Happy September (even though it is mid-October..) To me, September feels more like the beginning of the year than January does. And I think my September got my year off to a good start. School...

​I have said before in this column that we have an incredibly talented community of writers here in central Illinois. One case in point is Ruth Siburt, who used to write this column. Her novel,...

Fly Girls: The Daring American Women Pilots Who Helped Win WWII, by P. O’Connell Pearson, is a fascinating and compelling account of the many female pilots who supported the war effort. Especially...

Caterpillar Summer, a debut novel by Gillian McDunn, is a perfect summer read, in large part because of the setting. The reader is transported to a small island in North Carolina, and a lovely house...

I could not put down the Season of Styx Malone, by Kekla Magoon (Wendy Lamb Books). What grabbed me? First, the opening: “Styx Malone didn’t believe in miracles, but he was one. Until he came along,...

Ethan Marcus Makes His Mark, by Chicago-based author Michele Weber Hurwitz, shows us a character thrust in a situation where he doubts, not only his ability to do something, but also his desire to...

Non-fiction has the reputation of being boring. In my own youth I thought of history, for example, as boring. It focused so much on wars, treaties and what I think of as “big men,” meaning leaders,...