Best Reading Series or Open Mike
aSun 7-10 PM, Green Mill, 4802 N. Broadway, 773-878-5552, greenmilljazz.com or slampapi.com, $6.
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So I’m giving in and choosing Mike Royko’s portrait of Richard J. Daley. Ostensibly it’s a biography, but it’s also history, sociology, and tabloid scandal, told in the wry, supercynical voice of arguably the greatest American newspaperman ever. Royko gives us cops and councilmen, petty graft and grand larcenies, neighborhood borders, ethnic rivalries, and racial shame—and above it all, the electorate’s stupefying embrace of corruption and mediocrity. He’s seen it all. Nothing surprises him. Yet between the lines there’s quiet outrage. Give this book to a friend who’s moving to Chicago. But before you wrap it, read it yourself and see how little has changed. aPlume/Penguin Group, $15 —Michael Lenehan
Brik—who’s portrayed as having written a column about the immigrant experience for the Reader—stumbles upon an old Tribune story about Lazarus Averbuch, an eastern European Jewish teenager and suspected anarchist who (in real life as in the book) was gunned down by Chicago’s police chief in 1908. Brik is determined to uncover the truth behind the incident, and his research takes him—along with his earthy Bosnian photographer friend Rora—back to his homeland. As he tells the tale, Hemon alternates between the era of Averbuch’s death, detailing the anarchist insurgency in Chicago just before the 1886 Haymarket Riots, and contemporary Chicago and eastern Europe. The book is provocative and enlightening, a serious yet often funny work by a very gifted dude. aRiverhead, $24.95 —Jerome Ludwig
When it comes down to it, I’ve really got just one reason for claiming the Evanston Public Library’s book sale is best, but it’s a fine one: an edition of Thomas Gray’s “Elegy Written in a Country Church Yard,” printed by the Heritage Press of the George Macy Companies and copyrighted 1951. There’s an appendix, and an introduction by Hugh Walpole, and the deep blue cloth cover is embossed with a churchyard scene accented in silver, as if by moonlight. Inside, opposite each page of text, are 32 serenely beautiful Rockwell Kent-like wood engravings by Scottish artist Agnes Miller Parker. And I got it at the last EPL sale for $4. I can’t say that a lovely little find like this is the rule at these events, but the fact that it’s even possible is suggestive. The sale offers a lot of books, and lots of them are good. The staffers are sweet, too. aThe next sale is this weekend, 3/27-3/29. Preview Fri 3/27, 10 AM-noon, $5. Then Fri noon-5:30 PM, Sat 10 AM-5:30 PM, Sun noon-5:30 PM. On Sunday, all books are half-price. Evanston Public Library, main branch, third floor, 1703 Orrington, Evanston, 847-448-8600, epl.org. F —Tony Adler
