100 books like Badge of Evil

By Whit Masterson,

Here are 100 books that Badge of Evil fans have personally recommended if you like Badge of Evil. Shepherd is a community of 12,000+ authors and super readers sharing their favorite books with the world.

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Book cover of Paper Moon

Robert Rioux Author Of Idol Pursuits: Complete Edition

From my list on novels that inspired cinema classics.

Why am I passionate about this?

Books and movies offer unique advantages and challenges when it comes to storytelling. They each appeal to different preferences and engage audiences in different ways. Novels, for instance, leave more room for imagination as readers visualize characters and scenes at their own pace and from their own perspectives. Movies, on the other hand, provide specific visual interpretations that unfold in real-time, producing emotional engagement that is often immediate and visceral. When novels are adapted into movies, significant changes inevitably occur, leading many to conclude that "the book was better." While this is often the case, there are many fine examples where the original source material inspired not only good movies but all-time classics. 

Robert's book list on novels that inspired cinema classics

Robert Rioux Why did Robert love this book?

During the Great Depression, a charming con artist and his precocious young accomplice navigate the American Midwest, pulling off small-time scams while forging an unexpected bond. Their adventures blend humor and heartache in a vivid portrayal of survival and unlikely family ties.

Originally released as Addie Pray, the novel inspired the 1973 Peter Bogdanovich film, Paper Moon. Tatum O'Neal, who played Addie Loggins, won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress at the age of 10, making her the youngest competitive Oscar winner in history.

The film is also known for its nostalgic depiction of Depression-era America and the vibrant chemistry between Tatum and her father, Ryan O'Neal. This movie was so successful that modern printings of Addie Pray use the better-known film title. 

By Joe David Brown,

Why should I read it?

2 authors picked Paper Moon as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

The classic tale of a female Huck Finn, Peter Bogdanovich's film version of the book was nominated for four Academy Awards. Set in the darkest days of the Great Depression, this is the timeless story of an 11-year-old orphan's rollicking journey through the Deep South with a con man who just might be her father. Brimming with humour, pathos, and an irresistible narrative energy, this is American storytelling at its finest. Paper Moon is tough, vibrant, and ripe for rediscovery.


Book cover of The Water of the Hills: Jean de Florette & Manon of the Springs

Robert Rioux Author Of Idol Pursuits: Complete Edition

From my list on novels that inspired cinema classics.

Why am I passionate about this?

Books and movies offer unique advantages and challenges when it comes to storytelling. They each appeal to different preferences and engage audiences in different ways. Novels, for instance, leave more room for imagination as readers visualize characters and scenes at their own pace and from their own perspectives. Movies, on the other hand, provide specific visual interpretations that unfold in real-time, producing emotional engagement that is often immediate and visceral. When novels are adapted into movies, significant changes inevitably occur, leading many to conclude that "the book was better." While this is often the case, there are many fine examples where the original source material inspired not only good movies but all-time classics. 

Robert's book list on novels that inspired cinema classics

Robert Rioux Why did Robert love this book?

Set in the idyllic French countryside, this two-volume novel delves into the lives of a tight-knit community whose fate hinges on a dispute over a vital water source. Pagnol's lyrical prose captures the beauty and complexities of rural life, blending drama with a deep sense of place and tradition.

In 1986, Claude Berri directed two compelling films based on this story: Jean de Florette and Manon des Sources. Noted for their breathtaking Provence landscapes and heartfelt portrayal of rural life, these adaptations are considered faithful to Pagnol's original work and remain classics of French cinema.

By Marcel Pagnol,

Why should I read it?

2 authors picked The Water of the Hills as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Tells the story of Jean de Florette, a 35-year-old, city-bred, hunchbacked idealist, his wife, Aimee, and his daughter, Manon. In the second novel, Manon seeks revenge for her father's death, and it is she who brings the wheel full circle in a final dramatic retribution in the town square.


Book cover of The Night of the Hunter

Robert Rioux Author Of Idol Pursuits: Complete Edition

From my list on novels that inspired cinema classics.

Why am I passionate about this?

Books and movies offer unique advantages and challenges when it comes to storytelling. They each appeal to different preferences and engage audiences in different ways. Novels, for instance, leave more room for imagination as readers visualize characters and scenes at their own pace and from their own perspectives. Movies, on the other hand, provide specific visual interpretations that unfold in real-time, producing emotional engagement that is often immediate and visceral. When novels are adapted into movies, significant changes inevitably occur, leading many to conclude that "the book was better." While this is often the case, there are many fine examples where the original source material inspired not only good movies but all-time classics. 

