, it’s this: the publishing industry and its literary communities must absolutely find a way to use the new technologies of the digital age in order to grow and flourish. And although Chicago has long been a nurturing environment for readers, writers and publishers, the city didn’t have an online hub for literary minds to connect with each other or to find information. Until yesterday, that is, when the Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs launched two new websites. more ›

Maybe it’s the little yellow note cards affixed to shelves touting staff favorites, or the jaw-dropping selection of high-quality (and cheap!) remainders, or their collection of relevant LGBT literature—we’re not entirely sure how they did it, but incredibly this week, Unabridged Bookstore is celebrating 30 years in business, in the same location. We pause to let that sink in—especially considering this independent bookstore is thriving in an age when the Kindle and other e-readers are becoming de rigueur, and as the mega-chain book stores shutter high profile locations such as the flagship Borders on Michigan Avenue, which is expected to close next year. more ›

We've ooh-ed and ah-ed over Starshaped Press before. Their incredible letterpress creations have us inventing reasons why we need cards and invitations. If we could, we'd get married 5 or 6 times, just for the stationary. A series of their posters (none food-related) hangs in the Chicagoist test kitchen! more ›

Anne Lamott takes on subjects with capital letters [Alcoholism, Motherhood, Jesus], but she does so with self-effacing humor and ruthless honesty—a decidedly lower-case approach to life’s “Big Questions,” noted a reviewer for Newsweek, and with her seventh novel, “Imperfect Birds,” the 56-year-old writer takes on another complicated issue: teenage pharmaceutical drug abuse. more ›

Mark Twain's autobiography apparently reveals several juicy and candid details about his life. But very few people have read it. He asked that it not be published until a century after he died. The 100th anniversary of Twain's death just passed in April, so the University of California, Berkley is removing the manuscript from their vault and is publishing the first volume of the trilogy this November. The Independent reports that Twain left 5,000 unedited pages, and more than half of edited trilogy will be new material that has never been published. more ›

Would you like to share your published or in-progress work of fiction, poetry, non-fiction or art book with the world? You’re in luck. Chicago Underground Library (CUL) is accepting submissions now for an event in July that will let you do just that. The Science of Obscurity is an opportunity for writers of all sorts to showcase their work science-fair style. So if you can think of a way to repurpose your work using a diorama, poster or tri-fold board, CUL wants to hear from you. They welcome baking soda volcanoes and colorful graphs, even if your book or zine has nothing to do with baking soda, volcanoes or graphs. more ›

When we heard about the mysterious Book Bike, we got terribly excited. Since books and bikes are two of our most favoritist things, we assumed anything and everything about it must be awesome. We assumed correctly. more ›

Steven Svymbersky founded Quimby's Bookstore almost 20 years ago with a specific philosophy in mind. "I really want to carry every cool, bizarre, strange, dope, queer, surreal, weird publication ever written and published, and in time Quimby's will." he said. The present-day Quimby's is about 2,000 square feet larger than the original space, is continuously being rearranged to make room for new material, and carries everything from hyperlocal zines to international art books. more ›

The title really says it all. Enjoy. more ›

Little Women plays a strong role in the cannon of literature for young female readers. The book hasn't been out of print since its first publication in 1868 and has since been adapted for theater, film, opera, Broadway, and, yes, even Japanese anime. more ›

When Suzy Takacs opened The Book Cellar five and a half years ago, she knew she needed to do something different. "Everyone was doing books and coffee," she said. "Why not do books and wine?" And so at The Book Cellar, you can grab a book, perhaps one suggested by one of the many staff pick notes stuck to the shelves, and then enjoy it with a glass of wine in the bookstore's café. Books and wine are such a perfect combination that you'd never guess this is Takacs' first business venture. The former nurse practitioner got the idea to open a bookstore around the same time the Lincoln Square Chamber of Commerce got the idea of finding someone to open a bookstore. So Takacs found a space, read a lot of books about how to do it, and started attending trade shows. The Book Cellar has slowly, but steadily been growing since. Takacs knows it takes more than the surrounding community to keep the doors of her store open. The Book Cellar brings in people from across the city with its wide range of events, from author signings, to readings, to comedy performance, to book clubs. Takacs and her staff work hard to keep the store relevant in the ever-changing world of publishing. Soon, they'll be launching an e-commerce addition to their website to sell e-books. more ›