Last chance to vote on a year's worth of books

Voting has been open since the end of August, and you have only one more day to vote. Anyone reading this blog is welcome to vote, so click on your favorites of these twelve ... and also your least favorites in the next poll down the sidebar.

From The Other Side of the Bridge to The Freedom Writers Diary, we've traveled the globe together. Help me remember (in the comments) where we've been.

The Other Side of the Bridge (OSB)
The Boy in the Striped Pajamas (BSP)
Cold Comfort Farm (CCF)
Pictures of Hollis Woods (PHW)
In Lucia's Eyes (ILE)
People of the Book (POB)
The Camel Bookmobile (CB)
Windfalls (WF)
The Devil in the White City (DWC)
Jim the Boy (JTB)
Suite Française (SF)
The Freedom Writers Diary (FWD)

We have completed a year together, but I think that's enough ... at least for me. I'm sorry, Shirley, but the interest just isn't here. Thanks, Marylyn, for your major effort to make Book Buddies work during August. Thanks to those of you who have read and commented on books we've shared. For now, however, I have decided to devote more time to writing ... and to leading the writers in the Chattanooga region who (foolishly?) try to write the draft of a novel in the 30 days of November. Read about it on Bonnie's NaNoWriMo* 2008 blog.

Essencia Island will continue to be a place for book buddies to talk to each other, so drop by there anytime you want to chat.

Voting for MOST and LEAST enjoyable books

During September 2007, we began to gather ourselves as Book Buddies on this blog. In October 2007, we started reading and discussing books. If you are a current or former Book Buddy, you are invited to vote on the ones you liked MOST and LEAST. If you are a regular ... or even occasional ... reader of our blog, you are also welcome to vote on ones you've read, pro or con.

Please leave a comment on this post about the books, too. Tell us what you did or didn't like about a particular book. Let's see what's been good and bad about this year of plowing through books together.

Oct 2007 ~ The Other Side of the Bridge (OSB) ~ by Mary Lawson
Nov 2007 ~ The Boy in the Striped Pajamas (BSP) ~ by John Boyne
Dec 2007 ~ Cold Comfort Farm (CCF) ~ by Stella Gibbons
Jan 2008 ~ Pictures of Hollis Woods (PHW) ~ by Patricia Reilly Giff
Feb 2008 ~ In Lucia's Eyes (ILE) ~ by Arthur Japin
Mar 2008 ~ People of the Book (POB) ~ by Geraldine Brooks
Apr 2008 ~ The Camel Bookmobile (CB) ~ by Masha Hamilton
May 2008 ~ Windfalls (WF) ~ by Jean Hegland
Jun 2008 ~ The Devil in the White City (DWC) ~ by Erik Larson
Jul 2008 ~ Jim the Boy (JTB) ~ by Tony Earley
Aug 2008 ~ Suite Française (SF) ~ by Irène Némirovsky
Sep 2008 ~ The Freedom Writers Diary (FWD) ~ by The Freedom Writers with Erin Gruwell, 1999

DWC-DQ ~ Part IV ~ Cruelty Revealed

10. At the end of the book, Larson suggests that "Exactly what motivated Holmes may never be known" [p. 395]. What possible motives are exposed in The Devil in the White City? Why is it important to try to understand the motives of a person like Holmes?

11. After the Fair ended, Ray Stannard Baker noted: "What a human downfall after the magnificence and prodigality of the World's Fair which has so recently closed its doors! Heights of splendor, pride, exaltation in one month: depths of wretchedness, suffering, hunger, cold, in the next" [p. 334]. What is the relationship between the opulence and grandeur of the Fair and the poverty and degradation that surrounded it? In what ways does the Fair bring into focus the extreme contrasts of the Gilded Age?

12. What narrative techniques does Larson use to create suspense in the book? How does he end sections and chapters of the book in a manner that makes' the reader anxious to find out what happens next?

13. What does The Devil in the White City add to our knowledge about Frederick Law Olmsted and Daniel Burnham? What are the most admirable traits of these two men? What are their most important aesthetic principles?

