The Devil in the White City

If you find landscape design and serial murder to be equally enthralling, you're in luck. This book by Erik Larson describes the design, construction, and operation of the 1893 World's Columbian Exhibition in Chicago, and the gruesome acts of one of America's earliest serial killers committed just outside the fair gates. The landscape design part is actually pretty interesting- Chicago was desperate to prove to the East Coast and the world that it was more than just a giant slaughterhouse (although if you don't want to hear about slaughterhouses in graphic detail you might run into trouble); and as a result the designers overcame seemingly insurmountable natural, financial, and personal obstacles to create one of the most innovative and stunning displays of its time. The fair grounds burned down soon after the exhibition closed, but Larson points out the many legacies the event left not only for Chicago but for the world. The other sections of the book follow Dr. H.H. Holmes, who built a hotel for visitors to the fair, killed a bunch of them, and disposed of them in his basement (I'm not ruining it for you- Larson is a biiiiiig fan of foreshadowing). His story, and particularly the final murders that lead to his arrest and eventual execution, is engrossing but pretty gory. I'm sure Larson's decision to link Holmes with the fair has its designers rolling in their graves. I was lead to this book by Sin in the Second City, another amalgam of scholarship and smut taking place in Chicago at roughly the same time. As pop history goes, The Devil in the White City performed decently in both readability and academic heft- well suited for killing several hours in the Jacksonville Airport, as I did.