Has anyone here read his books? He writes non-fiction history, but in a really compelling, narrative way, usually entwining two or more parallel stories which influence each other.
I've read "The Devil in White City," which is about the 1893 World Fair in Chicago, and "Thunderstruck" which chronicles the invention of wireless telegraphing. I liked "Thunderstruck" better, mostly because by the end of "Devil in White City" I was kind of getting sick of his obnoxious cliffhangers.
But it was really neat because I got to go to Chicago not long after I'd finished it and even though we didn't actually go to Jackson Park (it's on the south-side, which is not exactly the safest part of the city 
), I did see the Rookery and the Art Institute, which is one of the only buildings left because it was moved and rebuilt Downtown. I was really surprised that I knew all the architects, too! I was traveling with my dad, who loves to lecture on these things, and he would point to a building and say, "That was designed by Louis Sullivan," and I would not only know who that was, but also all his little quirks that Erik Larson writes about so well in the book. It really saved me a lot of boredom. Knowing who designed a building is always more interesting when you have a sense of the person beyond just the name.
And the other thing about "The Devil in White City" is they're making a movie of it! I think Leonardo DiCaprio is producing it, and he's also going to play H.H. Holmes as well, which I think is really perfect.
It probably won't be out for a couple years, though.
But like I said, I really prefer "Thunderstruck." The love story between Crippen and Ethel Le Neve was actually really sweet, and since he saved most of their story for the end I almost couldn't the book down because I kept wanting to read more about them, even if that meant reading through Marconi's crazily elaborate attempts at trans-Atlantic wireless.
Not that that wasn't fascinating, too, but it just became a little frustrating because it was it seemed like one failure after another, and without a map it was kind of hard to visualize how fast he was expanding the range. I also wish Mr. Larson had talked more about the spiritualism-craze that was going on in that era. The little he did put in was really interesting. 