14. How was Holmes able to exert such power over his victims? What weaknesses did he prey upon? Why wasn't he caught earlier? In what ways does his story "illustrate the end of the century" [p. 370] as the Chicago Times-Herald wrote?

15. The White City is repeatedly referred to as a dream. The young poet Edgar Lee Masters called the Court of Honor "an inexhaustible dream of beauty" [p. 252]; Dora Root wrote, "I think I should never willingly cease drifting in that dreamland" [p. 253]; Theodore Dreiser said he had been swept "into a dream from which I did not recover for months" [p. 306]; and columnist Teresa Dean found it "cruel . . . to let us dream and drift through heaven for six months, and then to take it out of our lives" [p. 335]. What accounts for the dreamlike quality of the White City? What are the positive and negative aspects of this dream?

16. What is the total picture of late nineteenth-century America that emerges from The Devil in the White City? How is that time both like and unlike contemporary America? What are the most significant differences?

17. In what ways does the Chicago World's Fair of 1893 change America? What lasting inventions and ideas did it introduce into American culture? What important figures were critically influenced by the Fair?

The Devil in the White City -- In the White City Discussion Questions

6. At the end of The Devil in the White City, in Notes and Sources, Larson writes: "The thing that entranced me about Chicago in the Gilded Age was the city's willingness to take on the impossible in the name of civic honor, a concept so removed from the modern psyche that two wise readers of early drafts of this book wondered why Chicago was so avid to win the world's fair in the first place" [p. 393]. What motives, in addition to "civic honor," drove Chicago to build the Fair? In what ways might the desire to "out-Eiffel Eiffel" and to show New York that Chicago was more than a meat-packing backwater be seen as problematic?

I think Chicago also had financial motives to build the fair and pride in their city to show it off as one of the biggest and best in America. "Out Eiffeling Eiffel" was problematic because American's engineers didn't step up to the task of building an engineering marvel rapidly. Showing New York that Chicago wasn't just a backwater city with a lot of growth was problematic because Chicago was just that. Chicago did not seem to be a city of culture and refinement. At least, not as it was portrayed in the book.

7. Larson writes, "The juxtaposition of pride and unfathomed evil struck me as offering powerful insights into the nature of men and their ambitions" [p. 393]. What such insights does the book offer? What more recent stories of pride, ambition, and evil parallel those described in The Devil in the White City?

The pride and evil of Holmes? Or the pride of Burnham (and the leading men of Chicago) and the evil of Holmes? I considered the question to be asking the latter when I read it the first time. If Burnham had had less pride in the fair designed just as he wanted and viewed just as he wanted, the fair might have been more of a success both financial and for its visitors. As for Holmes, I have to wonder how so many people fell for his guises. It's hard to believe he was got away with all that he did and no one noticed at the time.

8. In his speech before his wheel took on its first passengers, George Ferris "happily assured the audience that the man condemned for having 'wheels in his head' had gotten them out of his head and into the heart of the Midway Plaisance" [p. 279]. In what way is the entire Fair an example of the power of human ingenuity, of the ability to realize the dreams of imagination?

Speed and the act of taking the dreams and ideas and actually transforming them into reality. The fair was actualized in a very short time period for the amount of construction, landscaping, and exhibitions put together, especially so considering the time period and the lack on modern technology. The architects, financiers, Olmstead, and Ferris dreamed big, made the plans for those dreams, then made them happen.

9. In describing the collapse of the roof of Manufacturers and Liberal Arts Building, Larson writes: "In a great blur of snow and silvery glass the building's roof — that marvel of late nineteenth-century hubris, enclosing the greatest volume of unobstructed space in history — collapsed to the floor below" [p. 196–97]. Was the entire Fair, in its extravagant size and cost, an exhibition of arrogance? Do such creative acts automatically engender a darker, destructive parallel? Can Holmes be seen as the natural darker side of the Fair's glory?

Of course, the fair was an exhibition of arrogance. To New York, to Paris. It takes a certain amount of arrogance in a man to create and build such buildings and a wheel. And in a city, to think that all that was done could be done bigger and better than anywhere else in the space of two years.

