Lee Eisenberg, best-selling author of “The Number” and former editor in chief of Esquire magazine, has written a new book, “The Point Is: Making Sense of Birth, Death, and Everything in Between,” which grapples with the ongoing search for meaning and fulfillment in life. Make It Better recently had the opportunity to ask Eisenberg about our […]
Believe it or not, spring is here and it’s time to get outside and into your garden. But before you grab those gardening gloves, grab one of these books for inspiration, tips and tricks, recipes and more. Growing the Midwest Garden Ed Lyon The Book Stall Manager Jon Grand recommends this book by Ed Lyon, […]
We’ve changed our lives through tidying and learned to listen and talk to our kids. For round three, The Cynic’s Self-Help Book Club decided to tackle matters of the heart. We read “The 5 Love Languages: The Secret to Love that Lasts” by Gary Chapman. The book posits that there are five ways people give love to […]
Of course, cookbooks are all about good food, and the best ones are a thrill to read as well as cook from. And then there are the memoirs and novels where food is the protagonist — and occasionally, the antagonist. These books are so evocative, you can taste the words on every page. The best […]
Harvard researcher and author Amy Cuddy lives in a world where people spontaneously pose like Wonder Woman when they encounter her. Her email inbox is stuffed with stories from strangers detailing how she helped them get the part, job, promotion, date and much more. Her celebrity is largely due to the 2012 TED Talk she gave […]
Updated Feb. 15, 2017 In April 2015, Carla Knorowski, the Chief Executive Officer at the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library Foundation, released “Gettysburg Replies,” a collection of responses to the Gettysburg Address in the same number of words (272) or less. The collection includes responses from Presidents Barack Obama, Jimmy Carter, George H. W. Bush, Bill Clinton and […]
We sat down with Mountain View’s Andy Weir to discuss his bestselling book, which recently became a motion picture: The Martian.
First we tackled our homes, reading and discussing Marie Kondo’s bestseller, “The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up.” We embarked on a purging frenzy, donating books, clothes and housewares at breakneck speed. Many of us are still at it and have seen some changes in our lives. This time the Cynic’s Self-Help Book Club turned our collective […]
Imagine that you’re driving on a two-lane highway with a 55 mph speed limit and the car in front of you is driving 35. You’re late or have a sick child on the seat next to you who needs a doctor. What would you do? Pass the other car? If you were African American in […]
With world-class restaurants on virtually every corner, it’s no surprise that Chicagoans like to dish up top-notch nosh at home too. Now there’s a new foodie bookstore to cater to their discerning palates. Located on the hip Halsted Street shopping corridor in Lincoln Park, Read It & Eat carries everything from well-known encyclopedic reference cookbooks to […]
