The great Mr. Fix-It, Lou Manfredini, joins John Williams to tell us about all the supplies you’ll want to have on hand and ready to go for Christmas week . Lou also answers all of your home improvement questions.

NewsNation Now anchor Connell McShane joins John Williams to break down reactions to President Trump’s latest speech and explain the administration’s move to reclassify marijuana from Schedule I to Schedule III.

Brandon Ewing, Director, Community Retail Branches, BCU, joined John Williams on the Noon Business Lunch (in support of our Your Hometown spotlight of Long Grove) to talk about their credit union, the difference between a credit union and a bank, the various products they offer, the benefits of a credit union, who is eligible to become a member of BCU, and how they are a full service financial institution.

Long Grove’s nearest branch is in Lake Zurich, but you can find the closest one to you here.

Are you looking for some suggestion of books to read over the holidays or during the new year? Or maybe some gift ideas? Here’s a new list of recommendations from John Williams, Steve Alexander, Bob Kessler and Sara Tieman.

John Williams (weekdays 10am-2pm, including The Wintrust Business Lunch, plus the Mincing Rascals podcast)

Fancy Bear Goes Phishing – The Dark History of the Information Age in Five Extraordinary Hacks, by Scott Shapiro. 

What a well written, smart, (still) relevant book. This is a history of cybersecurity and computer hacking by Scott J. Shapiro, a professor of philosophy and law at Yale Law School. While the book came out in 2023 – and so much has happened since then – it recalls famous worldwide outages and hacks and how they happened.  Its dive into the release of a Paris Hilton sex tape from her phone is especially interesting.  And the language and mechanics of computers – and their vulnerabilities – are laid bear in layman’s terms.

I want to give a plug to:  40 Years, 40 Films by Nick Digilio.  Our former host and one of Chicago’s most ardent film lovers and critics has complied a fun summary of some of his favorite movies.

How To Be a Citizen by CL Skach

This thoughtful little book – which came out last year – made me pause and think about our laws and how we decide to govern ourselves.  She challenges some ofd our (mine, anyway) core thoughts about society. Says the author, more important than strict laws and their enforcement is “spontaneous, self-enforcing cooperation,”  It’s a leap of faith in humanity but at good Idea, if nothing else…

I’m still carrying around Four Wings and a Prayer, by Sue Halpern.

I started rereading this in November when I heard about the annual migration of Monarch butterflies.  This is a fun, fascinating explanation of the marvelous, fragile – but durable – creatures that fly thousands of miles each year.  And it’s a fascinating exploration of the people who chart and try to help them.Broadcast Live, 71 True Stories Including Some I’d Just as Soon Forget by Steve Vogel. I spent several years listening to Vogel  on WJBC, Bloomington when I was doing radio at WMBD, Peoria.  Steve was a big talent in a medium market and his station’s audience share was higher than any station in any market in America.  His Reasonable Doubt broke down the true crime drama of the Hendricks family murders.  That book was a NY Times best seller, and he’s applied the same writing skills to a reflection on his life – in the military in broadcasting and corporate America.  Central Illinois fans will very much like this book; the rest of us will discover a thoughtful man whose stories are relatable and surprising.

Steve Alexander (agribusiness reporter)

The Uncool by Cameron Crowe – 2025 – 322 pages

I loved this book, but I also loved Crowe’s Almost Famous, the 2000 film which covers a lot of the same territory. The film was fiction, but much of it was right out of Crowe’s life. By 13, he was already a music critic, and by the time he graduated high school at 15 (his mom had him skip a couple of grades along the way), Crowe was using his youth and innocence to finagle his way backstage and onto tour buses to score exclusive interviews with the biggest rock stars of the ’70s:  David Bowie, Bob Dylan, the Allman Brothers Band, Fleetwood Mac, Led Zeppelin and a who’s who list of others who spoke, and occasionally sang, into his ever-present cassette recorder. (Those tapes, if they still exist, could be a gold mine of material for Crowe to package.) He even lived with Glenn Frey and Don Henley when they wrote some of their biggest hits.

That chumminess with the people he was writing about and his agreement to not include some of the dirt led to a falling out with Rolling Stone for whom he had written dozens of stories. At the age of 21, he found himself living at home again with his parents. His mom loved it.  She thought Cameron could now, finally, after all the rock music nonsense, do what she had intended for his life: attend law school and continue the family legacy of attorneys.  

Instead, he enrolled undercover as a senior at a San Diego high school where he wrote about a typical American high school experience, which led to the book and film Fast Times at Ridgemont High.