I do not think creative acts automatically engender darker, destructive ones. It just seems wrong somehow to think that way, to me. I do think Holmes can be seem as the darker side of the fair's glory. Such men are drawn to places where they (and their actions) can go unnoticed due to the size of the population and visiting crowds, the commotions and events, and the shortage of law enforcement, especially trained ones. But I do not think Homes can be seen as the natural darker side of the fair's glory. To me, to say this would imply that having a great and glorious fair would also have to include having a dark disaster. Yes, it was more likely, given the conditions in Chicago at the time of the fair and the magnitude of the fair, that some dark disaster would occur but one didn't necessarily have to occur just because the fair did.

This section of the book seemed jumpy and patchy to me. It was harder to read in consistent threads. For example, there was a short section on three couples in love and marriage which didn't seem to have anything to do with the narratives being told and the people weren't brought up again (yet). I am guessing the author wanted to include stories of love in the time of the fair, perhaps to balance out Holmes's lack of love in his courtships. But the section seemed out of place and unnecessary to me.

The Devil in the White City -- An Awful Fight Discussion Questions

I'm not enjoying reading the Holmes sections either. I'm just glad they aren't really graphic so far and I hope they don't become so.

3. Did you notice the "water wars"? Because Georgia is currently engaged in what some are calling a "water war" with Tennessee (and because I live in Chattanooga, on the border between the two states), I noticed Burnham's concern about providing clean water to the fair. Georgia's problem is rapid expansion without planning ahead for the water needs of its people; Burnham's problem was sewage threatening Chicago's water supply. Read the section spanning pages 175-176 about the fight to pipe water from Waukesha, Wisconsin, to the fair in Jackson Park. What was the subtle distinction that allowed Burnham to say the water came from Waukesha?

The subtle distinction that allows Burnham to say the water comes from Waukesha is that he piped the water in from a small town on the edge of Waukesha county, not actually the town of Waukesha.

4. A tiny (four sentence) section at the top of page 181 mentions a pledge recited by school children on Dedication Day. I'd never heard that this was how the Pledge of Allegiance began, had you? Who was Francis J. Bellamy, anyway? (You may have to google or go to Wikipedia to learn more about him. In my research, I discovered that I was two years old when the U.S. Congress recognized the Pledge as the official national pledge.)

I did not know that this was the origin of the Pledge of Allegiance. Francis J. Bellamy was an American Baptist minister and Christian Socialist. Bellamy worked for Youth's Companion in the magazine's premium department. The magazine also sold flags to schools to solicit subscriptions. This turned into a movement to put a flag in every school. As the market became saturated and flag sales slowed, the magazine published a flag salute and Bellamy's pledge. My father's family is from Rome, NY where Bellamy is buried.

5. The original Ferris Wheel was bigger than I realized, at "a bit higher than the crown of the ... Statue of Liberty" (p. 185). I'm sure we'll read more about it in later sections of the book, but say something about the size of the thirty-six "cars" on the Ferris Wheel. (Click to enlarge this photo.)

The two parts that astounded me about the Farris Wheel was that the cars could hold 60 people, had refreshment stands, and there were 36 of them and that the spokes inside the wheel were only 2 1/2 inches in diameter. Amazing!

The Devil in the White City -- Frozen Music Discussion Questions

1. In what ways is this nonfiction book like a novel? Is it more satisfying to read fiction or nonfiction?

I am finding that The Devil in the White City reads mostly like a novel to me, except for some of the factually dense portions and tangents. I usually have a very hard time reading non-fiction books and can only digest them in small parts so they take me a very long time to finish. I'm not having this problem with The Devil in the White City, although it is a little slower going for me than fiction. For me, fiction is definitely a more satisfying read since I don't struggle so with reading it. I do enjoy the learning part of reading non-fictions though and I wish I read more of them. This is one aspect of the online book clubs that I'm enjoying (reading non-fiction with a group on a schedule).

