A Living Book

I positively love a good story. Up until now, you could not have convinced me to read history just for fun. However this book is fun.

The Devil in the White City does not teach history, it brings America to life. Larson brilliantly parallels the lives of two very real men, one building a fascinating white fairytale city and another exploiting residents and visitors who come to explore the wonderland of exhibits created for the 1893 Chicago World's Fair.

I am not especially interested in architecture, but Larson's writing of Daniel Burnham and associates drew me into the lives of "Whose Who" in terms of history making architects and their work. Also, it tied together contemporaries for me like Wild Bill Cody and Susan B. Anthony. Did you know they met at the fair?

The intrigue carefully woven into the story about the one of America's first serial killers, H. H. Holmes kept me page turning. And Larson did a terrific job focusing on the humanity of each of Holmes victims instead of gore.

This would become required reading if I were teaching a course on the turn of the 20th century.