Crowe’s story couldn’t happen today, which is what I’m thinking as I’m reading Tom Freston’s Unplugged: Adentures from MTV to Timbuktu. It’s a memoir from one of the creators of MTV who later became CEO of MTV and Viacom. I’ll finish that one and report back next month. 

Tom Lake by Ann Patchett – 2023 – 320 pages

Moms and their adult daughters are the focus of this novel. I am neither but I enjoyed it a lot.  It’s set mostly on a northern Michigan cherry farm, is structured around the past and present lives of Lara. In her past, she had been a stage actress with notable success playing Emily, one of the leads in “Our Town.” But in the blink of an eye (which is the way it seems to happens, right?) she finds herself in her 50s, a cherry farmer, mother, wife, and long retired actress. In 2020, Lara is locked down by Covid at home on the farm with her young adult daughters. As they lie in cherry orchards during picking breaks, the daughters badger her for juicy details about their mother’s relationship with heartthrob Hollywood movie star Peter Duke. They are sure there are secrets—one daughter (not good at math, apparently)—even believes he’s her father. Decades earlier, Lara spent a summer with a not-yet-famous  Duke at a Tom Lake community theater during a production of “Our Town.” 

Patchett uses these mother-daughter conversations as ways to explore love, loss, memory, relationships, and how things we were so passionate and confident about in our young adult years are barely remembered in our old adult years. There are funny moments where her daughters refuse to consider that their mom was once their ages facing many of the same issues and urges they are. 

Mark Twain by Ron Chernow – 2025 – 1200 pages 

This, like most of Chernow’s historical non-fiction biographies (Alexander Hamilton, Grant, Washington, and many more), is an exhaustive profile, so much so that I only got about 500 pages through it before the library loan expired. I read enough to share that Clemens was a complicated, brilliant, and fascinating character who often put the “ass” in irascible. It’s a great book from a great writer and I’m back in line, but I still have another six weeks of waiting (and likely forgetting much of what I’ve already read.)

Speaking of library holds, I don’t know what calculations libraries use to determine how many copies to purchase, but I have had a hold on Carl Hiaasen’s Fever Beach since July 11th, and Libby tells me I have another two weeks of waiting.

Bob Kessler (news)

Sandwich (2024) and Wreck (2025) by Catherine Newman

A pair of delightful warm hugs about the joys and sorrows of being both a parent and someone’s child.  In the first, Rocky, a menopausal mother spends a vacation week with her husband, grown children and elderly parents – not much plot, right?  Well, it turns out you can write an amazing novel about family life without dysfunction or scandal or saccharine platitudes either. Just honesty and authenticity (with generous vacation meal portions of humor).

The sequel was every bit as enjoyable for much the same reasons: the very human experience of being human. It delves a little more into contemporary issues including navigating our far-too-confusing health care system, boardroom violence and how social media informs our interactions in the real world. It ends with the possibility of a sequel, which I’ll be first in line for.

I Speak Music: Stories from my Improbable Life (2025) by Howard Levy (2025)

Howard Levy is a musical genius, something which is undeniable upon hearing him perform. As a personal friend and student of his, I have heard some of these stories before. But it still made for a truly compelling read as the book gives a fuller context to the them and how they fit into his musical life as a whole.

Fans will love it.  I also encourage anyone to read this who wants to learn about the inner workings and outer experiences of an artist whose abilities are among the most rarified. Plus, it will probably inspire you to listen to more of his recordings or see him perform, which you will also find enriching.  

Non-musicians also may feel lost in some of the musical jargon but it accounts for very little of the text and I think if you don’t know the meaning of some of the terms, the larger meaning of the stories is clear and worthwhile.

John Candy: A Life in Comedy (2025) by Paul Myers

A solid, loving portrait of the beloved comedic actor which does an excellent job of celebrating his work and exploring what can be explored about his inner life. While his closest friends have a nuanced view of his strengths and struggles, for the most part they hold him in the highest regard. Even though he enjoyed immense success in Hollywood, he never seemed to lose touch with everyday people. But all along, something was missing for him and he never quite found an inner peace even though his talents brought the world a lot of happiness. 

Entitled: The Rise and Fall of the House of York (2025) by Andrew Lownie

If the former Duke and Duchess have any redeeming qualities whatsoever, they’re not included in this very thorough catalog of their transgressions.