2. What have you found out so far about Chicago, the Fair, and the two men: Burnham and Holmes?

Nearly everything in the book so far is new information to me. I know very little about the city of Chicago and nothing about Chicago of that time period. I know nothing about the Fair or Burnham and Holmes. But I'm enjoying learning about it all!

Windy City ~ let's tour the Fair!

Marylyn and I arrived at Essencia Island and discovered nobuddy else is here for the party. We've gone to take a tour of the Fair while we're waiting for you. If you take the tour, look for us. I want to ride the Ferris Wheel, for sure. Oops! Which way did she go? Marylyn, wait for me! Oh, look, there's Daniel Burnham!







I hope you Book Buddies plan to party on the island with us, even if you have started reading Jim the Boy. Marylyn brought Chicago-style hot dogs for us to eat.

DWC-DQ ~ Part III ~ In the White City

6. At the end of The Devil in the White City, in Notes and Sources, Larson writes: "The thing that entranced me about Chicago in the Gilded Age was the city's willingness to take on the impossible in the name of civic honor, a concept so removed from the modern psyche that two wise readers of early drafts of this book wondered why Chicago was so avid to win the world's fair in the first place" [p. 393]. What motives, in addition to "civic honor," drove Chicago to build the Fair? In what ways might the desire to "out-Eiffel Eiffel" and to show New York that Chicago was more than a meat-packing backwater be seen as problematic?

7. Larson writes, "The juxtaposition of pride and unfathomed evil struck me as offering powerful insights into the nature of men and their ambitions" [p. 393]. What such insights does the book offer? What more recent stories of pride, ambition, and evil parallel those described in The Devil in the White City?

8. In his speech before his wheel took on its first passengers, George Ferris "happily assured the audience that the man condemned for having 'wheels in his head' had gotten them out of his head and into the heart of the Midway Plaisance" [p. 279]. In what way is the entire Fair an example of the power of human ingenuity, of the ability to realize the dreams of imagination?

9. In describing the collapse of the roof of Manufacturers and Liberal Arts Building, Larson writes: "In a great blur of snow and silvery glass the building's roof — that marvel of late nineteenth-century hubris, enclosing the greatest volume of unobstructed space in history — collapsed to the floor below" [p. 196–97]. Was the entire Fair, in its extravagant size and cost, an exhibition of arrogance? Do such creative acts automatically engender a darker, destructive parallel? Can Holmes be seen as the natural darker side of the Fair's glory?

The Devil in the White City

Well, I finally got my book this Monday ya'll. I put in for it as soon as we decided on it. I was 7th on the hold list and it took a little over 20 days. So I'm only a little behind. lol

Luckily, there are no holds on Jim the Boy. So I just have to get the book shipped to my library branch. Going to go do that right now in fact.

Anyways, just wanted to post about being excited to get this month's book.

DWC ~ discussion of Part II

5. The original Ferris Wheel was bigger than I realized, at "a bit higher than the crown of the ... Statue of Liberty" (p. 185), so I asked about you to think about the size of the thirty-six "cars" on the Ferris Wheel.

Several days ago Zorro asked, "Did he say 100 people per car?? Please tell me what the capacity actually was." Sorry to make you wait so long, Mary, but here's the answer:

George Ferris planned to build a vertically revolving wheel 250 feet in diameter. The thirty-six cars, "each about the size of a Pullman" (a train car), would each hold sixty people and come equipped with its own lunch counter. Can you imagine a wheel large enough to "propel 2,160 people at a time three hundred feet into the sky over Jackson Park"? I can't!

Since some of you probably don't click on the photos to make them bigger, I want to show you ... again! ... the one I found of Ferris's completed wheel. This time I'll try to make it as large as possible. (If you click on it, you can make it even larger. Then you can see each "car" more clearly.)



Though I'm struggling to make myself read the parts about Holmes, Marylyn has the opposite problem: "In part II I got bored with all the construction talk and started anxiously anticipating Holmes’s next devious act." Marylyn, we are constitutionally very different people! But I guess we both already knew that, huh? LOL.

