Illinois Books

I bought this book simply for the list of potential employers it contains and found it to be a great resource for browsing employers in different categories. It contains web addresses, street addresses, short descriptions of what the company does, and all the companies are divided into different categories such as "Accounting and Management Consulting" or "Real Estate".

The only part that I found to be a joke is at the very beginning, concerning how to conduct a job search. The instructions are so general that they are useless and the cover letter and resume examples are only mildly useful. More importantly, information like that is already readily available in better and more detailed format on the internet, so they could really have just saved some paper and left this part out.

The bottom line is that this book is a crucial reference guide for companies you could be applying to that you didn't even know existed until you got this book. Since it narrows things down to one metropolitan area instead of a region or the nation as a whole, it allows the author to list even more employers for this specific city and with even more detail.

A must have if you are doing a focused job search!

Good to see Chicago modern art getting such a splendid treatment -- I learned a lot about all the different artists working, and came away with a sense of Chicago as a rich and exciting place for modernist painters

"You won't see the men and women pictured here on society pages or hobnobbing with the mayor..." (From the introduction.)

Photographer Richard Younker has produced an important book, based upon more than 20 years of photographing and interviewing "ordinary people" in the Chicago area. He has given a voice to people rarely heard from, the people whose gaze we avoid in the street, who we often ignore and put out of mind.

Yet these people are part of America and my city, and it's good to hear from them, if only for the three or four paragraphs reproduced across from their images.

And the photography! Younker is a very subtle, fly on the wall operator, and his images ring true. In some he has confronted his subjects, in others they seem unaware of his presence. All the images "work," providing a wide ranging look at a variety of people he describes as "living close to the edge."

Chicago People is a fine piece of work.

Highly recommended!

My husband and I enjoyed this book very much. It was very informative and very enlightening. I have recommended it to all of our friends who are interested in Chicago history.

Thank you.

This book was very informative and I truly enjoyed it and found it very easy to read. It appears as a school type book and in this sense being also for young adults. The only drawback is the book is only 100 pages and if it were in smaller print in a paperback, it would probably be only 60 pages or so, but nevertheless, it is very enlightening to the whole Chicago Seven Political Protest Trial.

The books sets the stage, very briefly describes the Characters, Abbie Hoffman, Jerry Rubin,, Rennie Davis, Lee Weiner, John Foines, Dave Dillinger, and Tom Heyden, also The head of the Black Panthers, Bobby Seals. Then there is the defense attorney, William Kunstler, the Chicago Mayor Richard Daley, the Prosecutor, Thomas Foran and the Judge Julius Hoffman.

There is no such thing as a completely objective book, however, it appears this book is as objective as it can get and you can decide who is right and who is wrong - in your opinion.

Personally speaking, I am no revolutionary, but I take the side of the seven to a major degree, at least their political ideas liberal freedom, as Che Chevara, however I am my own entity with my own value system. And their radicalness was also a sign of the times, times I think that at that time many person's minds had their perceptions opened from the use of psychedelics, enabling American society to have a large part of its populations of a higher conscious awareness level beyond the absolutism of political ideology in the flexible liberal element of free movement. And this is opposed to the stagnant political concepts of complete identification with the ego realty, and I'm sure especially to the Right conservative domination and power holders we have today.

The chapter on the their bios today is way too brief, but the book is about the trial, and so, it would be a good idea to read Hoffman's Auto bio and earlier books, "Revolution For The Hell Of It!," "Steal This Book," and, Rubin's "Do It!" and so forth to get a better grip. I've read a lot of the interviews of Alan Ginsberg, some of Leary's books and Ram Dass, some Che Chevara and Fidel Castro. Anyway this book was good, but to short. A little pricey too, but it comes in this really nice laminated hard cover, cosmetic and sturdy hard bound.

Lovers of Chicago's magnificent architecture will very much enjoy this unique little book. It is essentially comprised of a series of photographs (most of them from vintage postcards) of various architectural gems and highlights from Chicago's downtown, especially the Loop, which were erected between about 1866 to the mid 1930s, and many of which either no longer exist or have been significantly altered over the years. It is a look back into history.