It was a bit like reading through a court docket of offenses, but in this case they stretch on for decades. The many victims include those who were sex trafficked, people who were swindled out of money or intellectual property, the many employees who were abused verbally and on and on. Plus, the millions of British taxpayers who support the royal family.  Furthering the tragedy is neither the former Duke nor Duchess seem to have learned from their many mistakes (although Sarah Ferguson does get a little credit for some attempts). The author lays out a strong case that the system that has enabled them needs to change for any form of justice to materialize, or to prevent similar abuses in the future by the Yorks or others.

Nobody’s Girl: A Memoir of Surviving Abuse and Fighting for Justice (2025) by Virginia Roberts Giuffre

It wasn’t easy thing to read about all the abuse Virginia Robert Giuffre suffered as a child and adolescent. But it is essential to gain some understanding of the pernicious nature of sexual abuse and sex trafficking that takes place all around us.

While she presents a somewhat hopeful arc of recovery, events that took place after she finished writing cast a much darker pall over the entire book. While Jeffery Epstein’s name and gross misdeeds will one day die down in the news cycle, the only true redemption and recovery here is ridding the world of the even larger problem of sex trafficking. This gives a glimpse into just how deeply seated the traumatic injuries are for victims that only a book of this kind can provide.

The Gales of November: The Untold Story of the Edmund Fitzgerald (2025) by John U. Bacon

While detailed and thorough with facts and dates, it more importantly captures the human side of the tragedy: the people who were lost, those they left behind and the many factors involved in what led up to the disaster.

The Cars: Let the Stories be Told (2025) by Bill Janovitz

For a band as big and undeniably great as The Cars, there is much about their history that hasn’t been made public, and this is the first published account of the pre-fame struggle, huge success during their string of hits and inevitable demise. Fans will find much of it interesting and engaging but also a bit overly detailed in some spots (do we really need to know about 2nd-tier management employee involvement?).  While there’s much I learned, it did feel a lot of the time this was more a collection of quotations about the group than a proper book. The author clearly did his research and talked to all the right people (surviving members, spouses, ex-spouses, people involved in management and promotion and so on), but it lacks the synthesis of a great book.  This needed just a bit more working with the raw materials to create something as special as the band itself.

Project Hail Mary (2021) by Andy Weir

Superb science fiction. Like his previous ‘The Martian,’ it’s very heavy on ‘science’ but he manages to bring us two wonderful main characters who I grew to love and admire who are trying to save their worlds from space microbes. Here in the real world where the appreciation of science is at a critically low ebb, this is a testament to its vital importance for this world and beyond. I can’t wait to see the movie next year, which I hope drives home the message even further.

The Gossip Columnist’s Daughter (2025) by Peter Orner

It’s a good read, but I’m not sure it’s a good book.

Creatively written as a postmodern meta-novel about an author working on writing about the possible murder of the real-life daughter of Irv Kupcinet, the Chicago newspaper columnist and TV talk show host who was a fixture in the city for more than half a century.

He certainly takes has a go at the grieving father for his lightweight writing. That’s not something you would probably find a lot of disagreement about among those who were aware of Kup during his years of somewhat self-made popularity. But, it still felt a little mean spirited, given a young woman who was likely murdered is at the center of all of this.

Still, I found myself enjoying the reading experience itself as it jumps around from one era to the next, profiling the crime, the victim, her family and friends, and the author’s contemporary struggles, even though it might just be too clever for its own good.

Theft (2025) by Abdulrazak Gurnah  A worthwhile portrait of a group of friends and relatives in Tanzania during the 1990s and how their life circumstances have a great deal in common but where they end up is quite different.

Sara Tieman (promotions & public relations manager emeritus and station book club international correspondent)

Culpability (2025) – Bruce Holsinger

When John Williams mentioned his wife Brenda had read this book on their trip to Portugal this autumn, I was intrigued. When it came up as a lucky “skip the line” loan on Libby, I snapped it up. It’s a hot title and, for my money, rightly so. The writing and story arc felt like a riptide pulling me out to sea – I was swept away in the action from the start and read it in two days. 

It’s a book for our times, living in a world with artificial intelligence, voices like Alexa and Siri, and autonomous vehicles and its implications for us and the world. And in a state-of-the-art autonomous minivan is where we find the Cassidy-Shaw family of mom Lorelei (brilliant scientist), dad Noah (lawyer), and their kids Charlie (lacrosse star soon to go to UNC), Alice, and Izzy. Charlie is behind the wheel when it collides with another car and an elderly couple are killed. To recuperate, the family retreats to the Chesapeake Bay for a week away to deal with the fallout from the accident. Charlie’s collegiate future is in jeopardy and questions swirl on who is ultimately responsible. This would be a great selection for book clubs because there is so much to unpack here. In fact, I made my husband read it because I wanted to talk to someone about the book. 

