This is the archive page for the category [Karl Wolff]; below you should see headlines and summaries of all entries found here on the subject. Click the appropriate link at each to read the entire entry.

Book Review: "The Conduct of Saints," by Christopher Davis | May 17, 2013
Today's book review: The historical legal thriller "The Conduct of Saints" by Christopher Davis, set in Italy immediately after World War Two. Says reviewer Karl Wolff, "Even though the novel focuses on the inner turmoil of a Catholic priest, one doesn't have to be Catholic to appreciate the novel. Davis has created a morally tortured individual that reminds the reader of Graham Greene and Robert Littell." | Read entire entry

Book Review: "Boston Noir 2: the Classics," edited by Dennis Lehane, Mary Cotton, and Jaime Clarke | May 10, 2013
Today's book review: Dennis Lehane and others edit "Boston Noir 2: the Classics," bringing together a collection of Boston's dark side, ranging from hard-boiled whodunits, out of print classics, and an excerpt from "Infinite Jest." Says reviewer Karl Wolff: "For those unfamiliar with Greater Boston and its literary heritage, [this book] is a great place to start." | Read entire entry

The NSFW Files: "Story of the Eye," by Georges Bataille | May 3, 2013
In this week's installment of CCLaP's "The NSFW Files," Karl Wolff investigates the 1928 Georges Bataille shocker, "Story of the Eye," a very early precursor to bizarro fiction. | Read entire entry

Book Review: "The Heroin Chronicles," edited by Jerry Stahl | April 26, 2013
This week Karl Wolff reviews "The Heroin Chronicles," edited by Jerry Stahl, a short story collection focusing on that most dangerous of controlled substances: heroin. | Read entire entry

Book Review: "The Lazarus Machine: a Tweed & Nightingale Adventure" by Paul Crilley | April 24, 2013
Today's book review: The steampunk actioner "The Lazarus Machine" by Paul Crilley, which reviewer Karl Wolff calls a fun read for those who like 'Buffy the Vampire Slayer' and 'Warehouse 13.' | Read entire entry

Book Review: "The Blue Kind," by Kathryn Born | April 19, 2013
Today's book review: "The Blue Kind," a dystopian drug novel by Chicago-area author Kathryn Born, and put out by academic imprint Switchgrass. Says reviewer Karl Wolff, "More novelists writing in science fiction should take these kinds of chances." | Read entire entry

Book Review: "Keeping Bedlam at Bay in the Prague Cafe," by M. Henderson Ellis | April 12, 2013
This week Karl Wolff reviews "Keeping Bedlam at Bay in the Prague Cafe," by M. Henderson Ellis, a comedic ride through post-communist Prague with John Shirting in his quest to set up a coffee franchise. | Read entire entry

Say hello to CCLaP's new book reviewers! | April 8, 2013
CCLaP is happy to announce two new book reviewers joining our blog staff starting today, Travis Fortney out of Chicago and Yair Ben-Zvi in California, combining with current staffers Karl Wolff and Jason Pettus so to start offering again thoughtful long-form critical essays every single day of the week. Click through for details, photos, a look at our new weekly posting schedule, and an update about our new monthly magazine that gathers up all these reviews! | Read entire entry

Book Review: "The Nazi Seance," by Arthur J. Magida | April 5, 2013
This week Karl Wolff reviews "The Nazi Seance" by Arthur J. Magida, a fascinating history of a self-made and self-delusional mind reader who courted the Nazis while hiding his Jewish heritage. | Read entire entry

The NSFW Files: "Gynecocracy," by Viscount Ladywood | March 29, 2013
This week Karl Wolff has another installment of the NSFW Files, this time looking at "Gynecocracy" by Viscount Ladywood, where a disobedient aristocratic man is disciplined by being forced to wear a corset. | Read entire entry

Book Review: "Gold Coast Madam," by Rose Laws with Dianna Harris | March 22, 2013
This week Karl Wolff look at the seamy side of Chicago history with "Gold Coast Madam" by Rose Laws with Dianna Harris, an autobiography of Rose Laws and the call girls that made her infamous. | Read entire entry

Book Review: "The Secretary," by Kim Ghattas | March 15, 2013
This week, Karl Wolff reviews "The Secretary" by Kim Ghattas, a half-Dutch, half-Lebanese BBC journalist, as she traces the tenure of Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State, dispelling some popular myths about how this massive institution works. | Read entire entry

The NSFW Files: An Introduction | February 22, 2013
Today at CCLaP, Karl Wolff introduces his new essay series for 2013, "The NSFW Files," which over the rest of this year will investigate the historical and literary worth of erotica through the ages, from ancient Rome to modern times. | Read entire entry

