We asked readers what book changed the way they think about Chicago. Here\u2019s what you told us, lightly edited for clarity:<\/p>\n
\u201c\u2018Division Street\u2019 by Studs Terkel opened my eyes to the great variety of people living in Chicago.\u201d
\u2014 Don Hedeker<\/p>\n
\u201c\u2018City of the Century\u2019 by Donald L. Miller made clear that Chicago\u2019s 19th century growth was beyond belief: a population of 200 people [in 1832] to 1 million in 1890.\u201d
\u2014 Craig Barner<\/p>\n
\u201c\u2018The Death and Life of the Great Lakes\u2019 by Dan Egan was a summer selection for my Rogers Park book club. Living so close to Lake Michigan all my life, I\u2019ve always known it was a treasure. This book put the value and fragility of this awesome resource in perspective.\u201d
\u2014 Anne Halston<\/p>\n
\u201c\u2018Boss\u2019 by Mike Royko. While I was in high school, I read his column regularly, but reading that book while in college put a lot of the snippets together.\u201d
\u2014 Christopher Rosecrants<\/p>\n
\u201c\u2018Chicago and Its Suburbs\u2019 by Everett Chamberlin. It is from 1874 and gives a great description of the city and suburbs. It even includes areas like Schaumburg and Roselle. It shows … that the whole way the city and suburbs are today diametrically opposed to each other was almost nonexistent at that time.\u201d
\u2014 Robert Haugland<\/p>\n
\u201c\u2018Our America: Life and Death on the South Side of Chicago\u2019 by LeAlan Jones and Lloyd Newman. … [I] grew up fairly sheltered and privileged in the suburbs, and this book really helped me understand the legacy of discrimination in Chicago.\u201d
\u2014 Steph Gladstein<\/p>\n
\u201c\u2018Forever Open, Clear, and Free\u2019 by Lois Wille\u2019 focuses on the battle for the open lakefront. You\u2019ll come away knowing Montgomery Ward is a hero we should thank endlessly … and how lucky we are to have our beautiful front yard.\u201d
\u2014 Susan Swann<\/p>\n
\u201c\u2018The Devil in the White City\u2019 [by Erik Larson] changed my view of Chicago. … I had no idea of this lurid past.\u201d
\u2014 Egle Krosniunas<\/p>\n
\u201cReading Upton Sinclair\u2019s \u2018The Jungle\u2019 in high school was a real wake-up call to adulthood and reality.\u201d
\u2014 Dave Kraft<\/p>\n
\u201c\u2018The Chicago Anti-Vietnam War Movement\u2019 by Bradford Lyttle … revealed to me that Chicago\u2019s anti-war movement was just as active and fighting for social justice as many of the more well-known movements in the country.\u201d
\u2014 Claire Boyle, Oswego<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"We asked readers what book changed the way they think about Chicago. Here\u2019s what you told us, lightly…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":311131,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[1022,171,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-311130","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-books","8":"tag-books","9":"tag-entertainment","10":"tag-united-states","11":"tag-unitedstates","12":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115390419113246114","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/311130","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=311130"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/311130\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/311131"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=311130"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=311130"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=311130"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}