The power is back on. After dishing on the liveliest literati last year, we return to check up on the movers and shakers in Chicago's book world. For years, Oprah reigned supreme as the city's bookselling heavyweight, metaphorically speaking, only to take a break and then return to the classics--Faulkner anyone? While this was happening, an heiress to a pill-pushing fortune turned the world of words on its head when she made Chicago's venerable little Poetry magazine the Valhalla of verse by giving it a god's fortune. So there you have the beauty and mystery of Chicago's book world: Oprah and Poetry.

1. John Barr
You wouldn't expect a former Wall Street investment banker to be the ringleader in the new golden age of poetry, but when the ring's at the top of a 100-million-dollar pile, you might want it to be. Not long after pharmaceutical heiress Ruth Lilly made Poetry the best-endowed literary organization in the land, Barr took the reigns. As president of the Poetry Foundation, Barr has already laid out a number of ambitious ventures to advance poetry's cause, including several new poetry prizes, such as the $25,000 Mark Twain Poetry Award for humorous work and the $50,000 Neglected Masters Award. Barr has also implemented the American Life in Poetry project, which provides newspapers and online publications with a free weekly column featuring contemporary American poems, headed by poet laureate Ted Kooser, and that's just the beginning. As their mission reads, "In the long term, the Foundation aspires to alter the perception that poetry is a marginal art, and to make it directly relevant to the American public." Now that would be poetic justice.

2. Oprah Winfrey
Sure, we all know how the mighty O once propelled previously little-knowns like Wally Lamb and Jacquelyn Mitchard into the sales stratosphere with her book-club anointments. And sure, she's technically a woman of letters herself now, with a successful magazine bearing her name. But when she turned away from a certain trademarked sentimentality in choosing new authors in favor of classics like Tolstoy and Steinbeck, we said just wait and see. Well, last week she assigned a summer schedule of Faulkner--not one, but three novels in all--to a nation of soccer moms. The result? Faulkner's new box set shot to Amazon's #2 slot, just behind Harry Potter futures. Vintage Books shipped a half million copies and printed 100,000 more--"sales have been amazing," says Vintage's Russell Perreault. When the mayor of Oxford, Mississippi fretted to the New York Times about a surge of resulting condo sales in his town, well, let's just say we see, we see. And we're watching, too, the sales figures for "The Sound and the Fury (Cliffs Notes)."

3. Studs Terkel
Our treasure. 93 years and counting, he's Chicago incarnate. But no fade to glory here; he's still working. The master of the oral history, he remains as prolific as ever. He had a hit in 2003 with "Hope Dies Last: Keeping the Faith in Troubled Times," and has a new work heading our way this September, called "And They All Sang: Adventures of an Eclectic Disc Jockey," featuring interviews with Janis Joplin, Bob Dylan, Louie Armstrong and more.

4. Mary Dempsey
Chicago Public Library Commissioner Mary Dempsey is the unstoppable driving force behind keeping our civic literary resources alive. Dempsey has kept "One Book, One Chicago" running strong, this year putting the vintage Western "The Ox-Bow Incident" into the hands of a city of readers. But she's not just perpetuating past treasures: A free wireless network was unveiled in the city's libraries last winter, allowing residents access to all of the city's digital resources.

5. Scott Turow
A thinking-person's genre writer, the practicing attorney has several best-selling legal thrillers under his belt, including "Presumed Innocent" and "The Burden of Proof," plus some nonfiction, like 2003's "Ultimate Punishment: A Lawyer's Reflections on Dealing with the Death Penalty." Come fall, Turow's back to making things up, with "Ordinary Heroes," about a man piecing together his father's experiences in WWII.

6. Jeffrey Eugenides
The rumor mill whispered "Eugenides is coming" and Chicago rejoiced at its truth. The Gross Pointe, Michigan-born author relocated his family from its home in Germany sometime last year, bringing one of our times' most engaging literary minds with it. He broke the literary bubble with his gothic dream "The Virgin Suicides" in the early nineties, which led to his follow-up, the Pulitzer Prize-winning epic "Middlesex," in 2003. Eugenides told Newcity last year that he's "working on his new novel"--and since it took him nearly ten years between "Virgin" and "Middlesex," we may have to wait a bit. We think it will be worth it.