The NSFW Files: The Satyricon, by Petronius | February 22, 2013
Today in CCLaP's essay series on subversive erotic classics, "The NSFW Files," Karl Wolff looks at Petronius's first-century AD ribald romp through the Roman Empire, "The Satyricon." | Read entire entry

Book Review: "The King of Pain," by Seth Kaufman | January 25, 2013
Karl Wolff begins 2013 reviewing Seth Kaufman's novel "The King of Pain," about a reality TV producer lodged beneath his giant home entertainment system, his predicament complicated by reading a short story collection about prisons written by someone named Seth Kaufman. | Read entire entry

On Being Human: The Man Who Fell to Earth (1976, Nicholas Roeg) | January 11, 2013
Today at CCLaP: In his last essay for On Being Human, Karl Wolff looks at 'The Man Who Fell to Earth,' Nicholas Roeg's 1976 sci-fi art-house masterpiece. | Read entire entry

The Year in Books 2012: Karl Wolff's Picks | January 9, 2013
It's day three of CCLaP's "Year in Books 2012" report! Today, staff writer Karl Wolff takes a look at his favorite reads in 2012, broken down by specific category. | Read entire entry

On Being Human: "Nekropolis," by Maureen McHugh | December 14, 2012
In this week's edition of CCLaP's On Being Human, Karl Wolff discusses "Nekropolis" by Maureen McHugh, a novel about Hariba, who underwent a surgery to make her subservient, and Akhmim, a genetically engineered being designed from birth to be that way. | Read entire entry

On Being Human: "The Killer Inside Me," by Jim Thompson | November 16, 2012
In this week's penultimate installment of CCLaP's "On Being Human," Karl Wolff reviews Jim Thompson's 1952 underground classic "The Killer Inside Me," a book told from the perspective of a small town deputy sheriff from Texas who also happens to be a serial killer. | Read entire entry

Book Review: "The Cage," by Gordon Weiss | November 2, 2012
This week Karl Wolff reviews "The Cage," by Gordon Weiss, a former UN worker who writes about the human rights disaster of Sri Lanka in its battle with the Tamil Tigers. | Read entire entry

On Being Human: "The Trilogy," by Samuel Beckett | October 19, 2012
This week in the CCLaP series "On Being Human," Karl Wolff analyses Samuel Beckett's groundbreaking "Trilogy," where the famed avant-garde writer sought the essence of what it is to be human by stripping away the setting, plot, and characters of three small novels in a row. | Read entire entry

Book Review: "Lyndon Johnson: The Passage of Power," by Robert Caro | October 5, 2012
Today at CCLaP, Karl Wolff gives his first perfect 10 of the year, to the hotly anticipated "Lyndon Johnson: The Passage of Power" by Robert A. Caro. Says Karl, "Strange as it sounds, it is a hagiography of sorts, since saints have their flaws and weaknesses [and] Johnson had both." | Read entire entry

On Being Human: Venus in Furs, by Leopold von Sacher-Masoch | September 21, 2012
Today in CCLaP's "On Being Human," Karl Wolff's look at humanity as explained through various famous pieces of pop culture: It's Leopold von Sacher-Masoch's infamous "Venus in Furs," the 1870 book that inspired the sexual term 'masochism.' | Read entire entry

Book Review: "Arming the Luftwaffe," by Daniel Uziel | September 7, 2012
Today at CCLaP, Karl Wolff reviews "Arming the Luftwaffe" by Daniel Uziel, an account of the development of Nazi era technology and wartime logistics. Says Karl, "This book isn't for everybody, since it is written in dry academic prose; but for the specialist, it is a treasure trove of information and analysis." | Read entire entry

On Being Human: Hellboy, by Mike Mignola | August 24, 2012
In this week's installment of Karl Wolff's essay series, "On Being Human," he explores the comic book series "Hellboy," and a how a cigar-chomping hell demon, who also happens to be a practicing Catholic, works to save the world for Rasputin, Nazis, and all manner of Lovecraftian nightmarish entities. | Read entire entry

Book Review: "Dire Salvation," by Charles B. Neff | August 10, 2012
This week, Karl Wolff reviews a mystery set in a small town in Washington state involving designer drugs, a Native American social worker, and a suspicious computer hacker. | Read entire entry

On Being Human: Swastika Night by Katharine Burdekin | July 27, 2012
This week's installment of Karl Wolff's essay series, On Being Human, examines the feminist science fiction novel "Swastika Night", an alternate history predating Orwell's "1984" that explores the darker regions of human behavior in a far future Europe ruled by medieval Nazi knights. | Read entire entry