Robert's book list on novels that inspired cinema classics

Robert Rioux Why did Robert love this book?

The novel is a haunting Southern Gothic tale set in rural West Virginia, where two children flee from a malevolent preacher turned serial killer. Their journey downriver becomes a tense battle of wits and survival against a man driven by dark, twisted beliefs.

The 1955 film of the same name, directed by Charles Laughton with a screenplay by James Agee, was a critical and commercial failure upon release. However, it has since gained a cult following and is now regarded as an undisputed classic of American cinema. Known for its atmospheric cinematography and Robert Mitchum's chilling performance as the antagonist, this was Laughton's only effort as a director. His unique vision has proven timeless.

By Davis Grubb,

Why should I read it?

2 authors picked The Night of the Hunter as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

The bestselling, National Book Award–finalist novel that inspired Charles Laughton’s expressionist horror classic starring Robert Mitchum and Shelley Winters.
 
Two young children, Pearl and John Harper, are being raised alone by their mother in Cresap’s Landing, Ohio. Their father Ben has just been executed for killing two men in the course of an armed robbery. Ben never told anyone where he hid the ten thousand dollars he stole; not his widow Willa, not his lawyer, nor his cell-mate Henry “Preacher” Powell. But Preacher, with his long history of charming his way into widows’ hearts and lives, has an inkling that…


Book cover of Diva

Robert Rioux Author Of Idol Pursuits: Complete Edition

From my list on novels that inspired cinema classics.

Why am I passionate about this?

Books and movies offer unique advantages and challenges when it comes to storytelling. They each appeal to different preferences and engage audiences in different ways. Novels, for instance, leave more room for imagination as readers visualize characters and scenes at their own pace and from their own perspectives. Movies, on the other hand, provide specific visual interpretations that unfold in real-time, producing emotional engagement that is often immediate and visceral. When novels are adapted into movies, significant changes inevitably occur, leading many to conclude that "the book was better." While this is often the case, there are many fine examples where the original source material inspired not only good movies but all-time classics. 

Robert's book list on novels that inspired cinema classics

Robert Rioux Why did Robert love this book?

Paris pulses with intrigue as a young mail courier becomes entangled with a mysterious opera singer and a series of dangerous encounters. Featuring outstanding descriptions, this stylish thriller weaves together music, romance, and underworld secrets against the backdrop of a vividly depicted cityscape.

The 1981 film adaptation of the same name, directed by Jean-Jacques Beineix, is celebrated for its stylish cinematography and influential soundtrack, which includes opera performances and an electronic score by Vladimir Cosma. Its lush romanticism became a significant cultural phenomenon in the early 1980s and helped popularize France's cinema du look movement.

By Delacorta,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Diva as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Text: English, French (translation)


Book cover of All the Pretty Horses

Beatrice Searle Author Of Stone Will Answer: A Journey Guided by Craft, Myth and Geology

From my list on journeys of transformation, truthfully told.

Why am I passionate about this?

My own experiences have made me a strong believer in the potential of journeys, big and small, to change our lives and the way we navigate the world. I made a journey in highly unusual circumstances, a journey that became a pilgrimage, and I think I know now that devotion is the key to transformation on the road. It may be the key to everything, in fact. That’s what I want to read about. Devotion is what every one of these books has in abundance, as well as care for the task, total honesty, and no fear of feeling. 

Beatrice's book list on journeys of transformation, truthfully told

Beatrice Searle Why did Beatrice love this book?

A major part of why I read is to feel. Few books have moved me as strongly as this one. I deeply loved John Grady, and reading this book as he fought for love, his life, and the lives of his friends was a terribly painful experience.

Of course, it was worth it for the redemption, the passion and fidelity, the horses, the rivers, and the open plains. The emotions of McCarthy’s characters blaze through their sparse and natural dialogue.

When I emerged, heart wrung out and now strangely energised and peaceful, I felt differently about the world and for a while found it easier to belong to. My sense that beauty could emerge from adversity had been bolstered. 

By Cormac McCarthy,

Why should I read it?

8 authors picked All the Pretty Horses as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

John Grady Cole is the last bewildered survivor of long generations of Texas ranchers. Finding himself cut off from the only life he has ever wanted, he sets out for Mexico with his friend Lacey Rawlins. Befriending a third boy on the way, they find a country beyond their imagining: barren and beautiful, rugged yet cruelly civilized; a place where dreams are paid for in blood.