7. J.M. Coetzee
The elusive South Africa-born writer--who was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2003--gives us much to look forward to later this year: the instructor at the University of Chicago's Committee on Social Thought has "Slow Man," his highly anticipated new novel, hitting shelves in October, plus the "essential edition" of his 1999 work, "Disgrace," due at the end of the summer.

8. Chris Ware
Chicago continues to be fertile soil for the growing field of "indie comics," but no one has yet to reach the influential heights of the Jimmy Corrigan man, who recently released his early nineties work in "Quimby the Mouse" and edited McSweeney's #13. "Walt and Skeezix: Book One," for which Ware shares credit with Frank King, is an ode to King's classic comic strip "Gasoline Alley" and is due this month from Drawn and Quarterly.

9. Mark Strand
The instructor at the University of Chicago in the Committee on Social Thought won the Pulitzer Prize for poetry with 1999's "Blizzard of One," and last year took home the Wallace Stevens Award from the Academy of American Poets, for which he pocketed a cool hundred grand. Next, the former Poet Laureate edits W.W. Norton & Company's "One Hundred Greatest Poems of the Twentieth Century," out this June.

10. Elizabeth Taylor
Although this wordy woman may have one of the most frustrating Google names ever, there's nothing wrong with her part in Chicago's literary scene. She continues to run the show as literary editor, as well as Sunday magazine editor, for the Chicago Tribune. Taylor received much praise for "American Pharaoh," a biography of the first Daley machine co-written with Adam Cohen a few years back, and she still glows from the Trib's purchase of Printers Row Book Fair.

11. Steven Levitt
Who knew? The University of Chicago's highly regarded young economics professor won over the masses with the deliriously entertaining and informative "Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything," which he co-authored. Spots on "The Daily Show" and "The O'Reilly Factor" soon led to the coveted number one spot on the New York Times bestseller list for nonfiction.

12. Roger Ebert
February's "Great Movies II" gave the thumbman a forum to riff on such classics as "Annie Hall," "Mean Streets" and "Rules of the Game" and proved his opinion on vintage films just as relevant --and, possibly, influential--as his opinion on new releases. With "Roger Ebert's Movie Yearbook 2006" assuredly waiting in the wings, the critic--who, as of this year, is no longer the only to win a Pulitzer (thanks to Joe Morgenstern)--has hardly any reason to keep his thumb down.

13. Ira Glass
The "This American Life" host--one of few radio personalities recognizable by voice andface--helped turn David Sedaris into a cultural icon, as well as giving a major career boost to "Assassination Vacation" author and voice from "The Incredibles" Sarah Vowell. Beyond that, his show epitomizes a certain literary style of radio, and consistently features the work of many of the nation's top young writers.

14. Audrey Niffenegger
Who was hurt more by the Bradifer split than Niffenegger? Pitt and Aniston snapped up the film rights to "The Time Traveler's Wife" with daunting immediacy and the desire to star, but, well, shit happens. But, the Columbia College prof took a sabbatical last fall to complete her second novel, "Her Fearful Symmetry," a London-based mystery, plus an Edward Gorey-like illustrated novel, "The Three Incestuous Sisters," due in September.

15. Christian Wiman
The editor of the prestigious Poetry magazine, who won the 1998 Nicholas Roerich Prize for his first book of poetry, "The Long Home" and who also wrote the 2004 book of criticism "Ambition and Survival: Essays on Poetry," returned last month with "Hard Night" on Copper Canyon Press, his highly anticipated sophomore collection of poems that might even surpass his first.

16. Bill Zehme
This prolific Roscoe Village scribe has captured the essence of some of showbiz's greatest, such as Frank Sinatra and Andy Kaufman, however nothing will be able to stack up against his upcoming book, "Carson the Magnificent," out from Random House this November. Nailing the last interview with one of America's greatest icons, who also happens to be your idol, is not a bad way to top an impressive writing career.

17. Peter Kuntz
This year marks the Chicago Humanities Festival's 16th annual celebration, and its first without co-founder and president Eileen Mackevich, who was apparently forced out by board chair and co-founder Richard Franke earlier this year. (Now that's power.) Since 1990, CHF has brought a vast collection of prominent authors, poets, scholars, artists and performers together in this appropriately dubbed "Festival of Ideas" each fall. While currently between presidents, 2005's CHF is under the direction of acting president Kuntz, who's keeping things on track, it seems, based on the quality and success of this Friday's pre-festival sold-out reading by Umberto Eco, who will present his new novel, "The Mysterious Flame of Queen Loana."

