The Weather Outside Is Frightful....

... so if you want to cocoon today and read without leaving the comfort of your home, we've got some suggestions:

• Download an mystery on audiobook:  A Death In Uptown takes place in the 1980s.  Publishers Weekly says, "The vividly realized setting of this impressive first mystery is Uptown, an ethnically diverse Chicago neighborhood peopled with winos, street preachers, students, derelicts in doorways, juvenile gangs, Iranians, Greeks, Koreans, Mexicans, Pakistanis and other citizens of the world. Nice-guy private eye Paul Whelan is an Uptown native who avoids violence when he can, uses fists when he must, and often defuses incendiary situations by establishing common ground with very unlikely types."

The author also wrote Body in Belmont Harbor and Killer on Argyle Street, which you can order through the Uptown Chicago History blog (see the left-hand sidebar).

• Download a free copy of Balban & Katz Magazine from 1925, featuring the Grand Opening of the Uptown Theatre, thanks to our friends at Compass Rose.
• Download a free copy of American Builder Magazine from 1921, with an article on architect Walter Ahlschlager, featuring the construction of the then-new Sheridan Plaza Hotel, at Wilson and Sheridan.  Again, courtesy of Compass Rose.