Scan barcode
cloelia79's review against another edition
dark
emotional
informative
reflective
sad
slow-paced
3.0
Not his best work, sadly. Slow moving, too many these - the book felt disjointed.
jake_leicht's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
informative
mysterious
reflective
tense
medium-paced
5.0
jencunn2024's review against another edition
4.0
Devil in the White City is an historical narrative that describes Daniel Burnham’s efforts in the late 1800s to create The White City of the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair which strongly contributed to the next Ave of architectural wave and industry. His ambition lead to the entrepreneurial spirit and style of the early 20th century. The book gets into the nitty gritty details behind the scenes between architects, politicians, bankers, loans, fraudulence, and even the murder of Mayor Harrison and the alleged first American serial killer Dr. h. h. Holmes whom may have been inspired by London’s Jack the Ripper. This book got a little Lind but was interesting throughout. I would give this book 3.75 out of 5 stars so I’ve rounded up. I did like the audio book narrator. I thought he sounded how I imagine a person in the middle of this story would sound and speak at the time, and he made it feel like a classic radio program that told this story.
kim_j_dare's review against another edition
4.0
The amount of research that went into this is mind-boggling. And much of the story is fascinating-- the way that Larson weaves the planning and creation of the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition with the machinations of Dr. Henry Howard Holmes, a serial killer in Chicago at the time, is masterful. However, I found myself skimming over much of the technical minutiae regarding the World's Fair... would not have minded a LITTLE less detail.
winterreader40's review against another edition
4.5
This story weaves together the building of the 1893 World's fair in Chicago and how HH Holmes used the chaos of the fair(during the building process as well as during the actual fair's run) to lure and kill an unknown number of people, mostly young women but some children and possibly a few men as well.
This was an intriguing read, more for the Holmes aspects since he was a scam artist on top of being a serial killer, but I also found the amount of problems that occurred while building the fair interesting.
This was an intriguing read, more for the Holmes aspects since he was a scam artist on top of being a serial killer, but I also found the amount of problems that occurred while building the fair interesting.