The book is organized by area of town, i.e. Michigan Ave., Wabash Ave., State St., Dearborn St., Clark St., La Salle St., and along the river and North Michigan St. Each chapter opens with a street layout, with a key to each important building in the area, whether or not it is in the photographs. The photos/postcards follow, each identifying buildings, significant details, alterations, occasionally interior photos, and once in a while even text of the postcard on the back. The presentation is well thought out and thoroughly engrossing.

I am very glad I bought this book. I thumb through it often. If you are a fan of Chicago's architectural heritage, you ought to have a copy.

As a native Chicagoan, this book was a revelation to me. I had no idea how much the city had changed since I left 5 years ago. Millions of dollars have been spent to affect an "Environmental Renaissance" - new 'green' zones, wildlife habititats, rooftop gardens, etc. The photography is breathtaking, and the writing is almost conversational. If anyone knows Chicago better than Kenan Heise, let him or her speak up! If you are a Chicagoan, this book will introduce you to a city you never knew. If you aren't from the city, this book may convince you to move there!

I found this book on a resent trip to Chicago. It has wonderful pictures and the history of four of Chicago's great hotels -- The Palmer House, The Drake, The Chicago Hilton, and the Peninsula Hotel. I have always enjoyed my stays at the Palmer House and loved that there was a beautiful book of the history and human interest stories. We tried the Palmer House brownie recipe over Thanksgiving and all agree that it is the fudge of brownies. According to Miss Greene's book, the brownie was invented by Mrs. Palmer, the original owner of the Palmer House.

The book is beautiful and would be a great gift for anyone who travels to Chicago or lives in the city. There are several recipes in the book including the delicious Bookbinder's Soup from The Drake Hotel.

Miss Greene is an excellent storyteller. I will be watching for more books in this series, and am giving several as Christmas gifts.

This is an awesome book for parents or anyone who is always looking for something to do with children. I can't wait to get this book for every one of my friends and family members who have kids. Finally, something that fits in my purse and is a veritable treasure of information about where to go to inspire, educate and entertain children!

From its opening pages, Chicago's New Negroes delivers a knockout punch. Baldwin opens his monograph with a retelling of Jack Johnson's 1910 heavyweight victory and its impact on Black Chicago, and thus only begins to weave an epic and compelling tapestry that demonstrates how Black people "acted" rather than were "acted upon." He resituates ideas once limited to discussions of the Harlem Renaissance and moves them geographically to Great Migration-era Chicago. There, dots are connected to demonstrate the very tangible relationship between consumer culture and intellectual life.

To the reader's delight, Baldwin resists the tendency to provide a straightforward "history" of African Americans in Chicago in the early twentieth century. While the text does follow the stories and innovations of such major players as Madame CJ Walker, Thomas A. Dorsey, Oscar Micheaux and baseball's Rube Foster, it also provides a much needed space in which we get to hear the thoughts and words of everyday people, those who sat in beauty parlors, enjoyed the early years of cinema, attended sporting events, and made a way despite the racial, social and economic limitations. We soon determine that southern migrants to Chicago brought with them not country ways, but entirely new, entirely modern, ways of thinking.

For authors, allowing everyday people to speak for themselves is sometimes difficult. Yet, Baldwin manages to make these voices heard and it is a credit to his writing style. His presentation is especially adept in the sports chapter. Here, Baldwin takes the reader on a tour of Black Chicago's various "playgrounds." We have no problem envisioning the juking, the fakes, the fast forwards, the trucking, the passing and dribbling and their possible meanings for building a better world.

Through chapters devoted to the "mapping" of the Black Metropolis, beauty culture, film exhibition and filmmaking, the rise of gospel music and the sporting life, Baldwin allows a glimpse into a world of possibility, a world where popular culture is just as, if not more, worthy of study as so-called arts and letters. He forces a new understanding of even the Harlem Renaissance, an ambitious project for sure. While the book is a scholarly monograph, Baldwin's forays into social and cultural theory are so nuanced as to make the book accessible to a wider audience. And for that we should be thankful. Even though the urgent and triumphant stories within Chicago's New Negroes take place seventy five or a hundred years ago, the lessons we learn from them and the hope we take with us when we close the book are timeless. And are even more so in an era when Black culture is appropriated, diffused, and often taken for granted.