The Caxton Club: Chicago by the Book: 101 Publications That Shaped the City and Its Image

摘要

In his opening piece in Chicago by the Book, “Listing Chicago,” Neil Harris lays out the “rules” the Caxton Club applied in choosing the 101 entries: they must be Chicago, not Chicagoland; magazines were admissible (and many important ones are included), but not newspapers; songs were allowed but not manuscripts; there was room for poetry (again, many poets are included), plays, parodies, guidebooks, investigations, and many other types of print. The eight “judges” from the Caxton Club determined that each entry should “tell a significant Chicago story; reflect some distinctive municipal achievement…and have achieved enough recognition to leave an impact on either the city's identity or its reputation.” He goes on to lay out the arguments members made for and against specific entries and laments: “some of our initial selections did not disappear at once but suffered a lingering demise.” There are, he posits, enough publications that were not included to publish an entire new book of 101 Omitted Publications.