18. Linda Dimaggio
Linda Dimaggio took over for Matthew Coyne as District Manager of Borders in 2005 and stepped into the top local job at the city's most aggressively expanding bookseller. Out of 450 U.S. locations, eight Borders are in Chicago proper alone. And they keep expanding: With their 2003 openings in Lincoln Park, Hyde Park and Uptown, they've got the city covered, making misery for chief competitor Barnes & Noble and the beloved independents alike.

19. Donna Shear
Under the direction of Donna Shear, Northwestern University Press is continuing to release a wide array of books this year. This, Shear's third year as director of the press, also happens to be the first year of its Chicago regional series, which includes Timuel Black's "Bridges of Memory" and Chicago alderman Leon Despres' "Challenging the Daley Machine." But Shear says the highlight of the year has been the release of Richard Christiansen's "A Theater of Our Own: A History and a Memoir of 1,001 Nights in Chicago," which she says places Northwestern in the forefront of theater and performance publication. Adding to that will be a Victory Gardens anthology, "Victory Garden Theatre Presents" in the fall.

20. Aleksandar Hemon
The "Nowhere Man" and "The Question of Bruno" author--who's also published works in Esquire, Granta, Ploughshares and, of course, the New Yorker--holds a teaching position in the M.A. program for creative writing at Northwestern University and makes a city proud that he--Bosnian-born and one of America's most celebrated "new" voices--calls Chicago home.

21. Garry Wills
"Prolific" and "intellectual" don't often cohabitate, but the adjunct professor and cultural historian at Northwestern--and another local who has claimed a Pulitzer--has penned more than twenty separate books, spinning histories of Reagan, Kennedy, Nixon and George Washington, as well as his recent "Negro President: Jefferson and the Slave Power" and "Why I Am A Catholic," which continued his musings on religion in America.

22. Debi Morris
Barbara's Bookstore has become a dominant force in independent bookselling in Chicago, with the recent opening of their expansive facility near UIC and the 2003 debut of their successful outpost in Marshall Field's on State Street. Their move to UIC, which preceded them landing the celebrated book-signing for Bill Clinton's memoirs last summer, was bittersweet for general manager Bryant and his staff, since it accompanied the closing of the Wells Street flagship in the face of new neighboring competition. But Barbara's, a presence in Chicago since 1963, has found its spots to thrive, with stores now open in New York's LaGuardia Airport as well as in Boston and Philadelphia.

23. Kenneth Clarke
Under the direction of executive director Clark, the Poetry Center continually strives to bring new audiences to poetry by bringing poets to the audiences. In the past year, the Poetry Center's archives have made their way into the University of Chicago's library. Thanks to the acquisition, the Poetry Center's pieces will be on display as part of a fall exhibit titled "From Poetry to Verse: The Making of Modern Poetry," which will run from September 16 though January 7.

24. Brad Jonas
Powell's offers the biggest, as well as some of the best and most organized selections of used titles at their three locations in the city. Co-owner Brad Jonas has developed a new monthly reading series in connection with the Art Institute at their location in Lakeview. Jonas also co-created CIROBE, the Chicago International Remainder and Overstock Exposition, one of the largest buying and selling expositions for bargain books, which will be held October 28-30 at the Hilton Chicago.

25. Stuart Dybek
Toiling heretofore in relative obscurity, "The Coast of Chicago" author's 1990 book was chosen last year for the "One Book, One Chicago" program and was awarded the adult fiction prize from the Society of Midland Authors for last year's "I Sailed with Magellan."

26. Alex Kotlowitz
Last summer's "Never a City So Real" collection of essays and travelogues hit home, as he is, in every sense of the word, truly a Chicago guy, even if he grew up in New York City. Last week, Kotlowitz's "An Unobstructed View," a collection of vignettes taken from true Chicago tales, opened on the stage at Pegasus Players.

27. Milt Rosenberg
Rosenberg's "Extension 720" radio show on WGN, now in its thirties, spans a wide range of topics such as sports, psychology, the English language and astrophysics. The professor of psychology at the University of Chicago, called the "nation's leading author interviewer" by Talkers Magazine, has matched wits with Henry Kissinger, Jimmy Carter and Bill Murray over the years.