DWC DQ Part II

I'm struggling to make myself read this book because I really, really, really don't want to read the parts about Holmes. Therefore, these questions all relate to preparing for the World's Columbian Exposition of 1893. If somebuddy can come up with questions relating to Holmes, I invite you to do so. This would be hard for me to do since I listened to the audio book. This Holmes is the second psychopath I am reading about this month...also Cathy in East of Eden. They are 'bad seeds' aren't they. What an opportunity for Holmes....people go to the Fair and never return home, and are never heard from again. Communication from other cities would be so much more difficult then than now. He can get away from the murders without even moving around the country. I am reading another book about medical charlatans of the early 20th century, and they were usually traveling to leave their patients behind. Of course their motivation was money, not murder.

3. Did you notice the "water wars"? Because Georgia is currently engaged in what some are calling a "water war" with Tennessee (and because I live in Chattanooga, on the border between the two states), I noticed Burnham's concern about providing clean water to the fair. Georgia's problem is rapid expansion without planning ahead for the water needs of its people; Burnham's problem was sewage threatening Chicago's water supply. Read the section spanning pages 175-176 about the fight to pipe water from Waukesha, Wisconsin, to the fair in Jackson Park. What was the subtle distinction that allowed Burnham to say the water came from Waukesha? I found it very interesting that the Great Lakes were so polluted by the butchery of animals in Chicago that the water wasn't potable. "Water, water everywhere and not a drop to drink"

4. A tiny (four sentence) section at the top of page 181 mentions a pledge recited by school children on Dedication Day. I'd never heard that this was how the Pledge of Allegiance began, had you? Who was Francis J. Bellamy, anyway? (You may have to google or go to Wikipedia to learn more about him. In my research, I discovered that I was two years old when the U.S. Congress recognized the Pledge as the official national pledge.) I will have to go to Wiki to find the answers. I was in the fifth grade when we started saying "under God" in the pledge. In Texas the schools are required by law to say the pledge each day (and the Texas Pledge also).

5. The original Ferris Wheel was bigger than I realized, at "a bit higher than the crown of the ... Statue of Liberty" (p. 185). I'm sure we'll read more about it in later sections of the book, but say something about the size of the thirty-six "cars" on the Ferris Wheel. Did he say 100 people per car?? Please tell me what the capacity actually was.

DWC-DQ ~ Part II ~ An Awful Fight

I'm struggling to make myself read this book because I really, really, really don't want to read the parts about Holmes. Therefore, these questions all relate to preparing for the World's Columbian Exposition of 1893. If somebuddy can come up with questions relating to Holmes, I invite you to do so.

3. Did you notice the "water wars"? Because Georgia is currently engaged in what some are calling a "water war" with Tennessee (and because I live in Chattanooga, on the border between the two states), I noticed Burnham's concern about providing clean water to the fair. Georgia's problem is rapid expansion without planning ahead for the water needs of its people; Burnham's problem was sewage threatening Chicago's water supply. Read the section spanning pages 175-176 about the fight to pipe water from Waukesha, Wisconsin, to the fair in Jackson Park. What was the subtle distinction that allowed Burnham to say the water came from Waukesha?

4. A tiny (four sentence) section at the top of page 181 mentions a pledge recited by school children on Dedication Day. I'd never heard that this was how the Pledge of Allegiance began, had you? Who was Francis J. Bellamy, anyway? (You may have to google or go to Wikipedia to learn more about him. In my research, I discovered that I was two years old when the U.S. Congress recognized the Pledge as the official national pledge.)

5. The original Ferris Wheel was bigger than I realized, at "a bit higher than the crown of the ... Statue of Liberty" (p. 185). I'm sure we'll read more about it in later sections of the book, but say something about the size of the thirty-six "cars" on the Ferris Wheel. (Click to enlarge this photo.)

