Need reading suggestions

[Scott Parker 27]

Perfect for sherdoggers

 

[AronaBeatsJones]

From my thread last year after I got finished reading this book:

One part of the story is the building of the 1893 Chicago's World's Fair (to celebrate 400 years of Columbus making his landing), and goes into the politics, planning, architecture, construction, engineering, and economics of building this monumental event. There are so many things from this time that intersect with the Fair, including:

• Tesla's AC electricity being chosen over Edison's DC electricity.
• Edison's newest invention: the kinetoscope (film).
• Chicago trying to one-up Paris' World Fair by outdoing their Eiffel Tower. They settled on a guy by the name of George Ferris, who has this seemingly impossible idea to build a moving "wheel."
• Products that have stood the test of time first debuted at the fair: shredded wheats and cracker jack caramel popcorn.
• Numerous "celebrities" of the time meshing into the World's Fair (IE: Buffalo Bill getting rejected from the fair and booking his own (very successful) show next door to the fair, Archduke Franz Ferdinand flying incognito, Helen Keller).
• An assassination that ends the fair.

And that's just one half of the story. The other half is probably the more popular reason to read this book, and that's about the serial killer H. H. Holmes, who kidnapped numerous women and killed many people while the Fair was going on. The Holmes story is utterly interesting and repulsive at the same time, particularly how he gets deep into these relationships with women all with the endgame of killing them slowly, and for more than just greed: he enjoys it.

The two stories mildly intersect, but the lead character in the first one, Daniel Burnham (lead architect of the Fair), apparently never meets H. H. Holmes.

Even though this book has gotten pretty good acclaim since it was published in '03, chances are it's going to explode with popularity if Leonardo DiCaprio (who purchased the rights to make the film in '10) gets around to making it. Rumour has it that Martin Scorsese is tapped to direct.​

 

[Roca]

I'm having a hard time getting into books at home right now

 

[melvinj0]

Ah, I thought you meant just the Kennedy assassination. There have been many. I haven't seen the Stephen King version.

It's about a guy who goes back in time and tries to stop the assassination, pretty good story, didn't like the show at all though.

 

[Matt M]

This, but only if you're really into Twin Peaks.
Although saying that, it includes bits about Nixon and aliens, Roswell, Bohemian Lodge and a lot of other cool shit to weave into the Twin Peaks story.

 

[Higus]

It's a great fantasy/sci-fi satire. Kind of like LotR meets Full Metal Jacket.

 

[Organic Damage]

It's a great fantasy/sci-fi satire. Kind of like LotR meets Full Metal Jacket.

Heh this sounds kind of cool. If TS won't check it out, I just might.