I read newspapers, magazines, works of nonfiction, but my true love is fiction. In these three novels, the characters and situations were so alive to me I didn’t want their stories to end: Jonathan Franzen’s “Freedom,” Chad Harbaugh’s “The Art of Fielding,” and Jeffrey Eugenides’ “The Marriage Plot.”

Paul Auster’s “Sunset Park” was another favorite. Enchanted, I am reading slowly Michael Ondaatje’s “The Cat’s Table.”

A play, a retrospective and a biography brought me the lives of three artists and their creative process. Each left me astonished. There was Mark Rothko in John Logan’s “Red” at the Goodman Theatre, the Willem de Kooning retrospective at New York’s Museum of Modern Art (through January 9), Patricia Alber’s biography “Joan Mitchell: Lady Painter.”

Art and books combine in the work of two friends, both photographers.

Haunting me are the lush, eery photographs of American children, teens, couples and families in Lydia Panas’ first monograph, “The Mark of Abel.” www.lydiapanas.com/book. Chester Alamo’s “The Globe” captures the beauty, color and passion of fans at a Chicago bar that offers live telecasts of European soccer. www.amazon.com/Globe-Chester-Alamo-Costello/dp/0615339417/ref=cm_cr_pr_pb_t

I continue to be awed by my sons’ achievements in photography http://www.masondent.com/ and sports journalism http://supercursed.blogspot.com/, by my niece’s comic art and humor. http://comics.lucyknisley.com/2011/10/scaredcited-page-2/

Memorable movies this year include the smart, sexy remake of “Jane Eyre,” the plotless but mesmerizing “Tree of Life,” the hilariously foul “Bridesmaids. The one film I many never get out of my head: Pedro Almodovar’s “The Skin I Live In.” Beautiful, bizarre, shocking.

One stage play held me in its grip: “The God of Carnage,” 70 minutes of ensemble acting at its best, at the Goodman Theatre. I admired “An Iliad” at Court Theatre (through December 14) even though we had terrible seats.

I am always thinking about my next meal, so it’s worth remembering some of the places that nourished me.

In Montreal (L’Entrecote St. Jean) and New York (Le Relais de Venise) I savored prix-fixe steak-only dinners that transported me to Paris.

In Chicago this year I’ve been dazzled by the farm-to-table offerings at Nightwood, Perennial Virant, and Blackbird. The fish tacos at GT Fish & Oyster. Anything at The Purple Pig. The limited but daring menu at Morso; also, its fabulous Wolfsbane cocktail. The seasonal tartines at Floriole, the frisee salad at Gemini Bistro, the exquisite service at Pelago. The ultra-thin pizza at Three Aces and a cocktail so beautiful I had to photograph it.

Finally, a welcome addition to my Lincoln Park neighborhood: City Grounds coffee bar, a clean well lighted place.

Thanks for reading. Best wishes for the New Year.

My North Avenue beach is banked by man-made dunes. Get yourself beyond those and the beach offers a wide swath of sand pebbled with crushed shells. Also washed-up wood slabs from wave-smashed piers, a dead fish or two, emptied booze bottles.

Our boat-shaped boat house is closed. Nets strung for beach volleyball leagues have been taken down, rentable beach chairs and umbrellas packed away.

What a place to walk! Before me is the city’s cutout skyline, fronted by the seemingly infinite lake. There’s so few people on the paths and the beach on a weekday morning it feels eerily post-apocalyptic. There is the city; where are its people?

The lakefront’s beautiful desolation this morning reminded me of a section of Faulkner’s “The Wild Palms: If I Forget Thee Jerusalem.” Faulkner describes the Midwest’s off-season gift of warmth as “the long sigh toward autumn and the cold.” His doomed lovers overstay the season in their Lake Michigan beachfront shack, and nearly freeze, almost starve.

Dan Chaon’s masterful “Await Your Reply,” gives us a Northwestern University college student presumed dead in Lake Michigan’s frigid waters. We stand over his shoulder as he reads the news story of his probable suicide. Gulp.

