Here are 100 books that A Lie Too Big to Fail fans have personally recommended if you like
A Lie Too Big to Fail.
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I am a true-crime author. Most recently, I have released a pair of related books: The Making of a Serial Killer: 2d Ed, by Danny Rolling as told to myself; and Danny Rolling Serial Killer: Interviews. Before that, I published Good Little Soldiers: A Memoir of True Horror. Coauthored with Dianne Fitzpatrick, it relates her tale of murder & mind control under the US Army MK Ultra program. Earlier, I wrote True Vampires, an encyclopedic compendium of bloody crimes, and Knockin' on Joe: Voices from Death Row. I also collaborated with serial killer GJ Schaefer on Killer Fiction, a volume of psychopathic musings he wrote for me.
At long last the Vampire of Paris crawls from his crypt, a living legend emblazoned with magical sigils and muttering dire imprecations for 666 searing pages. A world-renowned artist and bold aesthete of the macabre, Nico Claux holds a Japanese cannibal as his role model and calls Satan his homeboy. This reclusive genius goes beyond the pale only to reveal himself as a regular bloke, albeit one with a taste for torture and blasphemy. Meant to be read in the darkest night!
The Gospel of Blood is the autobiography of Nico Claux, a French morgue attendant whose morbid obsessions led him to grave robbery, cannibalism and murder in the early 1990s. It is a bone-chilling chronicle of a real-life vampire who prowled the Gothic cemeteries of Paris, unearthing coffins and mutilating the bodies inside. A practicing Satanist, Claux escalated to murder after working for a year in several morgues, receiving orders to kill from the corpses he had autopsied.The Gospel of Blood provides a rare insight into a killer’s tortured mind, as he relates the graphic details of his crimes, including never-before…
The Beatles are widely regarded as the foremost and most influential music band in history and their career has been the subject of many biographies. Yet the band's historical significance has not received sustained academic treatment to date. In The Beatles and the 1960s, Kenneth L. Campbell uses The…
For as long as I can remember, I’ve been fascinated by the hidden histories of everyday things, especially in media and popular culture. (Who were those people on TV laugh tracks? Where did Muzak records come from?) A career in broadcasting only sharpened this interest, informing two decades of writing and performing.
Like most Americans, I grew up hearing the codified version of the Charles Manson/Helter Skelter saga, so when I saw yet another Manson book, I had two thoughts: "This sounds like a cash-grab," and, "Ugh...it's probably some lunatic conspiracy theory."
Suffice it to say, I was wrong—dead wrong—on both counts. By now, there's a good chance you've heard the backstory to Tom O'Neill's book: how he came to write it, how long it took him to finish, and (most importantly) what he learned about the Manson case. If you don't know any of this, take my advice and go in blind. CHAOS will floor you.
As featured on The Joe Rogan Experience ______________________________ A journalist's twenty-year obsession with the Manson murders leads to shocking new conspiracy theories about the FBI's involvement in this fascinating re-evaluation of one of the most infamous cases in American history.
Twenty years ago, reporting for a routine magazine piece about the infamous Manson murders, journalist Tom O'Neill didn't expect to find anything new. But the discovery of horrifying new evidence kick-started an obsession and his life's work. What had he unearthed and what did it mean: why was there surveillance by intelligence agents? Why did the police make these particular…
Green tracers in the sky over Baghdad. My first political memory is the start of the Gulf War in 1991. I remember writing angry essays criticizing the US decision to invade Iraq in 2003 for my high-school assignments. I have always been interested in US foreign policy and in how presidents make decisions. During my PhD, as I was working on a chapter on the origins of the Cuban Missile Crisis, I discovered the extent and–frankly–the madness of some of the plots the CIA and the White House concocted against Fidel Castro. More recently, the US government’s use of assassination and “targeted killings” have become the focus of my research.