The first volume in McCarthy's legendary Border Trilogy, All The Pretty Horses is an acknowledged masterpiece and a grand love story: a novel about the passing of childhood, of innocence and a vanished American…


Book cover of Blood Meridian: Or the Evening Redness in the West

JD McKelvin Author Of These Cruel Watchers

From my list on exploring your inner darkness.

Why am I passionate about this?

As a child, I learned that I was able to lucid dream at will, speaking to the beings I met in these places I’d never seen before, and it always gave me a sense of interconnectedness. A thread that goes through all of us and our histories. I believe that the ancients dedicated so much of their energy and resources to preserving their stories in order to maintain this connection because it’s so important. Inside all of us is a darkness that, if left unchecked would lead us to ruin. These books all demonstrate the inner struggle we have to understand and redirect that darkness toward the light and the good. 

JD's book list on exploring your inner darkness

JD McKelvin Why did JD love this book?

I often ask what the nature of laws and authority is. In the "Old West," when there was no overarching central authority, the survival of the fittest was the law. I’m curious how the clash of the old world with the new becomes a never-ending cycle and where it may lead.

I loved how none of the characters were all good or all bad, they were just survivors. This book is not meant to be liked or disliked. It’s meant to be experienced and "danced with."

By Cormac McCarthy,

Why should I read it?

14 authors picked Blood Meridian as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy is an epic novel of the violence and depravity that attended America's westward expansion, brilliantly subverting the conventions of the Western novel and the mythology of the Wild West. Based on historical events that took place on the Texas-Mexico border in the 1850s, it traces the fortunes of the Kid, a fourteen-year-old Tennessean who stumbles into a nightmarish world where Indians are being murdered and the market for their scalps is thriving.


Book cover of Threshold: Emergency Responders on the US-Mexico Border

Leo McCann Author Of The Paramedic at Work: A Sociology of a New Profession

From my list on paramedics, ambulances and emergency work.

Why am I passionate about this?

I am a Professor of Management at the University of York, England. My interest in ambulances and paramedic work is derived from research I have conducted into England’s National Health Service. This is a ‘free at the point of use’ service which, at its best, provides world-class care to citizens without charge. But the system is terribly underfunded. I am always struck by paramedics’ growing clinical ability, compassion, and devotion to their patients. But equally, I’m alarmed by the extent to which ambulance organizations are desperately overstretched, to the point where the system–and its workers face extreme everyday challenges. 

Leo's book list on paramedics, ambulances and emergency work

Leo McCann Why did Leo love this book?

This book is engrossing. Because of its fascinating setting, it is unique among the new wave of sociological or anthropological books on paramedic work. Jusionyte has written a remarkable ethnography about paramedics and EMTs working in the US-Mexico borderlands.

While much of the details of ambulance work are familiar, this setting is novel, alien, and disturbing. The book is a powerful critique of the militarization of borders and why this is detrimental, divisive, and degrading. Jusionyte writes with great style and panache; it’s a gripping story crafted in a polemical but persuasive fashion.

I learned a great deal about how the distinctiveness of geographical and political settings can massively influence and shape occupational culture and worker behavior. This is a creative and original work.

By Ieva Jusionyte,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Threshold as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

"Jusionyte explores the sister towns bisected by the border from many angles in this illuminating and poignant exploration of a place and situation that are little discussed yet have significant implications for larger political discourse."-Publishers Weekly, STARRED Review

Emergency responders on the US-Mexico border operate at the edges of two states. They rush patients to hospitals across country lines, tend to the broken bones of migrants who jump over the wall, and put out fires that know no national boundaries. Paramedics and firefighters on both sides of the border are tasked with saving lives and preventing disasters in the harsh…


Book cover of Be With

David John Rosenheim Author Of Owl

From my list on poetry to awaken your senses in the natural world.

Why am I passionate about this?

I started writing poetry when I was eight or nine, inspired by the way song lyrics stirred my soul. The poetry of songs like Bowie’s Space Oddity or Dylan’s Johanna made me want to write. I read Allen Ginsburg’s Howl as a young man and found a new language, rhythm, and way of seeing the beauty and sadness of the world. Over the years, I’ve written many songs and more than many poems. My first collection, OWL, is out now. Poetry feeds my heart and soul and entices my senses. I love the books on this list and hope you enjoy them as much as I do!

David's book list on poetry to awaken your senses in the natural world

David John Rosenheim Why did David love this book?

