Books for the News

Election Day reading material

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It’s election day in Illinois. Voters are heading to the polls today to fill the 5th district congressional seat vacated by Rahm Emanuel, the new White House Chief of Staff to President Barack Obama. It’s a crowded field. As the Chicago Tribune reported this morning, “With 23 different names on the various party ballots, city election officials say it is the largest number of candidates in one congressional race in Chicago in roughly the last 50 years.” The field consists of twelve Democrats, six Republicans and five Green Party candidates—and one Press author. Labor lawyer Tom Geoghegan, who was endorsed by beloved local watering-hole The Hideout in the Huffington Post, as well as by a who’s who of Illinois progressives, is also the author of The Secret Lives of Citizens: Pursuing the Promise of American Life. A witty combination of memoir and observation, The Secret Lives of Citizens addresses the widespread cynicism about our government and explores what it means to be a “national” civil servant and a “local” citizen. There is still time to read it before the polls close at 7 p.m.!