Illinois Books

Jon Anderson is a national treasure. His insights are wise, his words, witty and his take on his city and its people, delightful.

Exceptionally well written, the book is both funny and compassionate, astute and compelling as it profiles some of the the people and institutions that call the third coast home. Anderson's vignettes challenge those who believe that New York City is the only REAL city in America with anyone/anything worth watching. The book will appeal to those wtih a taste for things cultural and intellectual, as it includes an interview with the late poet John Nims, as well as writing on such plances Hemingway's childhood home and the "Book Orphanage," and well as those readers drawn to the more material practices of a city, for example: "Clothes found in the Rubbish don't have to look trashy" (a Dumpster-Diving Fashion show) and "Finding the Humor in Haggis" (the dinner of the Illinois St. Andrew Society). Anderson's book provides the reader with a kind of "back-stage pass" to the city, as well as serving as a primer for how to write non-fiction that is as riveting as any novel. His strong voice and intellegence unites the peices and makes the reader want to get to know Anderson himself. I haven't enjoyed a work of non-fiction this much since "naked" by David Sedaris.

Are ministers the moral barometers of society? Do they set the moral positions of their congregations or reflect their congregation's biases? Those are questions of significance, and David B. Chesebrough has spent his career seeking to understand them within the context of the greatest divisive period in American history, the fight over slavery that eventually led to civil war.

In this short and easily read volume Chesebrough seeks to explore the role of southern ministers who went against the grain of southern society and politics first to contest slavery and later to stand with the Union in opposition to secession and Civil War. Using a series of interesting case studies, Chesebrough suggests that the role of ministers in the sectional conflict was more complex than has been documented elsewhere. In spite of ostracism, coercion, and sometimes lynching, a few southern clergy stood up for antislavery principles throughout the period. After the creation of the Confederacy a small but vocal group of ministers opposed secession and war. Many of them met violence and death, justified by those inflicting it because of a "traitorous" stance toward the new government of Jefferson Davis.

Chesebrough tries to draw broader conclusions of the role of dissenters in southern society in the last chapter, using Arnold Toynbee's "creative minority" conception to characterize antislavery southern clergy. Toynbee argued that in any civilization only a small minority understands the current challenges and conceives new answers that offer a way out of present crises. If that "creative minority" is stifled or ignored the civilization will ultimately fail. While one may quibble with Toynbee's assertions, Chesebrough finds in them a striking saliency when considering southern antislavery clergy.

This is all very well, and Chesebrough has provided a service by documenting this dissent. Several large questions, however, await further consideration. Are there instances where this "creative minority" of southern antislavery clergy fundamentally affected the course of the sectional conflict? If so why, if not why not? Also, what role did the clergy play in mediating the divisiveness of the age? In a society as fractured as antebellum America would not the clergy naturally be called upon to ensure justice for all Americans, heal wounds, and find middle ground? Rather than crystallizing the extreme positions concerning slavery, perhaps the truly "creative" clergy in the South were those seeking both racial justice and political compromise.

Religion has always played a major role in the affairs of men and nations. However, we seldom read about its' significance. David B. Chesebrough has written this fascinating book called "Clergy Dissent in the Old South". In his book, Chesebrough describes how Southern society created tremendous pressure for its citizens to conform to the acceptance of slavery as a way of life and finally to succeed from the Union. Unfortunately this society also pressured the Christian clergy to pervert its' faith and not only condone slavery but promote it as well. The southern clergy provided encouragement to the Southern people throughout the civil war. Even after the fall of Vicksburg and Gettysburg in 1863, the southern clergy remained a major catalyst in prolonging the inevitable collapse of the southern cause by turning the civil war into a holy crusade.

The author describes how the major Protestant churches (Methodist, Presbyterian, and Baptist) in the Old South split over the issues of slavery and succession. Rarely were dissenters tolerated. Merely to speak against slavery or to pray for Abraham Lincoln could be considered an act of treason. Dissenters either kept silent, fled north, or faced the possible consequence of being lynched. This book describes the stories of some of these heroic dissenters.

This is an excellent book. Any one interested in learning about the Old South and the civil war, needs to be a student of its' religious make up. The author has thoroughly researched this subject matter and he has presented it in a very readable book.

This is a wonderful collection of poems from an era when the world was at war--though not fighting everywhere--in many ways not dissimilar to our own era, when many supposed allies are in truth enemies.

The poems are unique, adept and cunningly capture the essence of an era at the same time more frightening and simpler than our own. People knew, then, that there were things of which they should be terrified, and that crystal understanding registers in each of these poems.

What is most terrifying today is that people are not sufficiently frightened, but live in a fantasy land, dreaming of peace while mass warfare against the West is planned everywhere.

Strangely enough, one finds hope in these poems.

A great book, eagerly anticipated by lovers of the serious poets of the era. Especially appreciated are the critiques and commentary of the works of the late Hyam Plutzik, whose major work, Horatio, has been called brilliant by many reviewers and readers, over the last forty years, and who still has a following among serious students of poetry.

Brunner's introduction provides an important historical framework for his discourse. It reminds one of the push-pull between mass culture and classical ideals that existed in post war society, and the way this reality fueled the work of serious poets and artists at the time.

