Lit 50: 2020
Lit 50 is an annual list published by Newcity in celebration of 50 people who have contributed significantly to Chicago's literary life. The list alternates yearly between celebrating authors and those behind the scenes: publishers, booksellers, educators, organizers, and more who help make Chicago's literary communities possible. In addition to the Lit 50, the list also includes a Hall of Fame showcasing those whose contributions have been so great that they've made the list many times.
At the Seminary Co-op, we celebrate 2020's Lit 50 and the incredible literary work produced by Chicago authors. We hope you enjoy browsing the selection on the following pages.
Related Titles
The stolid landscape of Chicago suddenly turns dreamlike and otherworldly in Stuart Dybek's classic story collection. A child's collection of bottle caps becomes the tombstones of a graveyard. A lowly rightfielder's inexplicable death turns him into a martyr to baseball. Strains of Chopin...
Winner of The Times Sports Biography of the Year "As Muhammad Ali's life was an epic of a life so Ali: A Life is an epic of a biography . . . pages in succession its narrative reads like a novel--a suspenseful novel...
Electric Arches is an imaginative exploration of Black girlhood and womanhood through poetry, visual art, and narrative prose.
Blending stark realism with the surreal and fantastic, Eve L. Ewing's narrative takes us from the streets of 1990s Chicago to an unspecified future,...
Fresh from a brief stay at a psych hospital, reporter...
BuzzFeed Books' Best Book of 2014
Perry and Baby Girl and two teenage girls with very little to lose. They're best friends with sharp edges, and they cut to bleed--no one's off-limits, not even each other. To survive the loneliness and boredom of a world that pays them no mind, they...
2015 PEN Open Book Award Finalist
Angela Jackson's latest collection of poetry borrows its title from a lyric in Barbara Lewis's 1963 hit single "Hello Stranger," recorded at Chess Records in Chicago. Like the song, Jackson's poems are a melodic ode to the African...
Equal parts haunting and horrifying, this literary horror novel gives readers insight into the mind of a controlling homicidal man and the son who must stop him.
"Marvin Burke is one of the great monsters of literature, a figure of immense, credible terror and savagery."--Cory Doctorow,...
A New York Times Book Review Editor's Choice, this harrowing true story of two young men from Ghana and their quest for asylum highlights not only the unjust political system of their homeland, but the chaos of the United States' failing immigration system.
Long before their...
"A proper hero for these times . . . To us, V.I. is perfect." -- THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW
Sara Paretsky's gloriously kick-ass private eye, V.I. "Vic" Warshawski, is back . . . in a political-rot thriller that's the definition of...
"This might well be my favorite Rader-Day so far: a brilliant premise intriguingly developed, totally believable characters and a climax that took my breath away." -- Ann Cleeves, New York Times bestselling author of The Shetland and Vera Series
From the...
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The explosive conclusion to the bestselling Brilliance Trilogy
For thirty years humanity struggled to cope with the brilliants, the one percent of people born with remarkable gifts. For thirty years we tried to avoid a devastating civil war.
We failed.
The White House...
From an important new American writer comes this powerful collection of personal essays on fear, creativity, art, faith, academia, the Internet, and justice.
In this poignant and inciting collection of literary essays, Megan Stielstra tells stories to ward off fears both personal and...