Why subscribe?
Get book and culture-related writing and weekly recommendations based on what you’re reading from an actual human being, longtime books columnist at the Chicago Tribune, John Warner, not an algorithm.
Who is this guy?
In addition to writing a weekly column on books and reading for the Chicago Tribune, John Warner is the author of nine books including a novel, The Funny Man, a collection of short stories, Tough Day for the Army, and a bunch of other stuff.
John (literally) grew up in a bookstore, The Book Bin, of Northbrook, Illinois, which was started by his mother and three partners in 1971 when John was a year old. The Book Bin continues to operate today.
In addition to writing about books here and at the Chicago Tribune, John is a leading voice on how we teach writing, as the author of Why They Can’t Write: Killing the Five-Paragraph Essay and Other Necessities, The Writer’s Practice: Building Confidence in Your Nonfiction Writing, and the forthcoming, More Than Words: How to Think About Writing in the Age of AI. He does frequent public talks on these issues and is represented by the Redbrick Agency.
Come on in, the water’s fine
Please feel free to always chime in in the comments where readers frequently say more interesting things that the newsletter’s author. Consider this a feature, not a bug.