Before Lincoln Park cemented its trendy reputation, plenty of odd and unruly history managed to settle into its foundation. A Viking ship, mob henchmen and ladies of the evening all took up residence in the same part of town where Dwight L. Moody went from selling soles to saving souls. Thanks to a Confederate ferryboat crewman, many of Lincoln's personal effects belong to the neighborhood named after him. Patrick Butler uncovers Lincoln Park's forgotten contributions to Chicago's heritage...

If there's any place in Chicago that's been all things to all men, it has to be the corner of the city that is occupied by Edgewater and Uptown. Babe Ruth and Mahatma Gandhi found a place of refuge at the Edgewater Beach Hotel, but the locale has also been a sanctuary for Appalachian coal miners and Japanese Americans released from internment camps. Al Capone reportedly moved booze through a secret tunnel connecting the Green Mill and the Aragon Ballroom, "Burglar Cops" moonlit out of the ...

It's easy to get caught up in the hidden history of Ravenswood and Lake View, like the Harm's Park picnic that lasted fifty-four years or the political gimmickry of the "Cowboy Mayor" of Chicago. Who can resist a double take over folk like the "Father of Ravenswood," who kept Chicago from falling to the Confederacy, or the "North Side's Benedict Arnold," who was sent to the electric chair during World War II? If you want to visit the days when the Cubs were the Spuds or debate whether Rave...

Stories that pay tribute to Rex Stout's legendary private detective by Lawrence Block, Loren D. Estleman, John Lescroart, Robert Goldsborough, and more.If imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, then Nero Wolfe and Archie Goodwin have been widely flattered almost from the moment Rex Stout first wrote about them in 1934. The Misadventures of Nero Wolfe collects two dozen literary tributes to one of crime fiction's best-loved private detectives and his ...

Paris in the 18th, 19th, and 20th centuries was home to some of the most creative people on earth. These men and women, whose names are so famous, are now acclaimed as revolutionaries of the human spirit. But, they were a sleazy lot. Their vaunted reputations notwithstanding, these people were just as sick as the best of us, and we don't have to bend over far to see the underbelly of fame.

Timothy P. Butler has written nearly 500 poems covering a range of topics.

The book is in three parts first is an autiobiographical essay. The second part is a screenplay based on true events and partly fictionalized. The third part of the book is several of the authors poems.

Theology, the discipline that analyzes, examines, and seeks to explain religious ideas, is a vibrant area of inquiry. Scholars and philosophers have produced countless works of theology over the past several thousand years.In the West, however, virtually all theology concerns monotheistic faith systems. Polytheism escapes the notice of most scholars, and those who do address it rarely write books intended for a general, non-academic audience. Polytheology must become its own active...

A tribute to the golden age of radio from veteran producer Joe Bevilacqua and comic strip artist Donnie Pitchford, The 2nd New & Old Time Radio Collection is a series of new stories and parodies featuring beloved radio characters and shows.A Joe Bev Audio Theater Sampler, Volume 1This half-hour anthology represents more than forty years of storytelling by Joe Bevilacqua, a.k.a Joe Bev, the award-winning actor, writer, producer, and director. Each half-hour...

From a Bancroft Prize-winning historian, a revelatory new account of slavery, uncovering a surprising web of relationships between Black and white people that ranges far beyond the familiar template of “master-slave” dynamicsA white man hosts a wedding party for his Black servant and finds himself charged with a criminal offense; an overseer ends up dead after getting drunk with a slave; two men, one poor and white and the other enslaved, team up to plot a murder.

Times are changing at historic house museums and no one is more aware of this than the fourteen contributors to Interpreting Historic House Museums. These respected museum professionals consider the history of house museums and the need to look at familiar issues from new perspectives and using new methods. If your site isn't using a comprehensive interpretive plan, how can you create one? While doing so, how do you address contemporary issues like race and gender? Don't forget the physica...

PORTALS: What mysteries…or horrors…await you on the other side?The lure of an open doorway is hard to resist. What lies beyond? Where will it take you—and how will you be transformed? Will it lead to paradise…or a living hell? You’ll never know, unless you have the courage to take that first step.In this anthology you will find sixteen stories of portals to exotic destinations, whether it’s a doorway in the desert that appears out of thin air, a fairy ring of mushrooms in t...