Julia Keller

For every kid with a scraped knee, a skinned elbow, a bumped head and a torn shirt — the inevitable result of being very determined not to learn from one's mistakes — Maurice Sendak was your man. For every kid who builds forts out of old...

To understand why the hiring of Brian Bannon as Chicago's public library commissioner caused a more-than-ordinary stir, let us quote a learned cultural authority. That authority is not Socrates. It is not Shakespeare. It is not Goethe. Nor is it...

Before I read "The Translation of the Bones" (Scribner) by Francesca Kay, I had three favorite novels on spiritual topics. Now I have four. Kay's fiercely lyrical yet exceedingly tough-minded novel about a tragedy precipitated by a would-be spiritual...

She's got the look. She's also got the walk, the talk and the wardrobe. When Michelle Williams pouts and flounces and oozes her way across the screen in "My Week With Marilyn," giving herself unreservedly to the role of a tormented yet still-alluring...

If Paul Revere had wielded a laptop instead of a lantern — cut us some slack on the historical improbability here, OK? — he would have understood Wael Ghonim. Ghonim is the man who used social media to move his homeland of Egypt a few long...

Some marvelous novels vigorously refute the idea that so-called "literary fiction," the serious stuff, must be a tedious chore to read, like a bad-tasting medicine whose healing properties are somehow confirmed by the fact that you want to spit it out,...

He loved lists, so let's make one in his honor. The late John Leonard was brilliant, witty, earnest, brave, erudite, stubborn, poetic and totally smitten by literature. I never met him, but I can swear to the foregoing because I read his work for many...

During an appearance in late December on CNN's "Piers Morgan Tonight," Jane Fonda was asked which man from her past she would choose to accompany her to a desert island. Would she select a famous ex-spouse like Ted Turner or Tom Hayden? Or would this...

During an appearance in late December on CNN's "Piers Morgan Tonight," Jane Fonda was asked which man from her past she would choose to accompany her to a desert island. Would she select a famous ex-spouse like Ted Turner or Tom Hayden? Or would this...

In an anecdote that sticks to the memory like an overdone cookie on an undergreased cookie sheet — those 2011 holiday baking mishaps still rankle — an American visiting the Sorbonne is accosted by a French student. "You Americans!" the...

How'd they do it? That is often thought to be the primary motivation behind our fascination with the life stories of business behemoths: a curiosity about the means — both noble and scurrilous — by which mammoth fortunes are made. "Steve...

Chicago will loosen winter's gloomy grip by exerting some powerful literary muscle. In the next three months, award-winning Chicago-based writers such as Don De Grazia, Nami Mun and Stuart Dybek will give readings. And don't miss a local mystery author...