In Frederick Exley’s “A Fan’s Notes,” the eponymous narrator spends his Chicago off-hours drinking excessively, bedding beautiful young women whose names he checks scraps of paper to remember. “In the first flush of the morning sun, the city lay spread out to my left, more like a dream than I had ever imagined it….the city gave everything…and I bawled like a goddam madman to be so lucky…”

In the enchanting “The Art of Fielding,” Chad Harbach compares a scholar’s love for literature with Lake Michigan. “Walking along its shore called forth some of the same deep feelings that his reading of Melville did, and that reading explained and deepened his love of the water, which deepened his love of the books.” Unexpectedly, and memorably, the lake becomes this man’s final resting place.

In Patricia Albers’ rich portrait of the abstract expressionist Joan Mitchell, the biographer says Mitchell painted the lake her whole career. “She watched rain clobber the lake, ice lock it up, thunderheads billow above…it shimmered, turquoise and sapphire like a tropical lagoon, or pulsed with dark ochre along its edges…”

“‘The Lake is with me today,’” Joan would say, years after leaving Chicago. “‘The memory of a feeling. And when I feel that thing, I want to paint it.’”

For more Chicago in literature: http://www.encyclopedia.chicagohistory.org/pages/448.html

So it’s understandable that we who work at desks seek out lunch spots in the sun.

A lunch meeting in the Loop the other day had me frantically searching for a tasty meal outdoors. I found one for us, beside the Chicago River. Newly opened this spring, Bridge House Tavern (321 N. Clark St.) offers a long, attractively furnished patio open to the sky. Tour boats pass, tourists wave, the river glows (from the sun!)

Salads, shared plates, entrees: theirs is a broad, enticing menu. We ordered sandwiches ($10 – $14) that were tasty and inventive (bacon milkshake anyone?) sided with thin-cut fries. Service was attentive. We’ll be back.

I brought my New York foodie friends for lunch in the sun at Floriole, a bakery and cafe at 1220 W. Webster St. Frittatas, tartines, pizzettes, salads, baguettes spread with butter and mustard, layered with ham and cheese. Fresh, organic, seasonal, locally sourced, prepared on site: pure and delicious. The cafe opens completely to the street, so even inside you’re outside. Too, their sidewalk tables offer a place in the sun.

More midday sun spots: Coco Pazzo Cafe (636 N. St. Clair St.) for sophisticated pastas, roast vegetables, salads. Also kissed by the sun, Trattoria Roma (1535 N. Wells St.) serves thin-crust pizza, crisp calamari, my favorite fennel salad, and big bowls of pasta.

Not the store on North Avenue so much, but the one on Michigan Avenue. HIgh ceilings, four full floors of pricey real estate, a cafe with a spectacular view of the avenue, deep collections of poetry, travel, photography and fiction (who cares about the rest, really?)

True, the checkout area was littered with tarot cards and packaged candy and beaded book thongs. And the checkout experience was on par with airline security screening.

Even so, Borders on Michigan Avenue was my nerd heaven: a huge bookstore on the same stretch as Neiman Marcus, Tiffany’s, Ralph Lauren, Dior, Chanel.

And now it’s gone.

What’s a book junkie to do?

Barnes & Noble on Clybourn? Ugh. Save for the original Barnes & Noble in New York, I can’t stand B &N. They’re all the same: beige, and poorly stocked. (For me. See above.) Except for a collector set of J.D. Salinger for my son’s 18th birthday, B&N never surprises me and typically disappoints. I can’t find the book; I can’t even find the section the book would be in.

Setting off for a week in the sun, I needed a few new books. So did my tween daughter. It was too late to order from Amazon, so we went to another North Side neighborhood to a store that’s been selling books since 1980. Unabridged Bookstore, 3251 N. Broadway, Chicago is three adjoined storefronts. Gay and lesbian titles is a focus. One room is devoted to children’s books and young adult books; their offerings are wide and deep.

