Synopses & Reviews
Many Chicagoans rose in protest over A. J. Lieblings tongue-in-cheek tour of their fair city in 1952. Liebling found much to admire in the Windy Citys people and culture—its colorful language, its political sophistication, its sense of its own history and specialness, but Liebling offended that citys image of itself when he discussed its entertainments, its built landscapes, and its mental isolation from the worlds affairs.
Liebling, a writer and editor for the New Yorker, lived in Chicago for nearly a year. While he found a home among its colorful inhabitants, he couldnt help comparing Chicago with some other cities he had seen and loved, notably Paris, London, and especially New York. His magazine columns brought down on him a storm of protests and denials from Chicagos defenders, and he gently and humorously answers their charges and acknowledges his errors in a foreword written especially for the book edition. Liebling describes the restaurants, saloons, and striptease joints; the newspapers, cocktail parties, and political wards; the university; and the defining event in Chicagos mythic past, the Saint Valentines Day Massacre. Illustrated by Steinberg, Chicago is a loving, if chiding, portrait of a great American metropolis.
Review
"Alex Kotlowitz's Never a City So Real has a different style and tone from A.J. Liebling's 1952 tongue-in-cheek book about Chicago, but they belong on the same elevated bookshelf of Chicago classics. The series in The New Yorker that this book is based on elicited a slew of protests from Chicagoans, which Liebling answers in this witty volume."—Elizabeth Taylor, The Chicago Tribune Elizabeth Taylor
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"Good entertainment. The book is attractively designed, the illustrations are first-rate and Mr. Liebling can write."—New York Times The Chicago Tribune
Review
"Mr. Liebling's entertaining book can be highly recommended."—New York Herald Tribune New York Times
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"He has shown his readers in his lively, sardonic style exactly the split-personality city that he feels Chicago to be."—San Francisco Chronicle New York Herald Tribune
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"Mr. Lieblings entertaining book can be highly recommended."-New York Herald Tribune
About the Author
A. J. Liebling (1904-63) was a longtime contributor and columnist for the New Yorker. He wrote The Sweet Science and nineteen other books of nonfiction, including Mollie and Other War Pieces, also available in a Bison Books edition. Saul Steinberg was a cartoonist and illustrator best known for his covers and illustrations in the New Yorker.