book reviews

Chronicles of old las vegas

EXPOSING SIN CITY’S HIGH-STAKES HISTORY

Author: James Roman

As someone always looking for another Las Vegas book to add to my collection I was surprised to see this one in a photo from a Vegas trip report. If you’ve read trip reports on message boards I’m sure you’ve seen the obligatory pet photos and the drink on the plane selfie I love the ones where people are showing the outfits they plan to wear. I saw this book in a photo of someone’s reading material for the plane and was intrigued by it’s graphic style so I ordered it.

In 30 very distinct chapters, it tells the history of Vegas from the early indigenous people to Steve Wynn. I mistakenly opened to the middle and started reading stories of the Mob and the Rat Pack. These are areas I’m very familiar with and was disappointed by the lack of depth in the short chapters and I put the book down for a while. Fortunately I picked it up a couple weeks later and started from the beginning and have completely different opinion of the book.