The Must-Read Book -- "Devil in the White City"

Hey ya'll, I haven't blogged in such a long time! This is something I'm vowing to change. With school and work being so hectic as I near the end of my Masters program, it has been hard for me to find time to do something leisurely that I love -- reading! My reading list has been piling and piling. And in order for me to truly remember the contents of a book, I have to read it twice....so the reading list is twice as long! Haha. But I have usually switched on and off reading the "cheap entertainment" books to books with more depth. So after I attempted the first "Twilight" book (which I thoroughly did not like), I needed something to really intrigue me. I had my mother pick my next book from my enormous pile which would be The Devil in the White City by Eric Larson.

This non-fiction book, set up in novel style, revolves around two true stories with little historial sub-stories mixed in surrounding the creating, planning, executing, and aftermath of the World's Fair Exposition of Chicago in 1893 (White City) and the story of an owner of a World's Fair Hotel who became known as the first American Serial Killer H.H. Holmes (the Devil). I will admit that it gets off to a slow start but as the characters and fair start to evolve, you as a reader get pulled in to the history, stories, and people surrounding a year that changed Chicago forever. You invest in these characters, root for them. And it's all true...the places, the people, the events. They lived and breathed and transformed Chicago to start its journey on becoming the great city that it is. In fact, you can still see reminants of the fair...just tour the Museum of Science and Industry or the Art Institute...both built for the fair and continuing to be visited and admired today. It made me want to be there and immerse myself in that excitement (I think had Chicago won the Olympic bid, we would have experienced a similar excitement). But I'm satisfied knowing there are authors like Larson who bring us as close to the fair as possible through through the written word. Pick it up and give it a read!

P.S. If you have read it and are as interested as I am, there are "Devil in the White City" tours available in Chicago. There are a few out there so research (some focus on the architecture and others focus on the H.H. Holmes murders).