Book Review: Werewolves of Wisconsin and other American myths, monsters, and ghosts, by Andy Fish | July 13, 2012
This week, Karl Wolff reviews "Werewolves of Wisconsin and other American myths, monsters, and ghosts," a graphic novel by Andy Fish. It explores the scary regions of these United States with gory visuals and local legends. | Read entire entry

On Being Human: Battlestar Galactica and Caprica | June 29, 2012
This week, Karl Wolff continues his ongoing series "On Being Human" with "Battlestar Galactica" and "Caprica," two Syfy TV series that explored the struggles between humanity and the machines that rebelled. | Read entire entry

Book Review: "Venice Noir," edited by Maxim Jakubowski | June 15, 2012
Today's book review: The new Akashic anthology "Venice Noir," edited by Maxim Jakubowski. Says reviewer Karl Wolff, "There is something for everyone in this [book], a delicious sampling of tastes, styles, and stories." | Read entire entry

On Being Human: Wraeththu, by Storm Constantine | June 1, 2012
This week Karl Wolff explores Storm Constantine's trilogy "Wraeththu," about a hermaphroditic human species that overtakes humanity during a postapocalyptic catastrophe. | Read entire entry

Book Review: "The Duke Don't Dance," by Richard Sharp | May 18, 2012
This week, Karl Wolff reviews Richard Sharp's novel "The Duke Don't Dance," tracing several friends across decades and continents from the jungles of Southeast Asia to a DC lobbying firm and beyond. The novel combines nuanced literary observations with cutting satire. | Read entire entry

On Being Human: The Culture novels by Iain Banks | May 4, 2012
Today in Karl Wolff's CCLaP essay series "On Being Human," it's 'The Culture' novels by Iain Banks, in which humans, aliens, and machines all live in a post-scarcity utopia. Banks's novels follow eccentrics and troublemakers in a society where humans can switch gender, become aliens, and even become machines. | Read entire entry

Book Review: "Make It Stay," by Joan Frank | April 20, 2012
Today's book: "Make It Stay" by Joan Frank, which reviewer Karl Wolff calls his favorite read so far of the year. The novel explores the lives of two couples in a small Northern California town as they encounter births, deaths, joys, and frustrations. Frank's highly polished literary prose is definitely worth your time. | Read entire entry

On Being Human: Warhammer 40,000 | April 6, 2012
Today in Karl Wolff's CCLaP essay series "On Being Human," it's the UK roleplaying game Warhammer 40,000, where the Space Marines battle daemons, heretics, dissidents, and aliens. But are these genetically modified superwarriors truly human, and what does that mean when they defend humanity? | Read entire entry

Book Review: "Isaac: a modern fable," by Ivan G. Goldman | March 23, 2012
Karl Wolff reviews "Isaac: a modern fable," by Ivan G. Goldman, in which Lenny, really the Isaac from the Bible, works security for a LA movie mogul and meets Ruth, a struggling academic with an equally troubled past. In this telling, the Biblical Isaac was granted eternal life and youth. He witnesses mankind's foibles across the centuries, so long as he doesn't fall in love or land in jail, because then they would discover he's not like other men. | Read entire entry

On Being Human: "Being Human" (BBC) | March 9, 2012
Today in Karl Wolff's CCLaP essay series "On Being Human," it's the BBC Three TV series "Being Human," in which a vampire and werewolf share a flat in Bristol with a female ghost. The premise may sound silly, but Toby Whithouse's series shows how the three main characters attempt to reclaim their humanity by "passing" for humans. | Read entire entry

Book review: "Cosmic Communist Constructions Photographed," by Frederic Chaubin | February 24, 2012
Today at CCLaP, Karl Wolff reviews Taschen's acclaimed "Cosmic Communist Constructions Photographed" by Frederic Chaubin. The book explores Soviet architecture from the late '60s to the early '90s, showing an uncharacteristic exuberance and ethnic individualism not usually associated with the stereotypical Soviet architecture. | Read entire entry

On Being Human: An Introduction | February 17, 2012
Today, the launching of a new essay series at CCLaP called "On Being Human," by new staff writer Karl Wolff, which over 2012 will examine a series of classic novels and movies to look at the question of what it really means to be human. Click through for a longer introduction by Karl on what he aims for the series to do. | Read entire entry

Meet Karl Wolff, CCLaP's newest staff writer! | February 10, 2012
Hooray! After two years of looking, CCLaP finally has its third staff writer! Meet Karl Wolff from Minnesota, head writer himself at "The Driftless Area Review" and "Coffee is for Closers," who will be adding both general book reviews here this year and a new themed essay series called "On Being Human." Click through for a lot more! | Read entire entry

Book reviews: Master list | April 15, 2007
The master list of all books reviewed through the Chicago Center for Literature and Photography. | Read entire entry