MUSIC

 » Neko Case - Listening to the Canadian chanteuse's latest album, Middle Cyclone, it's hard to say just how the recording will be received when all is said and done. The album is solid, but not necessarily strong, and it hints as much at the absence of Carl Newman as it does the presence of Neko Case.

MUSIC

 » Blitzen Trapper: LIVE - When they rolled into Chicago over the weekend for the second stop on their current month-long tour, the experimental folk sons of Portland proved that, however uneven their recorded work may be, in a live setting they are everything their proponents claim them to be.

LITERATURE

 » The Given Day - As with most of his work, Dennis Lehane's new novel is set in and around Boston. A literary gift that keeps on giving, The Given Day weaves together historical fact and finely wrought characters into a touching, heart-tugging tale of remarkable power.

LITERATURE

 » Heat - Subtitled "An Amateur's Adventures as Kitchen Slave, Line Cook, Pasta-Maker, and Apprentice to a Dante-Quoting Butcher in Tuscany," author Bill Buford's book is a tantalizing tale of kitchen ambition and the humbling experience of apprenticeship.