My daughter found more books than she’d set out for. “Two walls of young adult books!” Shelved within those was Charlotte Bronte’s “Jane Eyre.” I hadn’t thought of it as a young read, but we scanned the first few pages and found it just right for her.

Fiction! I found books newly in paperback, including Ian McEwan’s “Solar” (sounds wicked) and Julie Orringer’s “The Invisible Bridge,” a new favorite among my best reader friends. On display, I picked up Darrin Strauss’s memoir, “Half a Life.” I loved the first page; I had to have it. Also “New York Stories,” an Everyman Pocket Library I’d never seen before.

Unabridged clerks are knowledgeable, helpful, approachable. Checking out felt special, even cozy; we were the only ones at the register!

Alex and I left with a heavy bag. We’ll be back.

Agreed. It will be cold.

Let’s review the reasons to visit Chicago any time of year: food, art and architecture, shopping, theater and improv and blues, Lake Michigan and its beachfront paths, neighborhoods, sports. Chicago is a world-class city, a splendid place to spend a few days. Without kids, even better.

Stay at a hotel on or near Michigan Avenue. Don’t rent a car. You’ll be able to walk, cab, bus or take the “el” easily, day or night.

Arriving late? Many restaurants serve until 2 a.m. Cozy up at the The Purple Pig (500 N. Michigan Ave.) for small-plate Mediterranean fare. Slurp oysters at Shaw’s Crab House (21 E. Hubbard St.)

In the morning, stroll through Millennium Park (Randolph St. at Michigan Ave.) Its wonders are obvious. Walk its southern bridge to enter the new Modern Wing at the Art Institute of Chicago (111 S. Michigan Ave.) Duck into the Cultural Center to marvel at the world’s largest Tiffany dome (78 E. Washington St.)

For lunch: Park Grill, Henri, and The Gage are excellent choices nearby. For quick and casual, natives flock to Potbelly Sandwich Shops. If you must sample deep-dish pizza, Uno’s is authentic, and always crowded (29 E. Ohio St.) Rosebud serves Italian food and my favorite hamburger.

The world comes to Michigan Avenue to shop and you should, too. From H&M to Perla, this street has the Champs Elysees’ energy, with better stores. Side streets offer boutique shopping.

Massage? Urban Oasis (12 W. Maple St.)

Dinner! Chicago is a mecca. Topolobampo, Blackbird, Mexique, Naha, MK, Keefer’s, Piccolo Sogno, Takashi, Spiaggia: all great choices for a special meal. Nightcap — for the stupendous view — at the Signature Lounge, 96th floor of the John Hancock Center.

Take breakfast or lunch in a Chicago neighborhood. In Lincoln Park, try Toast, Floriole, Perennial, Twisted Sister. In Wicker Park, head to Hot Chocolate or Big Star. Logan Square, savor Lula’s Cafe or Longman & Eagle. Foodies will head to Hot Doug’s for duck-fat fries and foie gras dogs.

Wander residential streets or ride the “el” — you don’t need a tour guide to experience Chicago’s glorious architecture. If the weather is agreeable, walk the lakefront path south towards Oak Street. Endless lake, the beach in winter, Chicago’s skyline. There’s nothing like it.

Readers: where would you send a couple visiting Chicago?

I was looking for dinner ingredients after a pleasing business lunch at Prairie Fire (215 N. Clinton St.) brought me to the West Loop.

After touring the whole market — brightly lit, with wide aisles — I zeroed in on the fresh offerings at Produce Express, where I nabbed pints of local blueberries and blackberries ($4 each) and a bag of mixed greens ($2). If I were a commuter, I’d be stopping here daily; prices were reasonable and there was a wide assortment, all of it locally grown at this time of year. Their vegetables looked exquisite, and, I have to admit that I liked being inside — not fighting dogs and baby strollers and the heat — buying local, quality produce.

