This Book Will Change Your Life - Red Ivy Afternoon by Mark R. Brand.

What we have found fascinating over the last week or so of reading, is that just about everything we have read has had two traits in common. One, they have invoked memories of the things we read when we were kids, and two, they have lent themselves to larger topics impacting society and the world today, especially the environment, immigration, economic stress and corruption, both corporate and governmental, assuming there is even a difference when it comes to the latter. First, there was Boss: Richard J. Daley of Chicago, which not only took us back to when we read Mike Royko's column in our hometown paper, but also offered some fascinating commentary on the current Daley administration, and then El Vocho: Love at the Twilight of Oil, which hearkened back to our love of comics, all the while riffing on our love affair with oil. All of which leads us to Red Ivy Afternoon by TBWCYL, Inc. favorite Mark R. Brand, a terrific book that not only reminds us of our early feverish readings of all things science fiction, see The Martian Chronicles and The Illustrated Man especially, not to mention Dune, The Foundation Trilogy and John Carter Warlord of Mars too, but as all great science fiction books do, offers the reader a look at not just a world much like we know, yet alternate, and speculative, a world where the government is endlessly up to clandestine activities, really, corporations control the means to everything, no, revolution feels this close, well, maybe not, but also provides just enough little twists of imagination, for example, a mysterious, albeit plausible, white powder that instantly heals wounds, and just enough thrills and violence to make for a wholly enjoyable, and yet just different enough read to know you've encountered a book where the author is trying to do something a step removed from what we usually read, yet still create a world you can embrace.

This Book Will Change Your Life - Boss: Richard J. Daley of Chicago by Mike Royko.

First off we need to thank the Pete Anderson for giving us a copy of this book. When we were kids we voraciously sucked down any and all columns by Mike Royko we could find and so for many years it was his voice and his writing that drove all that we thought we knew and associated with Chicago, which is now of course the home of TBWCYL, Inc.'s headquarters. What is amazing, or maybe not so amazing, depending on how much time you've spent here, is not just how much the book both supports and illuminates what you think you know about the thinking and activities of a historical figure you think you know something about, but how much the current state of the city and its mayor is a reflection of the first Mayor Daley's administration, policies, embrace of corruption and thirst for power.