John Lewis and the Civil Rights Movement in March: Book One

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Pray for Peace

Some of you may have heard of John Lewis, a U.S. Representative for Georgia’s 5th congressional district who—with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and four others—was one of six leaders within civil rights organizations during the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960’s. But a lot of younger people may not know his name. Along with Andrew Aydin, Lewis’s Congressional aide, the duo released a graphic novel in 2013 about his fight for racial equality, now stretching over 50 years. While I may not be the first to review this, I thought it relevant to touch upon the importance of John Lewis and his role in a movement that changed the country. [Read more…]

826CHI is Hosting an Open House!

open house

This week in Chicago, there’s a fantastic and free event hosted by a great non-profit, at which a famous author will make an appearance! (Hint: it’s this guy)

This Friday, 826CHI will be hosting an open house to celebrate its 10th anniversary and the opening of its new headquarters in Wicker Park. The nonprofit, as well as its retail front The Wicker Park Secret Agent Supply Co. (formerly known as The Boring Store, one of the quirkiest, yet entertaining, shops I’ve ever stepped into in this city) will be offering tours of their new space as well as light refreshments. In addition, there will be “collaborative writing exercises for the whole family.”

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the Fifth Line: Save Percentages & Bubble Teams

With the season half over, awards predictions have kicked into high gear. One of the popular topics in recent seasons has been how much consideration goalies should get for the Hart Trophy. After all, they already have their own award (the Vezina).

Pekka Rinne is bringing up the argument again this year, as he’s one of the biggest reasons behind Nashville’s ascendance to the top of the Central Division. All goalies are important to their team’s place in the standings, but is it fair to… what’s that?

Chris Higgins, Pekka Rinne

That doesn’t look good…

Turns out that hockey writers might be spared the discussion this year, as Rinne will now be out 3-5 weeks. But Nashville is far from the only team who is now worriedly looking at their netminder. [Read more…]

Dave Eggers’s Latest Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius is Not Quite That

Image of Dave EggersNote: I originally had a 1200+ word review of this book written and all set to go…and then it was deleted by WordPress without so much as an auto-save-you-very much. After much pulling of hair and yelling of threats in a neighborhood Starbucks, I attempted a rewrite. This is the aforementioned <shorter> re-write, which hopefully contains 1/100th of the brilliance that the first post had. (I humble myself, sometimes, you must understand…)

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J&STAC: #1 Issues of the Deep Winter

-J. Michael Bestul is a writer for the Addison Recorder. Stephanie Ruehl is an artist who works in a comic book shop. They’re married and have a lot of discussions about comic books and graphic novels. Combine all that into a biweekly feature and you get “J. & Steph Talk About Comics.”

It’s been a while since we’ve done a recap of recent #1 issues, so we thought it high time to check out what’s come out over the holidays and into the new year. We noticed a recurring theme among recent new books…

-J.: Spoiler alert — I have an antipathy towards prequels. It’s not that I hate them, necessarily, but I expect to disappointed by them. Few ever exceed that expectation. Let’s see if some recent series debuts can do so.

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