Erik Larson
Erik Larson
Erik Larsonis an American journalist and author of nonfiction books. He has written a number of bestsellers, such as The Devil in the White City, about the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago and a series of murders by H. H. Holmes that were committed in the city around the time of the Fair; The Devil in the White City also won the 2004 Edgar Award in the Best Fact Crime category, among other awards...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionAuthor
Date of Birth3 January 1954
CountryUnited States of America
I like all kinds of music, though I tend to prefer jazz and classics.
I pride myself on having a journalistic remove.
Place has always been important to me, and one thing today's Chicago exudes, as it did in 1893, is a sense of place. I fell in love with the city, the people I encountered, and above all the lake and its moods, which shift so readily from season to season, day to day, even hour to hour.
I don't listen to music when I write, but I do turn on appropriate music when I read portions of my manuscripts back to myself - kind of like adding a soundtrack to help shape mood.
. . . why some men choose to fill their brief allotment of time engaging the impossible, others in the manufacture of sorrow.
The intermittent depression that had shadowed him throughout his adult life was about to envelop him once again.
I was never concretely aware of the extent of anti-Semitism in the United States and in the upper levels of the State Department.
Whenever I finish a book, I start with a blank slate and never have ideas lined up.
Reading is such a personal thing to me. I'd much rather give someone a gift certificate to a bookstore, and let that person choose his or her own books.
Reading Mission to Paris is like sipping a fine Chateau Margaux: Sublime!
I started reading the big histories and the small histories, the memoirs and so forth. At some point, I found the diary of William E. Dodd.
Germans grew reluctant to stay in communal ski lodges, fearing they might talk in their sleep. They postponed surgeries because of the lip-loosening effects of anesthetic. Dreams reflected the ambient anxiety. One German dreamed that an SA man came to his home and opened the door to his oven, which then repeated every negative remark the household had made against the government.
Dodd continued to hope that the murders would so outrage the German public that the regime would fall, but as the days passed he saw no evidence of any such outpouring of anger...
Great murderers, like great men in other walks of activity, have blue eyes.