Best Local Library

1. Moline Public Library

2. Bettendorf Public Library

3. Davenport Public Library

Best Local Newscast

1. KWQC TV6

2. WQAD TV8

3. WHBF TV4

Most Reliable Weather Forecast

1. WQAD TV8

2. KWQC TV6

3. The Weather Channel

Best Local Media Personality

1. Danielle Howe (WLLR FM103.7)

Retail Store You'd Like to See in the Quad Cities

1. Macy's

2. IKEA

3. Circuit City

Restaurant You'd Like to See in the Quad Cities

1. Cheesecake Factory

2. Joe's Crab Shack

3. P.F. Chang's

Underrepresented Cuisine

1. Fresh seafood

2. Authentic Italian

3. Indian

Local Business You'd Like to See Re-Open

Best Restaurant - Cup A Jo

Michael Huggins knows about well-kept secrets. He said a magazine named the chicken salad at his coffee shop/restaurant at 1603 Fifth Avenue in Moline the best in the country. He just doesn't know the name of the magazine, and "I don't have the magazine to prove it," he said.

"One of the hazards of telling your tales, recounting this kind of adventure, is that the marvels of them cannot be hidden; they rise to the surface like bubbles and burst with tiny explosions of excitement."

So writes Eddy Harris in his 1988 nonfiction Mississippi Solo, a first-person account of the author's 99-day trek down the Mississippi River. Yet while that sentence boasts a lovely analogy, why would the telling of tales - at least for Harris - be considered hazardous?

"It's exposure," the author explains during our recent phone interview. "You expose yourself - in many ways physical, but primarily emotional ways. People just get a glimpse at you and somehow it's... well, dangerous, because it can be used against you sometimes."