DWC-DQ Part 1

1. In what ways is this nonfiction book like a novel? Is it more satisfying to read fiction or nonfiction?

The author takes the facts and then fills them in with emotions and details to make it more storylike. For instance, when he buys the drugstore from Mrs. Holton:
"Holmes entered the store and there found an elderly woman named Mrs. Holton. He sensed vulnerability, sensed it the way another man might capture the trace of a woman's perfume. . . He spoke softly, smiled often, and held her in his frank blue gaze. . . "

For me, reading fiction or non-fiction satisfies different needs. I tend to swing from one to the other. I do find fiction easier to read, and with non-fiction I have to concentrate more and I do more rereading of passages, but I love to learn new things and so it's worth it.

2. What have you found out so far about Chicago, the Fair, and the two men: Burnham and Holmes?

The strongest impression I have had so far in the description of Chicago at the time is how relatively safe the world around me is. All the talks of anonymous death, two people killed a day at the city's railroad crossings, heads cut off, carriages careening into crowds, fires killing a dozen people a day and the newspapers saying people were "roasted", all the sickness and murder, etc.--it makes our world look like something from Mary Poppins. We try so much these days to shield our children from viewing too much violence, but in Chicago at the time it was day to day life. It seems like, and maybe I'm wrong, that in today's world, Holmes would have been been arrested for fraud and debt before he even had a chance to build his nightmare mansion.

DWC - DQ Part 1

In what ways is this nonfiction book like a novel? Is it more satisfying to read fiction or nonfiction?

I like to read both fiction and nonfiction--fiction for the way it takes me to places I may never go and introduces me to people I may never meet, and nonfiction for the way it makes me think about the world we live in and draw connections between past and present.

There were a few passages in this first part that really struck me. Here is one from pp. 25-26.

This was the heyday of architectural invention. Elevators got faster and safer. Glassmakers became adept at turning out ever larger sheets of plate glass. William Jenney, of the firm Loring & Jenney, where Burnham started his architectural career, designed the first building to have a load-bearing metal frame, in which the burden of supporting the structure was shifted from the exterior walls to a skeleton of iron and steel. Burnham and Root realized that Jenney's innovation freed builders from the last physical constraints on altitude.

While reading this I couldn't help but think of the burned out remains of the Word Trade Center buildings, and the mass of twisted steel that stood. We don't often think about the skeleton of a building, but the collapse of the towers made them visible. I find I think about how things are made more often now, and frequently take time to stop and watch buildings as they go up.

I found the section about determining a site for the Fair to be very frustrating, and can't imagine what Burnham and Root were feeling. The fact that the politicians dragged their feet so long when they knew time was of the essence and the importance of the Fair to both Chicago and the U.S. must have been infuriating. It's sad that little seems to have changed. The city of Richmond will lose its AAA baseball team this year because the city spent more than two years avoiding the issue of maintaining and updating the stadium. Frustrated by the lack of progress, the team decided to leave. I suppose this happens often, but Burnham and Root had no such out.

After reading this section I wanted to know more about the roots of Chicago architecture. I found a brief article from CNN entitled Chicago: Tracing Modern Architecture. Here's what they have to say about Burnham (and Root).

DANIEL BURNHAM (1846-1912): CITY PLANNER

Burnham was an influential early Chicago architect but is most notable for his 1909 Plan for Chicago and its lasting influence on urban planning.

"Even in modern Chicago in 2007, people think about his plan when looking to do new things in the city," Neises said.

Early in his career, Burnham worked with William Le Baron Jenney, who is known as the "father of the skyscraper" for his work with metal-frame construction.

Later, Burnham and his partner, John Wellborn Root, built a number of buildings in what became known as the Chicago commercial style, which used metal framework to allow for taller buildings with larger windows and more open floor plans.

Don't miss:

The Rookery (1885-88), 209 S. LaSalle St. This building, designed by Burnham and Root, uses both load-bearing masonry and metal-frame construction, tracing the evolution of commercial architecture.

Santa Fe Building (1904), 224 S. Michigan Ave. Designed by D.H. Burnham and Co., the building is the former home of Burnham's own offices and now houses the Chicago Architecture Foundation. It's a mature version of the Chicago commercial style that developed in the 1880s.

The Chicago Landmarks site has an architect's tour you can take online. It introduces Daniel Burnham and then describes some of his major projects and presents photos of them.