Hats off to Dr. Brunner for taking the time and care to provide a critical and historical perspective of poets who should be more widely known that the Beats, but aren't.

The issue is how to get a book like this to a wider audience.

Not all families are disfunctional. In fact, Shelly Reuben proves this beyond a shadow of a doubt. What a wonderful portrait of a loving father as told through her eyes and through his own letters. Reuben paints a picture in words that creates images of a real father. One who lives in a houseful of love, surrounded by his five children, tolerant and loving wife, friends and crazy relatives. One readily sees why Reuben has selected words as her vocation. Her father created, plagerized, quoted and paraphrased the thought provoking guidence and evocative sentiments with which he communicated to his offspring. Written on stationary, or on the back of landlord-tenant court documents, these jewels of creative writing tell of a romantic soul. He is clearly adored, not for his incredible inventions or tenacity regarding real estate investments, but for his character, strength, concern and consideration. Those of us who can relate have surely had fathers of similar noble quality. Those who cannot fathom the beautiful relationships between father and child have missed an incredible experience. Reach back into childhood, read this and enjoy the experience.

If you want to read something that makes you feel good about life, read Shelly Reuben's book, Come Home Love Dad. With so many books flooding the market about serial killers and political espionage it's a pleasure to read something about an actual person that really touches you. Miss Reuben expertly uses narration as well as actual letters written by her father to gradually reveal his personality to the reader. I came to know a man who was an inventor, a landlord, and a salesman, but first and foremost - a father.

This book is chock full of information about the "Beginning" of modern improv. It's an excellent story well told. It reminds me of a story I know about sheetrock.

This book is pinnacle to your success as an improvisor. Understanding the evolution of improvisation as well as the tried and true tactics are mandatory to being a good performer. Please do not hesitate. You will never forgive yourself! Really! This is endorsed by really big improvisors. Also see "Truth in Comedy" by Del Close and Charna Halpern! Truth in Comedy is also a great book that will open your little "short-form" mind to a "long-form" world!

This book attempts to conceptualize the idea of a full scale nuclear exchange between the cold war superpowers, since the idea itself is now "unthinkable". To explore this lack of understanding the author first explains in detail the immediate and long lasting effects of full scale nuclear war. Then, he comments on the situation, making a bid for sanity in an insane situation. The author believes that self-destruction and even planetary destruction "is not something that we will pose one day in the future... it is here now" (182). Schell believes that only a fundamental change in the belief system of the people of the entire planet can erase the danger currently hanging over the world; no amount of arms limitation or reduction will end the threat of total annihilation.

Schell takes the most compelling subject imaginable -- the very real possiblity of nuclear annihilation -- and puts it into gripping, passionate prose. Anyone with a concern for the human race should read Schell's account of the effect of nuclear weapons on nature and civilization. And anyone afraid of being humbled or disturbed needs Schell's reality check all the more.

Now in an updated second edition, Creating Historical Drama: A Guide for Communities, Theatre Groups, and Playwrights is a straightforward manual for transforming events and figures from American history into masterful dramas. Written by three former directors, producers, writers, and teachers of theatre, Creating Historical Drama covers features of biographical, pageant, and epic drama, how to lead and organize a theatrical group, how to energize community resources and evaluate a production site, and much more. An in-depth guide offering sample script excerpts, black-and-white illustrations, and a wealth of expert detail, Creating Historical Drama is an excellent reference and resource for community and professional performance groups, and an invaluable tool for aspiring playwrights seeking to capture the nuances of history upon the stage.

The authors with both academic and working experience in theater production relate general guidance and practical considerations for evaluating resources, organizing activities, and engaging in relevant, skilled, coordinated actions for a community theater group to stage a successful historical drama. The crucial challenge of finding and developing talented actors is not overlooked either. Success for such a community production is measured by standards of artistic performance, community service, and management responsibility. Historical dramas are particularly appealing to community theater groups because of the wide freedom they allow in dealing with different historical times, the range of important and often colorful characters, and recurring issues in human affairs. Historical plays can also have a high education value for a local population when local historical characters, scenes, and topics are portrayed. All dimensions of this type of drama particularly suited to community theaters are dealt with, from developing an idea and perspective, writing a script, staging, and engaging with the larger community. This second edition is an abridged revision of the first edition put out in 1965.

I found this book to be inspiring. While I am mired in the realities of grad studies in education--lesson plans, theory, pedagogy, etc.--this book helped remind me of why I wanted to pursue teaching in the first place. Counts calls for teachers to become leaders, not just in their schools or local communities, but as an effective, powerful political force. We are the ones in the trenches, aren't we the experts on education in America? Shouldn't we know how to fix it? Shouldn't we try?

The book is a bit dated--I couldn't help by shake my head in disgust when I read Counts ideas of what a teacher's union could and should do and compared it to my limited experience with those organizations. He presents an idealized movement where social problems that are the root of educational problems are addressed/eliminated, where teachers are respected leaders and seen as the professionals they are, and where our schools, in the end, effectively serve more students than they currently do.

