Chicago Curiosities: Quirky Characters, Roadside Oddities & Other Offbeat Stuff

U.S. State Curiosities

by Scotti Cohn

The definitive collection of Chicago's odd, wacky, and most offbeat people, places, and things, for Chicago residents and anyone else who enjoys local humor and trivia with a twist.

Genres: Travel, Nonfiction

192 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2011

Reviews

[Penelope]

I had a kind of love-hate relationship with this book. At first I was disappointed because it wasn't quite what I was expecting. When I think of curiosities and oddities my mind immediately expects morbidity, because that's the stuff I'm interested in. There is some of that in here, but I thought a lot of it could just as easily be considered run-of-the-mill trivia. There are only a few places in this book that I might actually like to visit; most of them were just kind of interesting to read about but not something I would spend time to see myself.

I guess I just wish the focus had been...weirder. There has to be weirder stuff in Chicago...there just HAS to be. But I feel like the author chose to focus on the more palatable things that the majority of tourists might consider a little "quirky" but not terribly bizarre or weird. Eh. What do I know.

I also wasn't quite sure what the point of this book was. To serve as a guidebook of sorts? A trivia book? A random travel book with random information? I don't think it's set up to be very useful as a guidebook, and as I said above there aren't a whole lot of places I would go out of my way to visit. So I guess it's kind of just a trivia/read-for-fun travel book type of thing.

It was fun to read, and I learned some interesting facts about Chicago history, landmarks, and pop culture. I would give this 2.5 stars if I could (damn you Goodreads and your horrible rating choices) since it certainly wasn't HORRIBLE. I just thought it was ok.

[Tracy]

Born and raised in Chicago, I don't think I would call this the "definitive" collection of curiosities. There are plenty that were not mentioned at all -- such as "The Castle" in the Beverly neighborhood and World's Finest Chocolate company on the SW Side. However, it was still a great introductory read.

[Deborah]

Informative and fun read. I found out things about Chicago that I hadn't known or knew existed. Some of the places I would like to visit.