Reviews »
Chicago: A Biography: by Dominic A. Pacyga
Writing a biography of the nation’s third largest city is a monumental task. Every block of every neighborhood is full of thousands upon thousands of stories. There is no way to write a history
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Buttonless: Incredible iPhone and iPad Games and the Stories Behind Them: by Ryan Rigney
Among hardcore gamers, mobile games aren’t widely considered the pinnacle of game design. Yet in a matter of years, mobile and tablet games have become incredibly popular and extremely lucrative for developers while the
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Sweet Invention: by Michael Krondl
If you have ever wondered where baklava came from, if you have ever pondered the chicken/egg conundrum of whether chocolate or hot chocolate came first or if you just have to know exactly what
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Arguably: by Christopher Hitchens
Christopher Hitchens may have been intelligent, but as a writer he had the gift to make his readers smarter. Though cocksure and quite often smarmy with his opinions, Hitchens did not hoard his intelligence
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Root For the Villain – Rap, Bullshit and a Celebration of Failure: by J-Zone
The music autobiography is often one of embellished claims of debauchery and inflated egos. While they can make for interesting first-hand accounts of important cultural movements or introspective character self-studies, the author most likely
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Fresh at Twenty: The Oral History of Mint Records, 1991-2011: by Kaitlin Fontana
Oral histories can be notoriously unreliable: they’re entirely at the mercy of its contributors’ sometimes faulty memories, tendencies to whitewash certain events while mythologizing others and petty desires to settle old scores or otherwise
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Crafting with Cat Hair: Cute Handicrafts to Make with Your Cat: by Kaori Tsutaya, translated by Amy Hirschman
If you made it this far, it’s probably for one of two reasons. I mean, cat hair as a textile? You’re either thinking, “Wow, for real? That’s gross,” or, “Wow, for real? That’s awesome.”
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The Imperfectionists: by Tom Rachman
Thanks to the internet, most newspapers have reached their death knell, cutting down staff in a desperate attempt to stay relevant and financially viable. While many of the more venerable papers have remained afloat
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Catherine the Great: by Robert K. Massie
After writing biographies about the first modern tsar of Russia (Peter the Great) and the last (Nicholas II), Robert K. Massie finally turns his attention to the pivotal figure in-between with Catherine the Great.
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Robopocalypse: by Daniel H. Wilson
Robots have been gaining sentience and rising against their human creators for decades, at least within the realm of sci-fi. Asimov’s Three Laws of Robotics (all centering on the notion that robots must never
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