Literary Tourism: Chicago Archives

Monsters: The 1985 Chicago Bears and the Wild Heart of Football

by Rich Cohen

Chicago boasts not one but eight professional sports teams (Bears, Blackhawks, Bulls, Cubs, Fire, Red Stars, Sky, and White Sox) and they’re proud of it. The Bears won the Super Bowl in 1985, the culmination of an exciting season that fans still talk about to this day—and not just because it unfortunately remains the team’s only championship win. Rich Cohen interviews players and coaches alike to dive deep into the magic of that winning and what they all really thought about it, including the infamous "Super Bowl Shuffle" video.

The Great Believers

by Rebecca Makkai

Makkai's prize-winning novel asks what it means to be family to one another, as the characters navigate heavy grief and loss within their tight knit communities. In 1985, Yale Tishman loves his job working in the fundraising department of a Chicago art gallery. But as his career takes off, the 1980s AIDS crisis wreaks havoc on his world, devastating his chosen family. Between chapters about Yale's life, we learn his friend Fiona's story, as she travels to Paris 30 years later in search of her estranged daughter. Both timelines kept me glued to the page, and they came together in such a brilliant way at the end of the book. Amy Poehler optioned this one for a "major television event."

Even Though I Knew the End

by C. L. Polk

Helen, a warlord detective, sold her soul to save her brother’s life ten years ago and it’s almost time for her to pay up. She has the chance to win back her soul if she catches a notorious serial killer, the White City Vampire. She only has three days to do it or she’ll lose her life, as well as a future with her partner Edith, forever. A sapphic noir filled with magic, mystery, and romance.

I Am Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter

by Erika L. Sánchez

Julia could never live up to her sister Olga’s shadow and that remains true after Olga dies in a tragic accident. Instead of grieving together as a family, her mom never stops pointing out the ways Julia falls short. But it turns out Olga might not have been as perfect as everyone thought. With the help of her boyfriend and best friend, Julia starts to investigate her sister’s life to figure out if there was more to her story and the cost of being someone’s ideal.

Dreams from My Father

by Barack Obama

Written well before Barack Obama contemplated a presidential run, his first memoir spans his upbringing in Kansas, Hawaii, and Indonesia to his time as a community organizer in Chicago. He explores his racial identity as he makes sense of his absentee father’s death and travels to Kenya to meet his extended family. A great storyteller, this first memoir provides a glimpse of the president he’ll become and all he’s accomplished since.

Dear Mr. Knightley

by Katherine Reay

You all keep saying this fresh update on Jean Webster's 1899 classic Daddy-Long-Legs is your favorite Katherine Reay novel; I think it might be mine as well. Samantha Moore spent her childhood struggling in the foster care system, relying on her favorite literary characters to survive. She even expresses herself using their words when she can't find her own. Samantha's big break comes when a "Mr. Knightley" offers her a full scholarship at the prestigious journalism school at Northwestern University. The only requirement is that Sam write her benefactor regularly to tell him about her progress. Through their correspondence, Sam begins to find her voice ... but then things get complicated.

Love at First

by Kate Clayborn

With winning characters, a multigenerational found family, and a fun Chicago setting, this romance is going to make a whole lot of readers happy. Will and Nora live two floors apart from each other, where late night balcony chats bring them closer together—and their clashing plans for the building spark a surprising rivalry. I expected an absorbing plot and engaging characters from the returning SRG author’s Romeo and Juliet-inspired second-chance love story; I did not expect it to get me right in the feels. (Open door.)

Alone with You in the Ether

by Olivie Blake

There’s no reason Regn and Aldo’s paths would ever cross. Regan is a bipolar counterfeit artist undergoing country-mandated therapy; Aldo is a mathematics doctoral student who manages his destructive thoughts by calculating time travel. But when they meet at the Art Institute, they’re drawn into a sprawling conversation about the nature of time and space and they find so much more in the process. An honest portrait of what it means to live and love when you have a mental illness.

MWF Seeking BFF: My Yearlong Search for a New Best Friend

by Rachel Bertsche

Gretchen Rubin, author of The Happiness Project says, "Friendship is one of the most important elements of a happy life—but it can be tough to make new friends. In MWF Seeking BFF, Rachel Bertsche weaves together her engaging and often hilarious adventures in search of a new best friend with the latest research about the science of friendship. I couldn't put it down."

Saving Ruby King

by Catherine Adel West

Zakiya Harris, author of The Other Black Girl says of this debut: "Saving Ruby King is a stunning force of a novel that has everything anyone could want in a family saga—honey-dipped prose, strikingly human characters, and a satisfying, soul-stirring conclusion that will stay with me for a long, long time."

Native Son

by Richard Wright

This gritty novel wrecked me when I first read it in high school: Wright's story is raw, violent, emotionally wrenching, and utterly unforgettable. Through the eyes of Bigger Thomas, a twenty-year-old Black man living in Chicago in the 1930s, we see the extreme racial inequalities his family experiences—and how they first harden, and then desensitize Bigger. This was Wright's first novel, and on its publication in 1940, it became one of the fastest-selling novels in America's history, and remains incredibly timely today.

Last Summer on State Street

by Toya Wolfe

This coming of age debut set in the housing projects of 1990s Chicago unfolds over the course of one summer. We meet three young girls, all about age 11, who've formed a comfortable trio and spend their summer days double-dutching on the hot concrete under the watchful eyes of their neighbors, who have all been alerted they'll soon be displaced and moved (if they're lucky) to a different apartment block. When a new girl joins their friend group the circle, instead of growing larger, is broken, and things will never be the same for any of the four, who are largely left on their own to deal with the escalating threats around them. Beautifully told and utterly heartbreaking. Content warnings apply.

