Chi Town

The final work of the acclaimed Chicago Trilogy, this collection of nonfiction tales reveals Sandburg's ""city of the big shoulders,"" concrete and neon; uptown and downtown; State Street, Michigan Avenue; the river, the lake; the matter-of-factness and poetry of Chicago people - from Mike Royko describing his neighborhood to the observations of newspaper vendors, from Studs Terkel interviewing jazz great Dave Brubeck to dinner with Petros in Greek Town. Written with a keen eye, Blei's stories evoke a vanished Chicago, a city of gritty and colorful neighborhoods and their gritty and colorful characters. It is, as he writes, a ""love letter to a city that has meant so much to me.