Thursday, March 30, 2006

Hardcore

I am currently reading a book that I thought  should share with all of you. The book is called The Devil in the White City, written by Erik Larson. It is about the world fair in Chicago. The world fair was essentially America’s way of topping France’s Exposition Universelle, the world fair that debuted Alexandre Gustave Eiffel’s architectural achievement, the Eiffel Tower. The tower was erected in 1889, which most people are not aware of, but the tower is barely more than 100 years old. But the book does not center or the fair so much as it centers on two main characters. One is Daniel Burnham, the head architect of Chicago’s world fair, and Dr. H.H. Holmes, a serial killer who used the fair as his hunting ground.

The book is really quite extraordinary, as the chapters flip from one character to the other. We see the struggle of building the fair and the plotting of Holmes’ crimes side by side, as if both men were creating their masterpieces of their respective arts in a race against one another. The book is not fiction, but tells like a story. Everything in the book is taken from archived documents and newspaper articles and interviews. I would highly recommend the book to anyone who enjoys reading.

-B
You told me you can’t wait to see me and then you didn’t bother to even show up

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