Sidewalks

Available in hard and soft cover

Available in hardcover

Excerpts from Sidewalks books  |  Praise for Sidewalks books

“Of course, the sidewalk is the heart side of all great cities. It is here where the anonymous millions—those who make the city work—run, amble, play, jump, hop, and breathe. Of course, it calls upon our most gifted and insightful of journalists, Rick Kogan, with his magic words, and Charles Osgood, with his gimlet eye, to do the trick. And how they do it! Sidewalks is a wonderful book that tells you the basic truths of our city, Chicago. Six thumbs up, including mine.” 

Studs Terkel

“What a perfect combination, Rick Kogan and Charles Osgood! Who tells better stories than Rick? And who sees for us better than Charles? Again, what a perfect combination!” 

Victor Skrebneski

“When Rick Kogan and Charles Osgood take a detour to one of Chicago’s sidewalks, they’re telling us about the city’s true main streets, where people work and live and love and dream and express themselves in a uniquely Chicago way. Kogan and Osgood are journalists, but they are also poets. Their stories are the stories of a great city captured at a certain moment in time. This is an instant treasure.”

Richard Roeper

“From the churches to the jails, Rick Kogan and Charles Osgood bear witness to Chicago. They shine a light on the Chicago we only think we know. They know the names, the faces, and, most important, the stories. These are the ‘nickel histories’ of Chicago, relayed by two of our sharpest observers.” 

Tony Fitzpatrick

“Sidewalks is indeed a rare and moving portrait of the real city—and a portrait made up of such a sparkly mosaic of experiences that the faces and voices linger long after the book has been closed. I imagine it may be responsible for a spate of explorations in the city. Kogan and Osgood manage to remind the reader of the important things about being alive, but without being ham-handed. They also remind the reader that adventure and many forms of happiness are there for the taking, with or without money—this is not a message one finds everywhere these days. A beautiful piece of work! A gift.” 

Blue Balliet, author of Chasing Vermeer, The Wright 3, and The Calder Game

"For the past eight years, the most reliable Sunday-morning read has been Rick Kogan’s Chicago Tribune Magazine column-in-miniature Sidewalks, a team effort with photographer Charles Osgood.… The collection is a sort of breezy guide to our city, a compendium of stories that never try to do too much, while never shying away from a story too small. Moving a series of newspaper columns into a book can be a dicey deal; by the time the book arrives on the shelves everything in it could be old news. But the beauty of Kogan’s and Osgood’s work is that, without ever seeming like they’re striving for timelessness, they’re already nostalgic for the present.”

Jonathan Messinger, Time Out Chicago

“This is a kind of love letter to Chicago, but concentrating on the more-or-less little-known aspects. And I’m glad you had Maxwell Street to lead it all off (all so sad, so sad). I never knew about that library on South Lake Park, or so many of the other things you had. It was all a delicious treat. The pictures were great. A kitchen museum? A guy who still fixes typewriters? (I may have to bring him my 1939 Royal, which I used until 1981, and still have in my closet.) And succinct, beautifully told tales, each of them. One of my treasures is an autographed copy of Chicago: City on the Make. These pieces remind me of that book.”

Pulitzer prize winning author Ira Berkow

“One needn’t even necessarily have the intense love affair with the city that Kogan and Osgood do to enjoy the book. The only requirement, really, is that readers are interested in … well, life: people, food, street corners, history, art, animals, buildings, music. A true slice-of-life column, Sidewalks covers it all.”

Matt Lee, The Radar Culture, CS Magazine

   Go to excerpts from Sidewalks books