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Reviews of Roger Ebert's memoir, Life Itself, are pouring in -- Maureen Dowd's was just posted -- and the critics love it. "The book charms and entertains, but it also teaches," Spencer Kornhaber writes in the Atlantic. Robert Feder, who worked with Ebert at the Sun-Times for decades, says his ex-colleague wrote a "warm, funny, insightful and thoroughly engaging" book. Ebert tweeted earlier today that "my book gets a dream review from Janet Maslin in the New York Times." || NPR film critic John Powers said of Ebert:

Roger has never been one of those critics you read for his analysis. He's a critic you read for his openness and enthusiasm. Because of that enthusiasm, you might almost say that he's the original fanboy — breezy, personal and ready to share.

NewYorker.com
Roger Ebert wrote in 2009 that he'd entered the New Yorker’s cartoon caption contest almost weekly since it began and was never a finalist. "Roger was being a bit hyperbolic," writes New Yorker cartoon editor Robert Mankoff. "Out of a possible 280 contests leading up to his win in No. 281, the Bureau of Cartoon Caption Contest Statistics reports that he entered only 107. ...And I see he has entered contest No. 282, so stay tuned." || Ebert says of winning: "I am gobsmacked."
> Earlier: Chicago man wins New Yorker contest for third time; friend fears he won't shut up about it

Roger Ebert will be honored on May 6, along with former Chicago Tribune Richard Longworth, and Elizabeth Brackett, a correspondent and substitute host at public TV station WTTW. "Chicago has so many great journalists that it is really difficult to single out just a few each year," says Chicago Headline Club president Susan S. Stevens. The release is after the jump. (more...)