Now for some facts, although they will appear stranger than the fiction above. Born with a club foot and unable to join the army during World War II, Sydney Gottlieb became a leading covert warrior. For years, he oversaw some of the CIA’s most controversial programs. He developed poisons to kill foreign leaders and officials, and he worked in MKULTRA, the Agency’s program for mind control, which included the use of LSD, drugs, isolation, and other invasive experiments and forms of torture on witting and unwitting subjects.
The book is a detailed, if harrowing, history. It is even more impressive as most of the documents on these programs were destroyed by Gottlieb himself in 1973, under orders from the CIA Director at the time, Richard Helms.
The visionary chemist Sidney Gottlieb was the CIA's master magician and gentle hearted torturer - the agency's "poisoner in chief." As head of the MK-ULTRA mind control project, he directed brutal experiments at secret prisons on three continents. He made pills, powders, and potions that could kill or maim without a trace, and he secretly dosed unsuspecting American citizens with mind-altering drugs. His experiments spread LSD across the United States, making him a hidden godfather of the 1960s counterculture, and he was also the chief supplier of spy tools used by CIA officers around the world.
Of the 918 Americans who died in the shocking murder-suicides of November 18, 1978, in the tiny South American country of Guyana, a third were under eighteen. More than half were in their twenties or younger.
The authors taught in a small high school in San Francisco where Reverend Jim…
I am a true-crime author. Most recently, I have released a pair of related books: The Making of a Serial Killer: 2d Ed, by Danny Rolling as told to myself; and Danny Rolling Serial Killer: Interviews. Before that, I published Good Little Soldiers: A Memoir of True Horror. Coauthored with Dianne Fitzpatrick, it relates her tale of murder & mind control under the US Army MK Ultra program. Earlier, I wrote True Vampires, an encyclopedic compendium of bloody crimes, and Knockin' on Joe: Voices from Death Row. I also collaborated with serial killer GJ Schaefer on Killer Fiction, a volume of psychopathic musings he wrote for me.
Presenting startling new biographical details about Timothy McVeigh and exposing stark contradictions and errors contained in previous depictions of the "All-American Terrorist," this book traces McVeigh's life from childhood to the Army, throughout the plot to bomb the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building and the period after his 1995 arrest until his 2001 execution. McVeigh's life, as Dr. Wendy Painting describes it, offers a backdrop for her discussion of not only several intimate and previously unknown details about him, but a number of episodes and circumstances in American History as well. In Aberration in the Heartland, Painting explores Cold War popular culture, all-American apocalyptic fervor, organized racism, contentious politics, militarism, warfare, conspiracy theories, bioethical controversies, mind control, the media's construction of villains and demons, and institutional secrecy and cover-ups.
Presenting startling new biographical details about Timothy McVeigh and exposing stark contradictions and errors contained in previous depictions of the "All-American Terrorist," this book traces McVeigh's life from childhood to the Army, throughout the plot to bomb the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building and the period after his 1995 arrest until his 2001 execution. McVeigh's life, as Dr. Wendy Painting describes it, offers a backdrop for her discussion of not only several intimate and previously unknown details about him, but a number of episodes and circumstances in American History as well. In Aberration in the Heartland, Painting explores Cold War…
When I learned that Jackie Kennedy Onassis had helped save Grand Central I had to know more about her! This lead to being curious about other First Ladies and how they served America during and after they were in the White House. Often their contributions were overshadowed by their husbands, so with this list, I’m shining a light on little-known facts about these well-known women.
This is a collection of women who stood up and spoke out. It includes several first ladies including Abigail Adams, Betty Ford, and Hillary Rodham Clinton. What I love about this book is that it assigns power symbols to each woman that represent such things as persistence, resourcefulness, and courage. In the back, there’s a Take-Action Guide to encourage young women to be leaders in their own ways. Girls from all backgrounds will be able to see a role model in this book.