28. Haki Madhubuti
The poet, publisher and founder of Third World Press serves as an essential figure in the literary and African community. Along with publishing the work of Gwendolyn Brooks, Madhubuti also supplies us with the work of Sterling Plumpp and Kelly Norman Ellis.

29. Joe Meno
The Chicago punk remains humble after the cult-classic success of last year's "Hairstyles of the Damned," which became publisher Akashic Books all-time bestseller, keeping his pen busy with a column for Punk Planet magazine and as coeditor of its skateboard publication, Bail. The Columbia creative writing professor and Nelson Algren Award-winner will undoubtedly rock readers again with his latest effort on oddballs, "Bluebirds Used to Croon in the Choir," out this November.

30. Elizabeth Crane
The still-hot author, who won the 2003 Chicago Public Library 21st Century Award for her debut, "When the Messenger Is Hot," returned this spring to positive reviews for her introduction of Charlotte Anne Byers, Crane's new heroine and savior of her sophomore collection of short stories, "All this Heavenly Glory."

31. Elizabeth Berg
Best-selling author Elizabeth Berg has been at the forefront of the literary scene since her 1993 debut novel, "Durable Goods," won the American Library Association's Best Book of the Year designation. In 2000, her novel "Open House" was included in the much sought after Oprah Book Club. Berg's latest, "The Year of Pleasures," was published by Random House in April.

32. Alex Ross
Alex Ross is a superhero. He's not a comic character, but a creator. DC Comics' Alex Ross, known by many as the "Norman Rockwell of comics," pioneered the technique of painting rather than drawing comics, and in the process, has become one of the best-known creators in the field, even producing the poster for the Academy Awards a couple years back.

33. Andrew Greeley
Whether it's his Honorary Senior Fellowship at the University of Ireland in Dublin, his time as a sociology prof at the University of Arizona, his work as a research associate at the University of Chicago or his columns for the Chicago Sun Times' Southtown, this is one busy holy man. With over thirty novels under his robe, this Catholic priest's latest work (a reprise of his 1978 classic) "The Making of the Pope 2005" from Little, Brown & Co, is due out this fall.

34. Mark Suchomel
Book giants Barnes & Noble recognized the IPG as one of their twelve best trading partners in terms of data providing in 2005, which is a fabulous feat for an independent press distributor. Publishers Weekly named president Mark Suchomel as one of the "Eleven for the Millennium," as an individual advancing publishing in the 2000s.

35. Ivan R. Dee
A model for successful and thoughtful publishing on a modest scale, Ivan R. Dee and his well-regarded small press are known for nonfiction titles that are not only relevant and interesting, but widely read. With a growing calendar of releases in the next year, Dee shows no signs of letting up, even as its founder recently celebrated his seventieth birthday.

36. Joseph Epstein
A true Chicagoan, author Joseph Epstein has stayed close to home in his career, which has included contributing to The New Yorker, New Republic, and New York Review of Books. The former professor in the English Department at Northwestern University managed to teach and publish pieces simultaneously, such as his best-selling book, "Snobbery: The American Version," which might even serve as a resource for his Evanston students.

37. Jim DeRogatis
The Sun-Times music man ruffles endless feathers with his criticism of all things rock, and whether he loves your band (see: Fall Out Boy), or is flat out disturbed (see: Ryan Adams), DeRo's always a fun read. In last year's "Kill Your Idols," DeRo elicited the help of music writers from across the country to destroy the rock world's most beloved albums, and come February 2006, he's back with "Staring at Sound: The True Story of Oklahoma's Fabulous Flaming Lips."

38. Sara Paretsky
Chicago's own Nancy Drew is about to crack the case again, sending her infamous private eye V.I. Warshawski back to the South Side scene in "Fire Sale," out later this month from Putnam Adult. This Cartier Diamond Dagger Lifetime Achievement award-winner has been taking a stab at the crime world for more than twenty years now and will undoubtedly steal a spot on the bestsellers list once again with the twelfth installment, rumored to be the best of the series.

39. Curt and Linda Matthews
The Chicago Review Press oversees four successful imprints that cover everything from music history (A Capella) to African American nonfiction (Lawrence Hill Books). Curt and Linda Matthews created this platform for independent and overlooked subjects and authors in 1973. Linda is the publisher with a staff of eight who work in conjunction with their even more successful Independent Publisher's Group distribution arm.

