- Sue Kwong
This winter, the Reader has set a humble goal for itself: to determine the Greatest Chicago Book Ever Written. We chose 16 books that reflected the wide range of books that have come out of Chicago and the wide range of people who live here and assembled them into an NCAA-style bracket. Then we recruited a crack team of writers, editors, booksellers, and scholars as well as a few Reader staffers to judge each bout. The results of each contest will be published every Monday, along with an essay by each judge explaining his or her choice. The Reader reader who best predicts the judges’ rulings will win a trip to Mexico.
No matter how I tried to plunge into Divergent‘s futuristic settings, not even an apocalyptic Michigan Avenue and dilapidated Navy Pier Ferris wheel could keep my attention from roaming elsewhere. Something about living in the present kept me from embracing Roth’s virtual worlds and juvenile cast of daredevils. I threw in the towel, but not before Tris and her ambivalent hunk, Four, manage to get some alone time and discover their divergent commonalities. Any book or music that feels geared toward the masses and reads like a bid for a fall TV show or movie script rarely makes it past my ADHD.
How would an older Clare match up to an older Henry? Clare’s magic was her art, and when Henry rigged the lottery in her favor, you knew that he was seriously contemplating her long-term happiness in spite of his inevitable demise. I don’t profess to be a time-travel expert, but I imagine if you live in such an alternative state of mind, traditionalism, in a marital sense, is best appreciated when it is minimal and without much expectation.
