Looking for your next can’t-put-it-down read? I’ve got one that absolutely hypnotized me:
The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair That Changed America by Erik Larson.
Two jaw-dropping true stories. One unforgettable book.
✨ On one side:
The awe-inspiring creation of the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair—an ambitious, glowing city built from the ground up, with architecture so grand and innovative that many visitors had never even seen electricity before. Daniel Burnham and his team didn’t just build a fair; they built a dream.
🕵️♀️ On the other side:
Dr. H. H. Holmes—charming, rich, young… and a serial killer. Using the excitement of the World’s Fair to lure victims, he designed a “hotel” full of secret passages, gas lines, and a basement crematorium. No, really. It’s not fiction—it’s just terrifyingly real.
🎩 With real-life appearances by Buffalo Bill, Thomas Edison, and more, this book paints a vivid picture of the Gilded Age in all its glittering highs and gruesome lows. It’s immersive, atmospheric, and just plain unputdownable.
🎬 Bonus Fact:
Leonardo DiCaprio bought the movie rights and is set to star as Holmes. So read the book before it hits the screen!
Side note, according to The Guardian:
DiCaprio acquired the rights to Larson’s book in 2010, and Scorsese’s involvement was revealed in 2015, shortly after the pair had a substantial box office hit with the stocks trader comedy The Wolf of Wall Street. Although a script by Billy Ray had been completed, the film never materialized and in 2022 the project was converted to a TV series for US streaming platform Hulu, with Keanu Reeves in the lead role and Todd Field directing. It stalled again a year later after Reeves and Field left the project.
A finished film is not likely to appear soon. Deadline reports that no script is attached to the current version of the project, while Scorsese has at least two major feature projects on hand – an adaptation of Shūsaku Endō’s novel A Life of Jesus and a biopic of singer Frank Sinatra – as well as Shipwrecks of Sicily, a documentary about marine archaeology. DiCaprio will next be seen in Paul Thomas Anderson’s as yet untitled new film, due out in August.
You can scroll through the Library of Congress site HERE and see images of what the fair looked like.
🛒 Want to dive in? Grab your copy on Amazon:
👉 Order The Devil in the White City on Amazon
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