That's it for now. I'm still trying to make sense of the puzzle that is Holmes.

Trying to Remember

I listened to Devil in White City several years ago so am trying to remember more about it. The links have been a wonderful enrichment of the story. At first, I was thinking that the popular quilt contest sponsored by Sears was at this Chicago World's Fair, but I just discovered that they were 40 years apart--the book's fair was in 1893 while the one with the Sears quilt contest was in 1933.

The murders were sure creepy! That part I well remember.

Insofar as the non-fiction vs. fictional type of read, I thought the info on the architects did read (or listen) like non-fiction whereas the murderer and victims read more like fiction.

H.H. Holmes and the Murder Castle

June 13, 2008 - 9pm ET
John Borowski appears on
The Biography Channel program:
H.H. Holmes and the
Murder Castle.

http://www.hhholmesthefilm.com/

DWC-Dc-Part I

1. In what ways is this nonfiction book like a novel? Is it more satisfying to read fiction or nonfiction?

I think the author set out to tell a story, it just so happens that the story is about real events. I read a lot of both fiction and non-fiction. I usually prefer fiction because it is usually written for the enjoyment of reading as opposed to most non which is usually written to bear facts. But I have been pleasantly surprised on the occasion when the facts actually tell a story. These are almost never textbooks…Lol

2. What have you found out so far about Chicago, the Fair, and the two men: Burnham and Holmes?

Burnham was very industrious, and thinking well ahead of his time. But I don’t think he would have really made such a large impact on architecture with out Root. It took both the creative and structured minds to accomplish what they did.

What makes men evil? Holmes was gifted with about the same genius and creativity as Burnham but was truly a sick individual. I don’t know if there was a turning point the led to his psychopathic behavior, signs that were missed. We are only recently learning the early warnings of cereal killers such as cruelty to animals and what not and even then it is still over looked until it is too late and those that did see it reflect back and say they excused it because they thought they were just being children…


"Make no little plans; they have no magic to stir men's blood" Daniel H. Burnham, Director of Works, Columbian Exposition, 1893

DWC - Some Resources

I just started reading yesterday, so I've a bit of catching up to do. I did start by doing a bit of exploring. Here are some sites you may enjoy looking at.

World's Columbian Exposition of 1893: Digital History Collection
This site has photos and other images. If you click on The Dream City you can look at the Fair buildings, art and sculpture and more. The Highlights link also has a variety of interesting materials, like photos of the construction and destruction of the Fair.

The World's Columbian Exposition: Idea, Experience, Aftermath
This is a hypertext exploration of the Fair.

Here are two sites for learning more about the author and the book.
NPR Interview with Scott Simon
Interview with the Author (Answers to questions on the book's web site).

I read a bit of the conversation in the comments about the classification of the book. This is what I would call creative nonfiction. It reminds me a bit of Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil by John Berendt. It is written to read like fiction, but is thoroughly researched.

Devil in White City Questions

Burnham


Sketches of Holmes ->

1. In what ways is this nonfiction book like a novel? Is it more satisfying to read fiction or nonfiction?

I find fiction more satisfying because there is a story, a plot, with action that I need to imagine in order to understand and enjoy. With non-fiction I need a visual report of the actual people and places, so with this book I have done a lot of googling for images of the Chicago fair.

2. What have you found out so far about Chicago, the Fair, and the two men: Burnham and Holmes? I have found daguerotypes of photos of the fairgrounds. I also am looking for pictures of the people involved in the building of the fair. This picture is landscape architect Fredrich Olmsted.

DWC-DQ ~ Part I ~ Frozen Music

We're really just getting started, and the discussion questions I've found online mostly ask us to look at the whole book. Too soon for that, so here's a broad question ... or two. Before you answer the first question, you may want to see (in the comments section below) what Shelley and Mary and I have been talking about.

1. In what ways is this nonfiction book like a novel? Is it more satisfying to read fiction or nonfiction?

2. What have you found out so far about Chicago, the Fair, and the two men: Burnham and Holmes?