From there I headed to Pastoral Artisan Cheese Bread & Wine, an outpost of the popular Lakeview establishment (2945 N. Broadway). I picked up a puffy boule ($3.42), creamy hand-dipped ricotta ($6.99 per pound) marinated sun-dried tomatoes ($14.99 per pound) and Italian prosciutto ($24.99 per pound). The servers were knowledge, helpful and generous with tastes.

On my way out, I picked up oversized cookies ($2 each) from Sweet Miss Giving’s, a bakery and jobs training program that donates half its profits to Chicago House. Good deeds produce great cookies: my chocolate chip cookie eaters raved about the dark chocolate chunks and golden, fluffy dough.

The market (131 N. Clinton St.) is accessible from Clinton Street or the Ogilvie Transportation Center (504 W. Madison St.) It’s a treasure for commuters, West Loop workers and residents, and home cooks like me who’ve wandered off their beaten path.

Chicago’s motto is “city in a garden” and in these last summer weekends we insist on the outdoors: eating meals or sharing cocktails in city gardens, sunning and reading on roof decks, swimming fast in open-air pools, biking or walking the lakefront.

Eight of us dined at Piccolo Sogno, 464 N. Halsted St., a newish restaurant in an old space that holds Chicago’s prettiest and most spacious garden, anchored by a huge Spanish sycamore. Strange how a place can be both achingly romantic, for a couple, and accommodating to a crowd.

Later we sat in a private garden, our friends’ good dog at my feet. Deborah pointed to a climbing vine with heart-shaped leaves. My young daughter and I had started that moon flower from seed in March, and I’d been giving the tiny sprouts as hostess gifts during the spring. There it was, grown as tall as their house. The next evening it bloomed, gleaming white against the dark.

I curled up in a comfy chair set to my garden’s one square of sunlight the next day, where I finished Henry Roth’s “Call it Sleep”. What a day; what a book. I’d chugged along for hundreds of pages, wondering how Roth’s simple tale would tie up. (It’s narrated by an overly-mothered boy whose father doubts his paternity). Wow. The climax is positively psychedelic; a cocktail of Whitman, Joyce, Ginsberg.

After another delicious dinner in a city garden — thanks Elaine and Dave! — I took our dog for his nightly walk. I passed an old home with a low-fenced yard open to the street. There, a group of friends sat at a red picnic table, lit by candles, enjoying dinner and a movie playing on an oversized screen. What a night; what a choice. “Stranger than Fiction”, a wonderfully told life and love story — set in Chicago.

Delight, joy: at a museum? That’s rare.

Olafur Eliasson is the Danish-Icelandic artist whose installations can be seen and experienced at the Museum of Contemporary Art (220 E. Chicago Ave.) through Sept. 13.

Go. If you have children or can borrow one, take them.

Eliasson — whose “Waterfalls” captivated New York City last summer — creates spaces that turn art inside out, and sometimes bodily involve the viewer.

One of my favorite pieces, “360 degrees room for all coulors” (2002), allows you to step into the color spectrum. You’re inside the work of art.

Another one we liked is a long wide hall lit by monochromatic bulbs, which emit light in a narrow frequency, “Room for one colour” (1997). It looks inviting, a warm bright yellow. Step inside, all color is washed out of your clothes, your skin. You become shades of black and white! You are the art!

That was a favorite of Alex, my 10-year-old daughter, who likes art but dreads museums. We walked through that hall several times, and at a passage, she divided herself: “Okay, where am I black and white? Where am I color?”

Alex didn’t but I loved “Moss Wall” (1994) a room-size installation of slowly growing moss. It looked like a bumpy field of yellow-green cauliflower heads, and gave off a pleasing scent.

Our shared favorite, “Beauty” (1993), is a pitch black room that holds a mounted spotlight shining through a constant falling mist. Depending on where you stand, you see rainbows, gentle waves, ghostly images. You can walk into the mist — most kids do — which creates yet another image, and view.

The show is called “Take your TIme.” I’d promised Alex it wouldn’t be a lengthy visit; we were through the show in 30 minutes. And she was the one who asked to go back to certain installations.

