Scribbles in the Margin: The Devil in the White City by Erik Larson

Several months ago Tim and I were at Borders picking up a gift or some such thing...generally milling about while looking at books and trying to decide if we should have leftovers for supper or dine out before heading home. We're a thrilling couple.

As we wandered through the stacks and I bitched and moaned about the unavailability of The Bones of Plenty Tim would pull out a random book and tell me to buy it. Most of them promptly went back...I really don't need a pocket guide to podiatry or a how-to for making head-cheese, but the one book Tim actually, seriously told me to buy did come home.

Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic and Madness at the Fair that Changed America

This book completely captivated my attention. Now, this probably because this book is mostly about the process of architecture, design and construction. The theme of never enough time, money or man-power is apparently exactly the same whether it's 1892 or 2008. But this isn't just any tightly wound project, it's the 1893 Chicago World's Fair and it was conceived, built, celebrated and destroyed in just 4 short years. Innovations from centralized water processing to the invention of the Ferris Wheel defined a Fair who's intent was to showcase the United States as an emerging world power and source of ingenuity and invention.

Apart from depicting the struggles behind the beautiful facades, there is the story of "Dr." H.H.Holmes who used the masses of people traveling to Chicago to feed his darker, more sinister desires. Intertwining the construction of a national event with the emergence of the first documented serial killer may not seem intuitive, but they feed each other, emphasizing the disparity of the unparalleled hope and joy of the Fair to the dark psychosis of the killer.

If you're still not sold, this is far from dry. The writing is crisp, fluid and the text reads like a crime thriller.