Jon Anderson

From all parts of the globe they came to Chicago Sunday to honor a most uncommon woman, Lyric Opera of Chicago's general director, Ardis Krainik. The Ardis Krainik Celebration Gala...

The Madness of Art: A Guide to Living and Working in Chicago, by Adam Langer (Chicago Review Press, $12.95). Once upon a time we all were artists, notes Adam Langer,...

The Decline and Fall of the House of Windsor, by Donald Spoto (Pocket Books, $6.99). In the sitting room of Diana, the much-noted recent visitor to Chicago, is an embroidered...

Palimpsest: A Memoir, by Gore Vidal (Penguin, $13.95). If names make news, this is major reportage. Vidal tattles on the Kennedys, the Duke and Duchess of Windsor, Amelia Earhart, Jack...

Between Friends: The Correspondence of Hannah Arendt and Mary McCarthy 1949-1975, edited by Carol Brightman (Harcourt Brace, $16). Reading other people's mail, like eavesdropping, is always entertaining. This odd couple,...

Scottie, the Daughter of. . . : The Life of Frances Scott Fitzgerald Lanahan Smith, by Eleanor Lanahan (HarperPerennial, $18). Children of the famous often have a difficult time, with...

Boredom: The Literary History of a State of Mind, by Patricia Meyer Spacks (University of Chicago Press, $16.95). Boredom, notes this sprightly tome, originated in 18th Century England. A growing...

The praise--and rage--that met Princess Diana on her first trip through Chicago raises intriguing questions about the job of being in the public eye. For the princess, as for few...

In a royal salute, Chicago's economically unimpaired donned new gowns, got coiffed, flashed diamonds and even hoofed on a dance floor Wednesday night, though comedian Joan Rivers, in a tight...

Youth is indeed a wonderful thing and may be wasted on the young, as British author George Bernard Shaw said sometime before he died at age 94. But glory, in...