Dark Matter

by Blake Crouch

This fast-moving thriller is showing up on all kinds of best-of-the-year lists (and will soon be making an appearance on What Should I Read Next as a favorite). What The Martian did for space exploration, Dark Matter does for physics, and it works. The publisher calls this "a relentlessly surprising science-fiction thriller about choices, paths not taken, and how far we’ll go to claim the lives we dream of."

Marrying the Ketchups

by Jennifer Close

A family drama centered on a close-knit Chicago family and the Irish American bar and restaurant that's been in their family for generations. It seems every Sullivan family member is at a crisis point, and the reader witnesses them working through their life-shifting career and relationship issues against the backdrop of the bar and restaurant, and the Cubs' unexpected World Series-winning season. If you enjoyed We Are the Brennans or The Most Fun We Ever Had, give this one a close look.

Windfall

by Jennifer E. Smith

Alice doesn't believe in luck, at least not the good kind. But when she buys her friend Teddy a lottery ticket for his 18th birthday, she picks the good ones: 31 (Teddy's birthday). 9 (the number of years they've been friends). And for the Powerball number: 13 (the date both her parents died, 13 months apart, making her an orphan). That unlucky number wins him 140 million dollars. Teddy promises her the money won't change anything, but of course it does. A novel of love, family, fate, and Chicago, and one that you could read in the course of one happy afternoon.

Hello Beautiful

by Ann Napolitano

I utterly adored my first Napolitano read. (I remain too terrified of plane crash stories to read Dear Edward.) The author describes her homage to Little Women as "the story of one young man, four sisters, the secrets that threaten to shatter their family, and a love powerful enough to heal it.” I fell completely in love with the Padavano family, and enjoyed seeing how the characters grew and evolved over the decades and generations. The Chicago setting was also a lot of fun. (I did so much googling for places and locations!) Readers, there are A LOT of difficult things in these pages: it might break your heart, but know that ultimately, it's a redemption story.

The House on Mango Street

by Sandra Cisneros

This modern classic is a coming-of-age almost-memoir of a young Latina girl, Esperanza Cordero, who is inventing the woman she will grow up to be. The story unfolds as a series of vignettes—some joyful, some heartbreaking—that draw the reader deep into the Hispanic Chicago neighborhood. Esperanza's observations feel at once highly specific and incredibly universal, as she reflects on growing up on Mango Street, and how she eventually wants to leave.

The Devil in the White City: A Saga of Magic and Murder at the Fair that Changed America

by Erik Larson

The true story of architect Daniel H. Burnham who designed the 1893 Chicago World's Fair and serial killer H.H. Holmes. One of these things is not like the other! While Burnham navigated the recent death of his partner while planning the fair, Holmes lured his victims by pretending to be a doctor and used the fair as a cover. It’s a fascinating history of the city, the fair’s success, and the notable figures who attended.

Becoming

by Michelle Obama

Michelle Obama’s memoir is broke literary records and it’s easy to see why. The former First Lady recounts growing up on the South Side of Chicago, meeting her husband Barack, and exactly what it’s like to watch your husband run for and then win the presidency. She doesn’t shy away from the hard parts of her story, such as miscarriage and the racism she’s encountered over the years, and reflects on how her experiences have shaped her and the woman she’s still becoming. A moving, inspiring, engaging read.

A Raisin in the Sun

by Lorraine Hansberry

Playwright Lorraine Hansberry's award-winning drama centers on the Youngers, a Black working class family living on the South Side. After the death of the patriarch, the family wants to buy a house with the life insurance money but soon runs into discriminatory housing practices. A Raisin in the Sun is both of its time and prescient for us today.

Neanderthal Seeks Human

by Penny Reid

This smart contemporary romance series follows a group of seven friends in Chicago, whose relationships blossomed thanks to Knit Night. They rally around each other no matter what's going on and their relationships continue to be a priority even as they each fall in love. Penny Reid's characters have distinct personalities and quirks and it's delightful watching them grow individually and as a group as the series progresses. You'll wish you could be friends with them in real life! (Heads up: the first two books are on the "closed door" side, but the series grows in steaminess as it progresses and is considered "open door" after book 3.)

Chirp

Negroland: A Memoir

by Margo Jefferson

The daughter of a Chicago doctor and socialite, Margo Jefferson offers an account of her experience growing up in an upper class family during the 1950s and 60s. Her privileged upbringing in Negroland (the small region where wealthy elite Black Americans lived) gave her a different lens for American culture as a part of an upper crust society that still nonetheless measured itself against white people and distanced itself from lower class Black people. She examines these contradictions as she takes readers through the Civil Rights movement and birth of feminism up to today.

The Most Fun We Ever Had

by Claire Lombardo

I love a good family saga, so I've been meaning to read this. To be honest, I was intimidated by the length, but when a friend assured me it doesn't drag and that Lombardo's authorial voice is gold, I picked it right up and read it in three days (and it's a 500-pager, so that's saying something!) This is the story of a married couple and their four grown daughters. In the opening pages, one daughter reveals a huge family secret, and the novel tracks what happens in the next year of every family member's life.

Literary Tourism: Chicago