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It’s so satisfying to be in the hands of a seasoned storyteller. In a row, I read three newly published novels written by authors who have been winning prizes and selling boatloads of books for decades. What sets their work apart? The art of storytelling: what to show, what to hold back. Dialogue, description, pace.

Living in a city beside an inland sea, my morning walk sometimes yields trash, or an odd hello: a washed up, desiccated raccoon, its teeth bared. Dried vomit. Charging geese. Our harmless resident crazy, who mistakes me for Hillary Clinton, and asks after Bill. Why keep walking? Because there’s treasure to be found: a mother

For the first time since 1977, the Pulitzer Prize committee today awarded no prize for fiction. I love reading fiction but I’m not finding a lot, lately, to cheer about. It feels fitting, then, to post on a memoir and two biographies. Each concerns the life of an American woman. For a work assignment, I

Wow. How many doorstoppers in a row? First, Peter Orner’s “Love and Shame and Love.” A great title! His story is multigenerational but so choppily told I lost interest in every character. Next, Anna Solomon’s “The Little Bride.” Another great title, well reviewed. I put it down two-thirds of the way through. If you put

Good friends made it easy to show off Chicago’s rich offerings of art, architecture, parks, museums and food this weekend. Affable and curious, they had ideas of what they wanted to see and experience while in town, but didn’t overdo it. With just a few hours left on Sunday, could they get to Ernest Hemingway’s

Gail Levin’s magnificent Lee Kranser biography was hard to give up and now I know why. Three disappointing reads in a row? John Steinbeck’s “The Winter of Our Discontent” was engaging but cartoon-y, a precursor to all things Updike. Adam Gopnik’s “Winter” essays are — I can’t believe I’m going to use this word for

I like to write, and read, a life story. Childhood, education, influences, love affairs, disappointments, a troubled marriage, triumphs and recognition: Gail Levin’s biography of painter Lee Krasner is a masterfully told story of a great American life. Krasner (1908-1984) was born to Russian immigrants in then-rural Brooklyn. Her scholarly father sold fish from a

In the Ottawa airport bookstore, after a few weeks in the woods, I picked up the paperback of Michael Ondaatje’s “The English Patient.” At the time I knew nothing of the writer. Too, I was traveling with my two small boys. An hour into the flight I looked up, so taken by the story and

With the year coming to a close it’s a good time to reflect on the offerings that enriched my days and nights. 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

A shared prize set novelist Jonathan Franzen (“Freedom”) and biographer Isabel Wilkerson (“The Warmth of Other Suns”) on the same stage last Sunday. http://www.chicagohumanities.org/ through Nov. 13th. (Thanks for the treat, Deborah.) Migration figures in both works. In “Freedom,” Patty leaves the East Coast for a kinder, gentler life in the Midwest. In “Warmth…” six million

In the months after summer’s heat, Chicago’s crisp sunny days pull me, and my dog, to the beach. There’s no one there! 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,

When we first meet Madeleine Hanna she’s hungover and heartsick. It’s 1982, graduation day at Brown University, and Madeleine’s parents are at her apartment house front door, buzzing. Old Money, they’ll breakfast with Madeleine instead of taking her for a graduation dinner so they won’t have to spend two nights paying for a hotel. Welcome

I love uniquely American novels. Yates’ “Revolutionary Road,” Kesey’s “Sometimes a Great Notion,” Franzen’s “Freedom.”  Firmly grounded in time and place, its characters define the time as they’re shaped by the place. Newly published, Chad Harbach’s “The Art of Fielding” could only take place in America. Baseball, a small town, a private college and its

Can art be a salve? In these days of collective mourning, I find myself reaching for the literature of New York. The poetry and stories and novels of a city that offers, above all else, possibility. Read Walt Whitman’s “Mannahatta” and “Crossing Brooklyn Ferry.” Grace Paley’s “The Loudest Voice,” a short wallop of a story

I read year round but summer is when I give myself huge chunks of time on a dock or a beach or by the pool to do what I love most: lose myself in a story. Some people think “summer reads” should be light and fun, like the season. My favorite summer reads are dense,

This life story is a smart, sexy, full-bodied read. We get it all: from Mitchell’s Midwestern ancestors to her early success in New York’s art world to her deathbed in Paris. Drinker, lover, painter, traveler. Rude, crude, mean. What a life! Joan Mitchell (1925 – 1992) was born to great wealth in Chicago. Her mother

A line stretches from a closed kiosk day after day for a year. Place numbers are assigned. Family members take turns waiting, sometimes paying each other for their time. What’s for sale? What could be worth losing your job, your savings, your marriage, your family? Concert tickets. Once issued, what will you do with the

I’m one of the few readers on earth who didn’t finish Erik Larson’s 2004 mega-hit, “Devil in the White City.” I had researched and written about the 1893 Columbian Exposition in Chicago — the White City — so those chapters bored me. The serial killer chapters scared me. I couldn’t read it! Now Larson has

After a particularly brutal winter and a long, cold spring we here in Chicago are desperate for sun and warmth. People stand at street corners or outside office buildings, faces lifted to the sun. Not waiting for the Rapture. Or sneaking a smoke. They’re jones-ing for a hit of sunshine. So it’s understandable that we

I was so taken in by the beginning of David Bezmozgis’ “The Free World,” I missed my “el” stop. Later the same day I stood on another “el” platform, gobbling up this story of immigration, and nearly missed my train home. There it stood, doors open. When had it pulled into the station? How is