Vacation Reading
I finally got around to reading Chicago in Maps: 1612 to 2002. I read non-fiction at work during lunch, but this book doesn't fit in my lunch bag, so I skipped over it for a while. As far as I'm concerned, the author could've waited 10 years and made it cover an even 4 centuries.
But I finally got the chance to read it by taking a vacation. My plan was to read a book a day. Chicago took a day and a half, but that's mostly because I also decided to listen to the Stephanie Miller Show while on vacation too. I haven't been able to listen at all since I changed jobs a year ago.
I haven't read a novel in 4 years. I have 4 or 5 short novels in my fiction stack, and it now looks like I might be able to get through 3 of them this week. That'll make me feel a lot better. I've started the first one, and without it, the stack is 25 inches tall. Reading non-fiction at work has allowed that stack to get down to only 14.5 inches.
Anyway, Chicago was interesting but it had serious copy editing oversights and glossed over the last 80 years of its timespan pretty quickly. It didn't even have the slightest mention of modern skyscrapers such as the Sears Tower and the John Hancock Center. I learned a lot about the city, and at one point I had to watch the Perfect Strangers opening to see if I could figure out where the boat was. I think it was on the main part of the Chicago River, going east in the afternoon. Chicago apparently set a lot of records, and some major projects there turned out to be practice for things like the Panama Canal and the Chunnel.
But I finally got the chance to read it by taking a vacation. My plan was to read a book a day. Chicago took a day and a half, but that's mostly because I also decided to listen to the Stephanie Miller Show while on vacation too. I haven't been able to listen at all since I changed jobs a year ago.
I haven't read a novel in 4 years. I have 4 or 5 short novels in my fiction stack, and it now looks like I might be able to get through 3 of them this week. That'll make me feel a lot better. I've started the first one, and without it, the stack is 25 inches tall. Reading non-fiction at work has allowed that stack to get down to only 14.5 inches.
Anyway, Chicago was interesting but it had serious copy editing oversights and glossed over the last 80 years of its timespan pretty quickly. It didn't even have the slightest mention of modern skyscrapers such as the Sears Tower and the John Hancock Center. I learned a lot about the city, and at one point I had to watch the Perfect Strangers opening to see if I could figure out where the boat was. I think it was on the main part of the Chicago River, going east in the afternoon. Chicago apparently set a lot of records, and some major projects there turned out to be practice for things like the Panama Canal and the Chunnel.