Elizabeth Taylor

This fierce, remarkable winner of the 2015 Chicago Tribune Heartland Prize has its roots in Chicago, in particular, in a night class of adult students, juggling jobs — or no...

Paris, Mo., population 1,246 and falling: This is the hometown to which George Hodgman returned for his mother Betty's 91st birthday. Two weeks stretched into two months. He thinks about...

While her older sister excelled on the athletic fields, in classrooms and at parties, Dawn was that girl who just never quite fit in. Maybe it was her amblyopia,the condition...

"A beautiful book." This coded and cliched phrase, usually associated with a novel, generally speaks to an elegant use of language, a finely chiseled work of imagination. "Aquarium" by David...

So many historical novels read like connect-the-dots puzzles or costume dramas, so one that is fresh, original and time-travels to an undiscovered past is a real discovery. In her debut...

Eccentric and lovable detectives have become standard for so many police procedurals, and science writer David Adam presents a corrective to this popular image presented by germaphobe "Monk" and his...

As a reader by calling and temperament (and, yes, profession), I bring full engagement and critical perspective to books, but that vanishes with movies. For movies, I just need to...