Count's brief book on the role of teachers in the shaping of society's values is a must read for future teachers and anyone interested in the social foundations of education. By positing that teacher should champion classroom discourse that focuses on issues of democratic living, he places the emphasis of the curriculum where it should be - issues of social justice. Likewise the implementation of this ethically conscious curriculum is left in the hands of those who, if empowered, could have the greatest impact concerning issues of equity in American society - classroom teachers. The relevance of Count's criticism of racism, rote education and of the dangers of unchecked capitalism are such that this work could have just as easily been written in our present.

Let's cut through the usual academic hoo-ha and highfalutin, lit-crit code-talking. This collection, Maier's first, is just plain gorgeous. Packed with wit, burning with passion, personal as a late-night conversation, these elegantly crafted, far-ranging, accessible poems will make you laugh, ponder, catch your breath,and yes--cry, more than once (mind, this is an Alaskan ex-hunting guide talking). There's some sort of alchemy at work in Maier's poetic voice, something you can't quite put your finger on. But if you read these poems aloud, you'll hear it for yourself: the music of words, each one a perfectly tuned wind chime, ringing in the dusk.

Jennifer Maier is hilarious. The imagination at work behind the poetry in her first collection, Dark Alphabet, is voracious and supple. It expands the world from the tiniest points into a universe bright and dark with meaning. It yields sly-eyed, delightful images that burn in the mind long after the poem is gone. And, as a bonus, her imagination tickles and teases with the agility of a truly consummate poet. On moving on from an old love: "Will April lay down her xylophone / and pick up the cello? / Or December go gravely in his mourning coat / without his white gloves, his diamond tiara?" And the poet's answer to a friend who asks why she is not a novelist: "although / I have combed the Gulf Coast towns / of my childhood, seeking the snowy egrets / of great short fiction, it is only the poetry birds / who land on me." Maier possesses the sort of wit that steals the familiar object out from under your nose, rendering it to you again, either inside out or in a different color, say, chartreuse. It's then, with a jolt of recognition, that you see what has been overlooked: the lake as a "murmuring woman" under the moon, like the woman oppressed by the memory of her drowned son but kept from falling through the earth by the atoms that "push back / bound in their electric need." Or the earnestness of the young undergraduate asking her professor if she believes in soul mates, her "eyes two sharpened spades / turning the loam of her future." These poems move nimbly between the commonplace and the resonant, fired by the poet's deep reverence for language and a fascination with the way our minds enter our own experience and that of others, often through unexpected doors: a hymn to a saint, a cherry cordial given to a child by a black-sheep uncle, the thread of a cashmere sweater winding through the lives of generations of women. Compassion, stripped of sentimentality, moves behind each word, giving flight to Maier's poetry birds that form "a dark alphabet against the sky."

Neil McMillen gives us a look at the real effects of Jim Crow in Dark Journey, the story of white supremacy in Mississippi in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. McMillen explores this society of racial apartheid from the vantage point of the oppressor and the oppressed, for as he states in his preface, "until historians adequately explored the exterior forces that operated on the black community there could be no truly adequate histories of the interior life of the people within that community." He includes many descriptions of Mississippi during this "race-haunted" time from blacks themselves, which adds significantly to the texture of McMillen's "bottom up" depiction of how truly repressive the white regime was. What quickly emerges from this straightforward study is a society dominated without question by whites, one in which whites sought to re-establish race relations as they existed prior to the Civil War. They largely succeeded.

What strikes the reader forcefully from the beginning of McMillen's book is how insidiously prevalent the system known as Jim Crow was in Mississippi, and how it affected every aspect of black life. Jim Crow did not mean that blacks were simply in effect denied the right to vote and had limited economic opportunities, though to be sure both of these hurdles existed. White supremacy, as McMillen deftly points out, meant far more than denied voting rights and low-rung jobs. It meant (either de facto or de jury) poor or no high schools, lynchings, outrageous jury verdicts and trials, harassment for succeeding in traditionally white professions, no libraries, etc. The sheer scope and overriding predominance of white supremacy in Mississippi is shocking, especially since whites really did not seek to hide it from prying Northerners. White supremacy transcended class lines for the most part, McMillen show us, and even acted as a greater force upon whites than economic self-interest. For example, every white owner of a store, restaurant, garage, theatre, etc., who refused to serve blacks was also losing the money blacks would have paid them.

McMillen concludes that from the 1890s to the middle of the 20th century very few blacks overcame the high political and economic barriers placed in their way by a Mississippi society bent on oppressing them. Blacks in that state, however, managed to create and maintain their own separate political, religious, educational and social institutions despite the odds against them. Those who could, moved away from Mississippi, much like the oppressed and degraded Irish left their native island to escape the shackles of British economic and sectarian control. Truly, Mississippi's society was born of hatred of blacks by whites, a situation not totally eradicated by the Civil Rights movement of the 1960s.

Dr. McMillen provides a rare insight into the world of Black Missippians during the 1920s, '30s & 40's. His writing style is a lovely complement to his ingenious insights. He is truly one of our greatest scholars & non-fiction writers. This book is a must-read for anyone even mildy interested in African-American or general Southern history. Black or White this book will help you understand this period in our history. I can't wait for his sequel.