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 The Devil in the White City Nov 17, 2009
The story line was played out excellently. If History class could have been this interesting in school we would have all aced it.
Exciting read. Nov 15, 2009
I was pulled in from the git go. A documentary-style suspense thriller. Well done!
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 Review of Devil in a White City Nov 11, 2009
I wish I could have finished this book - but two factors led up to me finally just putting it down and giving up in defeat.
First of all, I've never liked Chicago. I dislike the city and everything about it (except maybe the pizza). I've never enjoyed visiting the city, despite having lived less than 2 hours away for about 10 years of my life. I've never enjoyed the shopping there, and was always struck by how rude people seemed to be (even more magnified when I moved to Atlanta, where the atmosphere is completely different).
Secondly, this book is like a really dry piece of meat. You chew and chew and know you are receiving the nutrients you need but it sure is hard to swallow. I'm amazed that people can say this reads like a novel, and wonder what types of novels they are reading. There is no dialog, except the excerpts from various letters and documents, there's no life breathed into the characters, and I felt as if I was slugging my way through a history book - a well written one, but boring none-the-less.
The tidbits here and there about various famous characters were interesting, the cover fascinated me and kept drawing me in the 4-5 times I actually put the book down. And I did give it a fair shake. 200 pages read, and not once was I interested enough to keep my eyes from wandering every other page or so.
So, yes - the book is great if you are interested in Chicago or architecture (to the point of being able to read 4-5 pages at a time filled with names and descript
 Great gift Nov 09, 2009
I purchased this for my husband's birthday. He is from Chicago. He's been reading it and has told me more than once that he loves the book and it reads almost like a novel. Once he's done with it, I'll be sure to read it, too!
Glorious and grizzly, Chicago's past comes alive Nov 04, 2009
When I returned to Chicago after having been gone for decades, I looked at this remarkable city, its splendid lakefront and its vibrant architecture with new eyes. Who were the people and what were the events that founded this bigness of spirit?
When a friend recommended "The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair that Changed America" by Erik Larson, and I devoured it immediately. And I recommend this book to anyone who has become enthralled with Chicago's buildings, its culture and its optimism.
From the outset this book reads like the work of an expert journalist who did his research about Chicago around the time of the 1893 World's Fair. There is nothing like a rich treasure trove of historical photographs, maps, letters, architectural blueprints and court records from murder cases to fire one's imagination. I only wish that more of these documents were available to look at in the book. (I read the paperback.)
Two characters are drawn in detail -- Daniel Burnham, the ambitious architect and city visionary, and Henry Holmes, the maniacal and singularly effective psychopathic killer who managed to spirit trusting young women to their deaths right under the Fair's nose. The grandiose plans of both these men frame the portrait of this city on the brink of the 20th century. Sometimes the back-and-forth between their stories is awkward; but on the whole it's quick and gripping read.
The grotesque Holmes murder rampage is crime fiction based on fact, and really, you couldn't make up stuff more mesmerizing than this. It was all over the front pages of the Chicago Tribune for most of July, 1895, when the hotel that Holmes had maintained near the fair was searched for its grizzly secrets. But what the newspaper accounts don't do, and what Larson attempted a la Truman Capote, was to get inside the mind of a murderer so smooth that he was able to manipulate multiple victims like puppets dancing to their doom.
You'll find that what you repeat to your friends, though, are the dozens of fascinating details of the Fair itself, from the introduction of the zipper to the enormous Ferris Wheel. A magnificent machine that carried 60 passengers in each car and threatened disaster as it rained bolts with every revolution, it was accepted late from unproven designs on paper because leaders had come up empty-handed in their efforts to out-Eiffel the Eiffel Tower. They took a splendid gamble with that wheel, which went on to become the hit of the exhibition. Can you imagine getting that one past the lawyers now?
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