Chicago Non-Fiction

I’m currently reading Dominic Pacyga’s Chicago: A Biography. Other Chicago non-fiction I’ve read includes Erik Larson’s The Devil in the White City, David Lowe’s Lost Chicago, and Robert Cromie’s A Short History of Chicago.

>1 PatrickMurtha:

To really understand how Chicago came to be what it is today, read The Third Coast: When Chicago Built the American Dream,by Thomas Dyja and Boss: Richard J. Daley of Chicago, by Mike Royko.

Also recommended:

Give the Lady What She Wants, by Lloyd Wendt
Who is the City For? Architecture, Equity, and the Public Realm in Chicago, by Blair Kamin
Sacred Ground: the Chicago Streets of Timuel Black, by Timuel D. Black, Jr
Ghosts in the Schoolyard” Racism and School Closings on Chicago’s South Side, by Eve L. Ewing
Chicago Renaissance: Literature and Art in the Midwest Metropolis, by Liesl Olson
The Plan of Chicago: Daniel Burnham and the Remaking of the American city, by Carl Smith
To Sleep with the Angels,by David Cowan

I could go on, but that should keep you busy!

^ Grateful for any and all titles!

Love this thread, along with its cousin for Fiction.

Agree that both Larson & Lowe from >1 PatrickMurtha: are worthwhile, for different reasons. I've read about Burnham's Plan superficially so the Smith title is of interest, and I just came across the Blair Kamin book (newly published, I think) too.

I've not yet read, but have long been meaning to get to Alex Kotlowitz's There Are No Children Here.

^ The historical license that Larson allows himself in The Devil in the White City - creating dialogue, going inside people’s heads - does bother me a little; he might well have published the book, slightly altered, as a novel.

>5 PatrickMurtha:

Agree, but my satisfaction from reading the book is for the big picture and a sense of the times, which this accomplished well. Though Larson appears to have legitimate research behind his writing, I wouldn't pin myself to any specific fact or conclusion.

>5 PatrickMurtha:

That’s true in part, but the sections on Burnham and the Fair are excellent, as there were extensive contemporaneous records.

My take: https://www.librarything.com/work/12491/reviews/2301951

^ Your review is very even-handed and on-point! The irony is that I think many readers wanted more of the speculative serial killer stuff and less of the well-documented architectural / civic material. Well, as P.T. Barnum said… 😏

And if the film / mini-series ever had materialized (it seems to have been cursed) * , you know what storyline would have been emphasized. In fact, the background of the fair might barely have made it in at all.

Overall, a pretty good read, recommended with caveats. I agree that it provides a nice picture of the city at that moment in time.

* “In March 2023, Hulu announced they would no longer be pursuing a television series using the rights.”

Visiting lilithcat's review (not only is it balanced, but it reflects my own sense of the reading experience), I realise I must have read that before I started my LT reviews in 2007: it isn't in my account. Would not have said the book's publication (or my reading of it) was that long ago, huh.

Another observation: A lot of pop non-fiction tries to sensationalize, David Grann’s The Lost City of Z (which I thought was pretty bad * ) being another example. I haven’t bothered with Killers of the Flower Moon.

I was once commissioned to write a historical article on the Cook Islands of the South Pacific, in which I scrupulously treated a couple of mysteries / anomalies. The manuscript was returned to me with “Can’t you make this more exciting?” I bailed on the project.

* I’ll quote myself: “…there are no new revelations and the significance of the story is not clear… as a functional modern magazine writer, Grann brings no sense of poetry or awe to the narrative. The chapters that describe his own adventures are especially blah and reveal him as an inadequate researcher. He gets all worked up over seeing a supposedly inaccessible document that was already available in English translation and that you or I could have found. He offers a very sketchy summary of some interesting modern scholarship concerning the Amazon region in the last chapter that seems meant to vindicate poor Fawcett, and to justify Grann's own superfluous trek into the jungle, but it does not accomplish either task convincingly, and so brings the book to a flat conclusion.”

Chicago only features here and there—mostly as the object of Mary Todd Lincoln's ire/distaste—but I just finished The Insanity File, which focused on a few years of tough mental health in MTL's life. Among other things, it was an odd exercise to imagine what's in the place now of one of her former homes in the 300W block of Washington, I think—and I'm now wondering if Farnsworth Road out near St. Charles was named for the Farnsworth mentioned in the book.

I just finished a read of Who Is the City For?, and I really enjoyed it. In some ways it was tailor-made to my curiosity as a Chicagoan just returned to the area after living elsewhere for most of the last decade. (My full review is posted in the book record.)

>12 paradoxosalpha: Blair Kamin is so good. I always enjoy listening to him when he's interviewed. Putting this book on my CPL wishlist.

just gotta chime in to say: Nature's Metropolis is far and away my fav book abt chicago. will change how u think abt ecology, technology, agriculture, finance, railroads, etc

You might consider adding American Pharaoh by Adam Cohen and Elizabeth Taylor, a fascinating (if lengthy) study of Richard J. Daley. And, of course, Alex Kotlowitz, There Are No Children Here.