Jessica's comments (member since Jun 01, 2008)

Jessica's comments from the chicago readers group.

Speed dating...aargh

Sorry I missed you. Try again with a better sign than a napkin next time...:-)

It was awesome being there by myself y'all...sniffle...

I'll be there at 4 pm! yahoo!

I suggest that we all meet at the Book Cellar in Lincoln Square (maybe) on Dec 12th at about noon. What do you think?

How about anthropological non-fiction like, "Outliers", or ,"Made To Stick", etc.

I think it would be a great place to start and maybe Pablo is right about narrowing the scope a little so it we'll have something in common to talk about in terms of the latest book we have read.

I am totally in. I think this is a great group of people and it would be wonderful to meet you.

Here is an excerpt from a New York Times Book Review that may help clarify why people think "Devil in the White City" is a fictional accounting of events:

February 10, 2003
BOOKS OF THE TIMES; Add a Serial Murderer to 1893 Chicago's Opulent Overkill
By JANET MASLIN


THE DEVIL IN THE WHITE CITY
Murder, Magic and Madness at the Fair That Changed America
By Erik Larson
Illustrated. 447 pages. Crown Publishers. $25.95.

As part of his research for ''The Devil in the White City'' Erik Larson visited the part of Graceland cemetery where members of Chicago's turn-of-the-century elite are enshrined. As he puts it, ''On a crystalline fall day you can almost hear the tinkle of fine crystal, the rustle of silk and wool, almost smell the expensive cigars.''

Mr. Larson likes to embroider the past that way. So he relentlessly fuses history and entertainment to give this nonfiction book the dramatic effect of a novel, complete with abundant cross-cutting and foreshadowing. Ordinarily these might be alarming tactics, but in the case of this material they do the trick. Mr. Larson has written a dynamic, enveloping book filled with haunting, closely annotated information. And it doesn't hurt that this truth really is stranger than fiction.

My favorite Chicago themed book is "Crossing California". It's about fictional characters, but it's also about the changes in the Rogers Park/Devon neighborhood where it takes place. Not my favorite book of all time but it captures something about Chicago. I plan on reading "Devil in the White City" one of these days. My other guilty favorite is "Bitter is the New Black Confessions of a Condescending Egomaniacal Self-Centered Smartass Or Why You Should Never Carry A Prada Bag to the Unemployment Office" by Jen Lancaster (?). It's a lot of fun.