In this engaging and highly accessible compendium for young readers and aspiring power brokers, Virginia Senator Janet Howell and her daughter-in-law Theresa Howell spotlight the careers of fifty American women in politics — and inspire readers to make a difference. With foreword by Hillary Rodham Clinton.
Meet some of the most influential leaders in America, including Jeannette Rankin, who, in 1916, became the first woman elected to Congress; Shirley Chisholm, the first African-American woman elected to Congress; Sandra Day O'Connor, the first woman to sit on the Supreme Court; and Bella Abzug, who famously declared, “This woman’s place is in…
I have been intrigued by Eleanor Roosevelt since I was a little girl in Sedalia, Missouri, and my mother read me Eleanor's "My Day" columns in the Kansas City Star. Mother would look up and say, "I'm sure she is better than he is," referring, of course, to Eleanor being better than Franklin. My family was rock-ribbed Republican and disapproved of Franklin's policies. I wondered then—and still do—why my mother and other women of her era had so much reverence for Eleanor. I have been looking for the answer ever since.
Endeavors to tell in one volume the story of an American icon, integrating her personal and public lives. This work offers an introduction to her many public roles—as a journalist, First Lady from 1933-1945, delegate to the United Nations (1945-1952), political leader, media personality—as well as her multifaceted personal life.
The New York Times bestseller from prizewinning author David Michaelis presents a “stunning” (The Wall Street Journal) breakthrough portrait of Eleanor Roosevelt, America’s longest-serving First Lady, an avatar of democracy whose ever-expanding agency as diplomat, activist, and humanitarian made her one of the world’s most widely admired and influential women.
In the first single-volume cradle-to-grave portrait in six decades, acclaimed biographer David Michaelis delivers a stunning account of Eleanor Roosevelt’s remarkable life of transformation. An orphaned niece of President Theodore Roosevelt, she converted her Gilded Age childhood of denial and secrecy into an irreconcilable marriage with her ambitious fifth cousin…
Benghazi! A New History of the Fiasco that Pushed America and its World to the Brink
by
Ethan Chorin,
Benghazi: A New History is a look back at the enigmatic 2012 attack on the US mission in Benghazi, Libya, its long-tail causes, and devastating (and largely unexamined) consequences for US domestic politics and foreign policy. It contains information not found elsewhere, and is backed up by 40 pages of…
I'm a long-time contributor to Reader's Digest (and former contributing editor), specializing in narrative nonfiction who has covered social and geopolitical issues for the magazine. I'm also a political junkie who loves to dig into little-known aspects of history and current events.
It’s quite a trick to overthrow a government without firing a shot. It’s an even better trick to do it without most people noticing what you’ve done. Dark Moneyshows how a cadre of American oligarchs, who believed the US had gone too far in reining in people like them, poured barrels of cash into undermining the average American’s economic, labor, and civil rights progress. They created think tanks. They bankrolled TV pundits. They funded departments at top universities—and micro-managed the curriculum—intent on influencing new generations of politicians, economists, and judges. In the end, they completely reshaped American thought and jurisprudence.
Ever wonder how the US of FDR and JFK could have taken such a sharp turn to the extreme right? I recommend you read Dark Money.
NATIONAL BESTSELLER ONE OF THE NEW YORK TIMES 10 BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR
Who are the immensely wealthy right-wing ideologues shaping the fate of America today? From the bestselling author of The Dark Side, an electrifying work of investigative journalism that uncovers the agenda of this powerful group.
In her new preface, Jane Mayer discusses the results of the most recent election and Donald Trump's victory, and how, despite much discussion to the contrary, this was a huge victory for the billionaires who have been pouring money in the American political system.
I was weaned on Cuban stories by my Havana-born mother and first visited the island in 1998. Since then, I earned a PhD in history from the Graduate Center, City University of New York–where I studied twentieth-century Cuban politics. While conducting research in Havana and Miami, I confirmed that legends were imbibed with the same fervor as café cubano.All histories are marked by tall tales, but Cubans are governed by theirs, inside and out, more than most.