My experience of reading this book is wooly, smokey, visceral, and consuming. His poetry takes a microscope to the guts, the excrement, the feel underfoot of the natural world. Just as he takes me into the detailed realm of the beech tree or lizard, he swoops me into the emotional feel-scape of loss, grief, belonging, and isolation.

Gander’s use of language is relatable and also stark, new, and encyclopedic. This book is perhaps his most famous work, having earned him a Pulitzer. It is condensed and distilled as rare bitters; open the bottle and let its pungent spirit subsume you.

By Forrest Gander,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Be With as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Drawing from his experience as a translator, Forrest Gander includes in the first, powerfully elegiac section a version of a poem by the Spanish mystical poet St. John of the Cross. He continues with a long multilingual poem examining the syncretic geological and cultural history of the U.S. border with Mexico. The poems of the third section-a moving transcription of Gander's efforts to address his mother dying of Alzheimer's-rise from the page like hymns, transforming slowly from reverence to revelation. Gander has been called one of our most formally restless poets, and these new poems express a characteristically tensile energy…


Book cover of War of a Thousand Deserts: Indian Raids and the U.S.-Mexican War

Peter Francis Guardino Author Of The Dead March: A History of the Mexican-American War

From my list on North America’s 19th century international wars.

Why am I passionate about this?

I have loved history since I was a child, and very early on, I realized that history was not something that was made only by famous people. My own relatives had migrated, worked at different jobs, served in wars, etc., and ordinary people like them have been the most important drivers of events. I had a chance to study in Mexico in my early twenties and rapidly fell in love with its people and history. Yet, ever since I was a child, I have been interested in the history of wars. My work on the Mexican-American War combines all of these passions. 

Peter's book list on North America’s 19th century international wars

Peter Francis Guardino Why did Peter love this book?

I have long been interested in Native American and Mexican history, and I found this to be a wonderful book that explains how the actions of Native American groups shaped not only the area that became the American Southwest but also Northern Mexico.

Native Americans in the early nineteenth century did not produce many documents, and I am extremely impressed by DeLay’s ability to recover their history.

By Brian DeLay,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked War of a Thousand Deserts as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

An award-winning look at how Apaches, Navajos, Kiowas, and especially Comanches played a decisive role in America's watershed victory over Mexico

"An engaging book that enlivens the debate over the clash between Indians, Mexicans, and Americans in the Southwest."-Gary Clayton Anderson, Western Historical Quarterly

"Action-packed and densely argued."-Larry McMurtry, New York Review of Books

In the early 1830s, after decades of relative peace, northern Mexicans and the Indians whom they called "the barbarians" descended into a terrifying cycle of violence. For the next fifteen years, owing in part to changes unleashed by American expansion, Indian warriors launched devastating attacks across…


Book cover of Kingdom Cons

Diego Gerard Morrison Author Of Pages of Mourning

From my list on displacement disappearance and drugs in Mexico.

Why am I passionate about this?

I’ve been deeply struck by the rise in violence occurring in Mexico because I have seen it evolve before my eyes while living in and out of the Mexican countryside, places where the wealth and power of drug cartels and their collusion with the state and its institutions, can be seen first-hand. I have come to realize that literature has been the most accurate means of capturing this phenomenon, which has become the zeitgeist of the country, an issue that has bicultural and cross-border connotations because the main consumer is the United States of America, while the ravages of violence are felt in Mexico daily

Diego's book list on displacement disappearance and drugs in Mexico

Diego Gerard Morrison Why did Diego love this book?

This novel explores one of the many subplots and dynamics occurring around popular culture and cartel expansion in Mexico.

Following the life of a composer and performer of narco-corridos—a musical genre that sings praises to drug lords and kingpins—, this novel delves into the peripheries of violence and the adulation of drug cartel personalities in mainstream culture while at the same time offering a glimpse at the dangers posed to artists delving into such themes.

Having a composer and musician as the central figure of the narrative makes this novel one of the most lyrical texts exploring subjects of violence.

By Yuri Herrera, Lisa Dillman (translator),

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Kingdom Cons as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

In the court of the King, everyone knows their place. But as the Artist wins hearts and egos with his ballads, uncomfortable truths emerge that shake the Kingdom to its core. Part surreal fable and part noir romance, this prize-winning novel from Yuri Herrera questions the price of keeping your integrity in a world ruled by patronage and power.


Book cover of Paper Moon
Book cover of The Water of the Hills: Jean de Florette & Manon of the Springs
Book cover of The Night of the Hunter

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