There’s also a bit of a book in the book that I wish was a real book as the reality of living with AI grows around us. I’ll quote Lorelei Shaw in her book ‘Silicon Souls: On the Culpability of Artificial Minds’: ‘Algorithms face no consequences for their misbehavior – without acknowledgement of wrongdoing, how can there be regret? Without self-consciousness of guilt, how can there be remorse? Without regret and remorse, how can there be moral growth?.’  

The Finest Hotel in Kabul: A People’s History of Afghanistan (2025) – Lyse Doucet

No doubt you will find this book by BBC international correspondent Lyse Doucet on my top 10 for 2025. It’s non-fiction that reads like fiction as Doucet takes you to the Inter-Continental Hotel high on a hill in Kabul to chronicle five decades of the political climate and history of Afghanistan, from monarchy to coup and republic, to Soviet occupation and civil wars, Taliban rule, US and allied occupation and back to Taliban control, through the eyes of the hotel and staff who worked there. We start with the hotel’s opening in 1969 as the country’s first luxury hotel, catering to international visitors who relaxed by a swimming pool and were drawn to Kabul which had hopes as being a type of Paris in the glory days of the 1970s. The connection with the global hotel brand ended in 1980 after the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, but the name continues: the InterCon. Meet housekeeper Hazrat who was trained by the luxury hotel brand and remains steadfast to that high level of service. Engineer Amunallah. Abida, the first female chef at the InterCon. Malalai, the hotel’s first female waiter. And Doucet will enter the story too, but writing herself as another character to pass through the hotel when she first came to stay starting Christmas Eve 1988 to report on the Soviet withdrawal. We may be familiar with these events from news reports, but news happening somewhere else in the world can feel very separate and removed from our own everyday lives. Here we become invested in the people directly affected by those news reports, impacted by turmoil and where even living the next minute or the next day could be an uncertainty. And, of course, the hotel stands as another witness to this history, not always immune and subject to the whims of those in power.

Raising Hare (2024) – Chloe Dalton

Steve Alexander spoke and wrote so beautifully about this book in September that I resolved to pick up a copy. It holds a prominent shelf position at bookshops here in England and it caught my eye back in August after I moved here. However, I am always hesitant when animals (domesticated or wild) are the subject matter of books or films (don’t get me started on ‘Bambi’, for heaven’s sake), because I’m fearful of the peril – or threat of peril – that could befall these creatures. I took a risk and I am so glad I did because it will undoubtedly make an appearance in my top 10 of the year. 

When Chloe Dalton comes across a leveret (baby hare) out in the February cold after it had been disrupted from its nest by a dog, she makes the decision to try and help it. But how do you care for a leveret? Here the story unfolds as Dalton shares what was truly a unique, unusual and life-changing experience of raising hare. She reads all she can about these animals. She makes mistakes. She builds trust. There are surprises, including the unexpected transformation to our own life.  

The risks the hare (and all hares) face from predators (animal and man) and dangers brought about by humans are not sugar coated and, yes, parts of it are devastating to read. Cue the peril. However, Dalton’s rare human-hare encounter is an awakening to the fragility of the natural world and a testimony for the protection and greater understanding of hares in particular. It’s a lovely, tenderly written book and now I’m scanning the English countryside for hares. 

Read the book first and then visit the author’s website (https://www.chloedalton.uk) and the video Steve shared https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PaOoK5_zg3c for photos of hare. I found it to be the cherry on top after reading the book. 

A Mudlarking Year: Finding Treasure in Every Season (2024) – Lara Maiklem

How I love to search Lake Michigan for sea glass or a beach for seashells, Lara Maiklem is a mudlark, searching the foreshore of the Thames in London to find objects of the past. She doesn’t dig or metal detect, she only takes what she finds offered up by the river and this is a wide assortment – pottery shards, shole soles, coins, pins, and, yes, sadly, modern plastic junk. Mudlarking is an old custom, one which poor women and children would search the Thames just to survive. In today’s modern age, it’s become something of a competition and grew exponentially during lockdowns and is now becoming more regulated with permits. This is Lara’s second book (her first is Mudlarking: Lost and Found on the River Thames published in 2019 and currently on my ‘need to read’ shelf) and chronicles her mudlarking expeditions each month during the year 2022. Lara documents all her finds in photographs and the book offers a QR code to follow along and see what she’s describing. If you’re curious about her finds, go to https://www.laramaiklem.com/a-mudlarking-year. On a recent day out in London, I couldn’t help but peer into the dark waters of the Thames along the Southbank Centre that evening and wonder about the objects the river might be harboring from Londoners long ago – and how this same river meanders not far from my home in Reading.