40. Randy Albers
The Chair of Columbia College's Fiction Writing Department has never wavered in his commitment to Chicago's literary community. This becomes increasingly evident when examining his role in the 9th annual Story Week Festival of Writers. Aside from conceiving the original vision for this cultural series, Albers consulted on its author lineup, (including heavyweights such as Dave Eggers and Sandra Cisneros) and helped orchestrate Ray Bradbury Day. Not bad for someone who's supposed to be on sabbatical.

41. Victoria Lautman
The self-proclaimed "paid blabbermouth" has something of a hit on her hands with the "Writers on Record" series held at the Lookingglass Theatre, where she prints an interview in Chicago magazine, then converses live on WFMT with the likes of Augusten Burroughs, Jonathan Safran Foer and this week's guest, Pulitzer-winner Michael Cunningham.

42. Eric Kirsammer
Kirsammer's two children--Quimby's and Chicago Comics--continue to stock the city with underground lit, as Quimby's remains the premier book stop in Wicker Park, while rivaling Barbara's for the city's best author readings, and Chicago Comics continues to be the Midwest Mecca for the drawn word.

43. Ted C. Fishman
Fishman's "China, Inc.: How the Rise of the Next Superpower Challenges America and the World," a detailed analysis of China's thirty-year rise to economic power, hit the shelves in a timely fashion, landing the author television appearances on Charlie Rose, Lou Dobbs and excerpts in the New York Times Magazine and Inc. magazine.

44. Dan Sinker
The founder and editor-in-chief of the punk-rock manual for life Punk Planet saw his Akashic Books imprint, Punk Planet Books, skyrocket with the smash success in terms of sales and critical response to its debut title, local author Joe Meno's latest, "Hairstyles of the Damned."

45. Jessa Crispin
Crispin's Bookslut web site and daily blog always gets its two cents in, and maybe more, given the continuously growing prominence of the Internet as a medium, and blogging as a trend. She also recently launched saucymag.com, a web log focused wholly on cuisine, which she says she started because "basically I just realized that whenever I had any money, which is not very often, it's books and food that I would spend it all on."

46. Jack Cella
The University of Chicago's Seminary Co-op Bookstore has the largest selection of books published by university and academic presses. And general manager Jack Cella has been with the Hyde Park institution for more than thirty years, overseeing its two operations in Hyde Park (it also runs 57th Street Books) and a North Side outpost in the Newberry Library.

47. Ann Christopherson and Linda Bubon
Andersonville's Women and Children First Bookstore has been promoting female writers since its inception in 1979. Co-owned by Christopherson, former president of the American Booksellers Association, Women and Children First is one of the largest feminist bookstores in the country with a massive inventory of more than 30,000 books by and about women, children's books and a plethora of gay and lesbian fiction and nonfiction.

48. Sam Weller
The Columbia College instructor, former correspondent for Publishers Weekly (and former Newcity staff writer), headed the Harold Washington Literary Prize Committee this year. But his colossal accomplishment was the culmination of his collaboration with his longtime idol, Ray Bradbury, in the publication of the authorized biography entitled "The Bradbury Chronicles."

49. Keith Michael Fiels
The executive director of the American Library Association, the oldest (founded in 1876) and largest library association in the world, oversees its 64,000-plus membership list as the organization strives for the "improvement of library and information services and the profession of librarianship." The ALA also provides a substantial list of publications, from its own American Libraries to CHOICE: Current Reviews for Academic Libraries to Bill Ott's Booklist. Plus, it's open to anyone interested in librarianship--granted you pay your yearly dues.

50. Barb Slotten
Slotten, the manager of events at the Tribune, oversees the Printers Row Book Fair, the city's biggest summer literary event and book sponsorship vehicle. All eyes will be on this weekend's edition, the first to be run since the departure of Emily Cook, the last carryover from the fair's independent days.

The Lit 50 was written by Tom Lynch, with additional contributions by Trish Bendix, Jamie Murnane, Jenny Seay and Trish Smith

Correction: When this story was first published, we incorrectly identified the general manager of Barbara's Bookstore as Bob Bryant. Bryant is now general manager of Transitions Bookplace.
(2005-06-09)

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