The Devil in the White City

Erik Larson, author of the international bestseller Isaac's Storm, was nominated for a National Book Award for The Devil in the White City, which also won an Edgar Award for fact-crime writing. His latest book, In the Garden of Beasts: Love Terror and an American Family in Hitler's Berlin, has been acquired for publication in 20 countries and optioned by Tom Hanks for a feature film. Erik is a former features writer for The Wall Street Journal and Time. His magazine stories have appeared in The New Yorker, The Atlantic Monthly, Harper's and other publications.Larson has taught non-fiction writing at San Francisco State, the Johns Hopkins Writing Seminars, and the University of Oregon, and has spoken to audiences from coast to coast. He lives in Seattle with his wife, who is the director of neonatology at the University of Washington Medical Center and at Children's Hospital of Seattle, and the author of the nonfiction memoir, Almost Home, which, as Erik puts it, "could make a stone cry." They have three daughters in far-flung locations.

出版者:Vintage

作者:Erik Larson

页数:447

出版时间:10 February, 2004

价格:$14.95

装帧:Paperback

isbn号码:9780375725609

图书标签:芝加哥历史英文原版ErikLarsonhistory镀金时代nonfiction小说

Erik Larson's gifts as a storyteller are magnificently displayed in this rich narrative of the master builder, the killer, and the great fair that obsessed them both.

Two men, each handsome and unusually adept at his chosen work, embodied an element of the great dynamic that characterized America's rush toward the twentieth century. The architect was Daniel Hudson Burnham, the fair's brilliant director of works and the builder of many of the country's most important structures, including the Flatiron Building in New York and Union Station in Washington, D.C. The murderer was Henry H. Holmes, a young doctor who, in a malign parody of the White City, built his "World's Fair Hotel" just west of the fairgrounds—a torture palace complete with dissection table, gas chamber, and 3,000-degree crematorium. Burnham overcame tremendous obstacles and tragedies as he organized the talents of Frederick Law Olmsted, Charles McKim, Louis Sullivan, and others to transform swampy Jackson Park into the White City, while Holmes used the attraction of the great fair and his own satanic charms to lure scores of young women to their deaths. What makes the story all the more chilling is that Holmes really lived, walking the grounds of that dream city by the lake.

The Devil in the White City draws the reader into a time of magic and majesty, made all the more appealing by a supporting cast of real-life characters, including Buffalo Bill, Theodore Dreiser, Susan B. Anthony, Thomas Edison, Archduke Francis Ferdinand, and others. In this book the smoke, romance, and mystery of the Gilded Age come alive as never before.

读后感

一九一二年的那艘泰坦尼克号仿佛承载了许多故事的开头和结尾。船触礁的瞬间就已经迸发出无数珍贵而凄婉的故事。《百城恶魔》的故事也得以因为这次“航海史上黑暗的日子”这样开始了。 时间倒退四十年。十九世纪末的美国正处于近代化工业的完成和垄断资本主义的过渡期。美国开始...  

《王国与权力》、《被仰望与被遗忘的》作者盖伊·特立斯开创出了前无古人的非虚构写作手法，20世纪的纽约，这座飞速发展的城市，冷冰冰的钢铁森林在他的笔下绽放出了别样的生命力，从摩天大楼到犄角旮旯，从美酒佳肴到残羹冷炙，从光鲜亮丽的白领到衣衫褴褛的流浪汉。他将城市...  

用户评价

虽然连环杀手大概是更大的噱头，我倒更喜欢世博会的篇幅。Burnham当年碰到的各种困难，官僚主义，权力斗争，合伙人的意外死亡，芝加哥的恶劣的地质条件和天气，罢工，火灾，经济萧条等等等等，实在是让我对自己工作中碰到的问题汗颜。这么坚毅的Burnham，在给自己老婆写信的时候又呈现出完全不同的一面，各种倾诉相思之苦，实在是甜死啦

Didn't really meet my expectation.

DNF。写的真是无聊啊。

好过瘾的non-fiction书！讲述的是19世纪末芝加哥世博会前夕的一段真实连续杀人故事，由兴建纽约熨斗大楼的建筑师和外貌文雅内心邪恶的医生并行组成，也是因为这两条精彩的线牵引了我从昨天下午一直看到今天早晨4点多，其间还看了两集同时代英伦岛上的开膛街，可惜白天还要劳动，否则能再睡一大觉就完美了！

这是我看过的第二部non-fiction，导师Steve推荐的，当时差点还给我买了一本。这本书让我彻底的爱上了芝加哥的城市，然后我每次去芝加哥的时候，都要按照书中的内容，去探索。这部书简直就是导游啊