A Marriage at Sea: A True Story of Love, Obsession, and Shipwreck (2025) – Sophie Elmhurst

I had to read the book that both Steve Alexander and John Williams have raved about. This was published first in the UK in 2024 and here it is titled “Maurice and Maralyn” with the same U.S. subtitle. I prefer the American title of “A Marriage at Sea.” The book stars our couple Maurice (socially awkward and a loner) and Maralyn Bailey (charismatic and gregarious) who give up their suburban English home to build a boat and sail the world in 1972. All goes to plan until an encounter with a whale sinks their yacht in the middle of the Pacific and they spend 117 days adrift at sea. It is a gripping, almost unbelievable page-turner of a story. I read it and then turned to the internet to find photos of the real-life couple. 

The Artist and the Feast (2025) – Lucy Steeds

Set in the 1920s, a young journalist receives an invitation to interview a reclusive artist living in Provence with his niece Ettie. The artist – Edward Tartuffe, called Tata by Ettie – was written so believably that I took to the internet to make sure he wasn’t real and I hadn’t missed his paintings. That’s the genius of Steed’s writing. Tata is not very kind to Ettie, who maintains the running of the farmhouse and makes her uncle’s artistic genius possible. While Ettie may come across as meek – don’t be fooled. She’s a powerhouse with a secret. It’s part mystery with slow-burn romance between the journalist Joseph and Ettie with such vivid descriptions, you feel immersed in the art and the food. Published in the UK as The Artist, it won the Waterstones Book of the Year so I’ve been talking about it a lot in the shop!  

Ryan Burrow, WGN News Director and host of ‘The Stadium Club‘ podcast, along with WGN Sports Director Andy Masur join John Williams to talk about the news that the Bears are considering moving the team to northwest Indiana.

It’s time once again for our Best of the Midwest feature! Are you trying to come up with some vacation ideas that are only a quick getaway from the Chicago area? Well, John Williams has some great recommendations for your trip! Today, John chats with Claire Slattery, Executive Director, Lake Zurich Area Chamber of Commerce! Claire tells John about the businesses represented by the LZ Area Chamber of Commerce, what the economy is like in that area, how business is booming in Long Grove, how each area they represent is unique, what they have planned for the holidays, and the outlook for 2026.

Actor and television host, the one and only Mario Lopez, joins John Williams! Mario talks about his experience making a holiday movie in Long Grove, how the community of Long Grove embraced his family, what the weather was like when they filmed the movie in April, his new healthy shake venture called Fresh Monkee, if he knew how much ‘Saved by the Bell’ would impact his life, how he juggles so many jobs, and to share his thoughts on the death of beloved filmmaker Rob Reiner.

Author and registered dietician nutritionist Dawn Jackson Blatner joins John Williams to talk about what’s on her Christmas wish list, her favorite seasonal cookie recipe, the Superfood Hot Chocolate, and to answer all of your health and nutrition questions.

John Williams brings you another round of Speed Jokes. Keep sending yours to [email protected].

The Mincing Rascals this week are John Williams of WGN Radio, Eric Zorn, publisher of The Picayune Sentinel, Austin Berg, Executive Director of the Chicago Policy Center and the The Last Ward, and political pundit Marj Halperin! This week the Rascals begin the podcast talking about Border Patrol Chief Greg Bovino returning to the Chicago area. The Rascals unpack the latest immigration enforcement efforts. Next, the Rascals discuss President Trump’s ‘disgusting’ response to the death of Rob Reiner. Do the Rascals think some of Trump’s supporters will deflect because of the reaction to Reiner’s death? Also, the Trump administration unveiled new plaques that attack Joe Biden and Barack Obama and other political foes. President Trump will address the nation tonight to tout his achievements and his plan for 2026. Eric believes the major television networks shouldn’t run the speech tonight. Switching back to local news, the Rascals break down the latest on the budget battle between Mayor Johnson and the Chicago City Council. Last week Governor Pritzker signed the ‘Medical Aid in Dying Bill’ into law. Where were the Rascals on this bill? Vanity Fair did an extensive interview with President Trump’s Chief of Staff Susie Wiles where she was critical of members of the administration. Will anything come from this eye-opening interview? Finally, it’s time for red light, yellow light, green light. What are the Rascals recommending (or not recommending) this week?