Monday, February 20, 2023, 7:30pm via Zoom. Pemon Rami, international film producer and author, will discuss his book When Blackness was Golden: A Memoir of Pemon Rami.  Mr. Rami’s memoir charts his life as a native Chicagoan during the culturally transformative period from the 1950s-80s. When Blackness Was Golden looks back at Rami’s life and career – blending Black political consciousness and organizing with significant roles in theater, television, and the film industry. Register here.

Monday, January 16 2023, 7:30pm via Zoom. Author Blair Kamin, a past Pulitzer Prize winner for Criticism, and acclaimed photographer Lee Bey will discuss their new book – Who is the City For? Architecture, Equity and the Public Realm in Chicago. Together, they paint a revealing portrait of Chicago that reaches beyond its glamorous downtown and dramatic buildings by renowned architects like Jeanne Gang to its culturally diverse neighborhoods, including modest structures associated with storied figures from the city’s Black history, such as Emmett Till. Register Here.

Hyde Park Book Club – Monday, November 21, 7:30pm via Zoom.  Jeff Deutsch, director of the Seminary Coop Bookstore and author of In Praise of Good Bookstores will join us.  Register here.

Hyde Park Book Club – Monday, October 17, 7:30pm via Zoom.  Christopher Blattman, professor at the University of Chicago and author of Why We Fight: The Roots of War and the Path to Peace will join us.  Register here.

Hyde Park Book Club: September 19, 2022 at 7:30pm

 The September book selection is Time for Frankie Coolin by Bill Granger. 

We will be joined by noted Northwestern professor Bill Savage for the discussion who considers the book " Granger’s great and under-read novel." Register here.

Time for Frankie Coolin tells the story of a plasterer turned landlord in Chicago who, in the late 1970s, buys abandoned buildings and makes them just habitable enough that he can charge minimal rent to his mostly black tenants.  Frankie – both a tough guy in the trades and a family man – has done well by his wife and kids, moving them to a house in the suburbs.  But a casual favor for his wife’s cousin brings on a pair of G-men and the threat of prison if Frankie doesn’t talk.  Since talking has never been one of Frankie’s strengths, he copes as he always has by trying to tough it out on his own.  This novel is both a psychological thriller and a ’70s period piece that shines a surprisingly sympathetic light on the often-ignored stories of the people who lived, worked and died at the city’s margins.

Bill Granger (1941-2012) was a Chicago journalist who wrote for the UPI Chicago bureau, the Chicago Tribune, and the Chicago Sun-Times.  He published more than twenty novels and lived most of his life in Chicago, on the city's South Side.

Bill Savage is a professor of American Literature at Northwestern University.  He also gives seminars at the Newberry Library and writes articles and essays for the Chicago Reader. Savage’s most recent book-length project is an introduction to and annotation of George Ade’s 1931 book, The Old-Time Saloon: Not Wet, Not Dry—Just History. Savage is a lifelong resident of Rogers Park.

Hyde Park Book Club – Monday, August 15, 2022, 7:30pm via Zoom

Deborah Cohen author of, Last Call at the Hotel Imperial: The Reporters Who Took on a World at War. Deborah Cohen, author of Last Call at the Hotel Imperial: The Reporters Who Took on a World at War will join us. The idea for the book was conceived at Special Collections Research Center and features two UChicago alumni journalists. Register here

Hyde Park Book Club – Monday, July 18, 2022, 7:30pm . Betty Hechtman, HPHS member and author of Murder Ink: A Writer for Hire Mystery will join us. Register Here
***THIS EVENT IS NOW BEING HELD VIA ZOOM***

Veronica Blackstone is a writer for hire.  Be it love letters, biographies, resumes or wedding vows, Veronica has you covered.  Her latest assignment is writing a celebration of life book for the funeral of one-time client Rachel Ross who tragically died one year after her wedding.  While researching Rachel’s life, Veronica finds a mystery surrounding her death that begs to be investigated.  Murder Ink is the first in the series of Writer for Hire mysteries followed by Writing a Wrong.   Number three in the series, Making it Write, will be published in August 2022.

Betty Hechtman is the national bestselling author of the Crochet Mysteries, the Yarn Retreat Mysteries and the Writer for Hire Mysteries.  She grew up in Hyde Park and has a degree in Fine Art from Roosevelt University.  Since college she had studied everything from improv comedy to magic.  She has also written newspaper and magazine pieces, short stories, along with several screenplays.  She splits her time between Southern California and the Hyde Park condo she grew up in.  You can learn more and find excerpts from all her books at BettyHechtman.com.   

This is a virtual event will take place via Zoom. Click Here to Register for the Event

Dawn Turner, author of Three Girls from Bronzeville: A Uniquely American Memoir of Race, Fate, and Sisterhood will join us.

This is a virtual event will take place via Zoom. Click Here to Register for the Event

Davarian L. Baldwin, author of In the Shadow of the Ivory Tower: How Universities are Plundering Our Cities. Davarian L. Baldwin is a leading urbanist, historian, and cultural critic. He currently serves as the Paul E. Raether Distinguished Professor of American Studies and founding director of the Smart Cities Lab at Trinity College (CT). Baldwin is the author of several books, most recently In the Shadow of the Ivory Tower: How Universities are Plundering Our Cities (Bold Type Books). Baldwin also serves on the executive committee of Scholars for Social Justice. His opinions and commentaries have been featured in numerous outlets from NBC News, PBS, and The History Channel to USAToday, The Washington Post and TIME.

USC is the largest private employer in the Los Angeles County. NYU and Columbia are two of the biggest landholders in Manhattan. And the University of Chicago fields the largest private security force in the world, outside the Vatican. Universities have become big business but there is a cost for those who live in the shadows. In the Shadow of the Ivory Tower takes readers across the country, revealing the increasingly parasitic relationship between universities and our cities. Through eye-opening conversations with city leaders, campus workers, community activists, and neighborhood residents, Davarian Baldwin makes clear who benefits from unchecked university power--and who is made vulnerable.