This show will make anyone rethink the term “museum art.” And it will put a smile on your face, with kids or without. www.mcachicago.org

I’d been to Joe’s (60 E. Grand St.) several times, for review or to meet with editors. It’s pricey, but the seafood — especially their signature stone crab — is worth the expense. Sides and salads are freshly prepared with quality ingredients. Portions are generous.

Joe’s dining room gleams: white cloth tables, waiters in tuxedos. Why sit in the bar? The menu is the same.

Joe’s attracts a lot of tourists. More than once I’ve found myself seated opposite a half-clad group in floppy hats and flip-flops. I’m not knocking tourists; they’re great for the Chicago economy. Joe’s is so classy — refined food, divine service — I expect the patrons to be, too.

The spacious bar area attracts a different crowd. Some tourists, for sure, but typically it’s people like me and Barb, professionals who work in the neighborhood and want a meal you wouldn’t have and can’t afford everyday, in a setting that soothes. There’s a t.v. on — set to financial news — but everything else is dark wood and atmosphere.

I’d feel comfortable dining here alone.

Joe’s “colossal” crab cake ($11.95) is lightly crisped, thick, loaded with crab meat. Among the city’s best, along with Shaw’s. www.shawscrabhouse.com

The tangy coleslaw ($4.95) is more vinegar than mayo, topped with sparkling green relish, sided with thick slabs of tomato.

A meal-sized salad, the Stone Crab Louis ($13.95) was Barbara’s choice: bibb lettuce, avocado, hearts of palm, sliced egg, asparagus, stone crab.

If you’ve never tried stone crab — it’s harvested from the Gulf of Mexico — it’s a lifetime must ($17.95 for four.) Like lobster, you crack its thick shell with pliers. It’s messy, but the crab meat is heavenly: soft, white and sweet.

We passed on dessert this time, but Joe’s key lime pie ($5.95) is the real deal. It’s offered by the half-slice, too. www.joes.net/chicago.

I’d widen the reasons for returning to a restaurant: portions, presentation, ingredients, certain servers, a special view.

Spring time in Old Town

Two restaurants in my Old Town neighborhood, opened within the past two years, have me aching to return — and not because I can walk to them.

Perennial, 1800 N. Lincoln Ave., has right-size portions and reasonable prices (entrees: $16 – $25) for the sophistication of its food.

Portions aren’t the only reason I go back, but it looms large. (I don’t like doggy bags, and I’m trying to lose weight.) Perennial offers a half serving ($10) of pasta, and the other night I lucked into their lamb ragout fettucine. (Theirs is a seasonal menu, and that’s a winter dish. Of course, summer hasn’t quite arrived in Chicago, even in June.)

I don’t especially like lamb, but this dish makes me swoon. Lamb is shredded, mixed with oven-dried tomatoes that burst with flavor.

My friend ordered a gnocchi appetizer that sounded heavy but wasn’t, and was artfully arranged.

Another attraction: the view! Perennial wraps the corner of Lincoln Ave. and Wells St. Its outdoor tables front a leafy green swath of Lincoln Park. The other night our table gave us Lincoln Avenue and its Queen Anne row houses, just as the sky turned to blue-pink stripes.

Our waiter was cute, too. www.perennialchicago.com

At the other end of Wells Street is Old Town Brasserie (1209 N. Wells St.) There’s so many reasons to go back to this smart establishment: the decor is warm and handsome, the bar is large and lively, the waiters are often French, the menu is well priced ($7 -$33) and the food makes my head spin.

Their Lyonnaise salad is my favorite dish. Crisp frisee, bacon that goes crunch, a light dressing, perfectly portioned.

Their roast chicken is predictably good, but fish is the thing to order: a special the other night really was special! Pan-roasted halibut on a bed of spring-green asparagus, more chopped than pureed. Soothing, and melt-in-your mouth delicious.

Sides aren’t typically French: grilled salmon is paired with quinoa, skate wing with bulgur. www.oldtownbrasserie.com