To some, Cuba is a plucky, embargo-defying success story, with top educational and medical systems – the latter of which ensures Cubans live longer on average than Americans. Hoffman’s biography of Oswaldo Payá lays bare the regime’s darkest depths. As a young man, Payá was harassed and persecuted for his Catholic faith. He later devised the Varela Project, which sought to legally change Cuba’s 1976 constitution and allow democratic freedoms. Payá remained an outspoken critic of Cuba’s one-party state and refused to leave despite constant threats from state security agents. In 2012, they ran his car off the road and he was killed in the ensuing crash.
From the Pulitzer Prize–winning Washington Post reporter David E. Hoffman comes the riveting biography of Oswaldo Payá, a dissident who dared to defy Fidel Castro, inspiring thousands of Cubans to fight for democracy.
Oswaldo Payá was seven years old when Fidel Castro seized power in Cuba, promising to create a “free, democratic, and just Cuba.” But Castro instead created an authoritarian regime with little tolerance of free speech or thought. His secret police were trained to crush dissent by East Germany’s ruthless Stasi.
Throughout Cuba’s 20th century history, the dream of democracy was often just within reach, only to be…
I am an activist and always have been. My organizations, Spread The Vote + Project ID and Project ID Action Fund work on the ground and on impactful policy nationwide. I would never have been able to build a movement or an organization that makes a real impact without the lessons that I have learned from the past. Every book I have read about how change was made before me has helped me do the work I do and my hope is that future leaders will learn these lessons too.
Real change happens one person and one act at a time. Micro Activism teaches you how to make a difference wherever you are and whatever your circumstances.
This beautifully illustrated, friendly, and readable book is the perfect way to learn how to get started as an activist and how to build activism into your life every day.
In this age of social justice, those who don't necessarily want to lead a movement or join a protest march are left wondering, "How can I make an impact?"
In Micro Activism, former political consultant turned activism coach Omkari Williams shares her expertise in empowering introverts and highly sensitive people to help each of us, no matter our temperament, find our most satisfying and effective activist role. Using Williams's Activist Archetype tool, readers discover their unique strengths and use this to develop a personal strategy. To ensure sustainable involvement, Williams encourages starting small, working collaboratively, and beginning locally.
Gabrielle found her grandfather’s diaries after her mother’s death, only to discover that he had been a Nazi. Born in Berlin in 1942, she and her mother fled the city in 1945, but Api, the one surviving male member of her family, stayed behind to work as a doctor in…
I’m a professor of communication and political science who’s been researching and publishing on the effects of political media on democratic health for 25 years. More recently, I’ve been trying to understand the roots of inter-party hostility, the drop in trust in institutions, and the rise in Americans’ belief in breathtakingly false information. My hope is that through this selection of books, you’ll start to understand the synergistic dynamics between America’s complicated history with race, changes in America’s parties, media, and culture, and various social psychological processes, and maybe even start to see a way out of this mess.
I literally could not have written my book without Mason’s incredible empirical work documented in this book.
Yes, this is an academic book, but Mason is engaging, clear, and masterful in her use of charts and graphs to illustrate what “social sorting” is and what it does. Whenever I explain to people how America’s political parties have come to represent not just different sets of policy positions but two very different types of people, I picture Mason’s charts and graphs in my head!
There are a few books that I cannot put back on my bookshelf because I cite them too often and have decided they just need to stay right on my desk, Lily Mason’s is at the top of this pile.
Political polarization in America is at an all-time high, and the conflict has moved beyond disagreements about matters of policy. For the first time in more than twenty years, research has shown that members of both parties hold strongly unfavorable views of their opponents. This is polarization rooted in social identity, and it is growing. The campaign and election of Donald Trump laid bare this fact of the American electorate, its successful rhetoric of "us versus them" tapping into a powerful current of anger and resentment. With Uncivil Agreement, Lilliana Mason looks at the growing social gulf across racial, religious,…
