Fans pick 85 books like The Man from the Train

Michelle McNamara waded into a new area of criminal investigation—hive investigation.

McNamara, a crime writer, got crime buffs together online, each using specific talents to search for the burglar-kidnapper-murderer who terrorized Californians for 12 years. With their help and DNA from an ancestry website, police were able to arrest ex-cop Joseph DeAngelo.

He pled guilty to 13 counts of murder and kidnapping in exchange for taking the death penalty off the table. Prosecutors called DeAngelo a poster boy for the death penalty.

Mc Namara's dogged detective work helped nab him and she is credited with the appellation Golden State Killer.

Memoirs don’t often feature mysteries, but Elroy, known for tough, cynical crime novels such as L.A. Confidential, centers his around his obsession with the unsolved murder of his mother in 1958 when Elroy was ten. With allusions to the famous Blue Dahlia case, Elroy writes with brutal frankness about his own pathologies and his weirdly loving relationship with his neglectful, alcoholic father. If nothing else, this absorbing book—hard to read and equally hard to put down—solves the mystery of why Elroy and his novels come off as so creepy.

This book wrecked me; it’s such a deep dive into the lives of the woman brutally murdered by Jack the Ripper. Rubenhold reconstructs their lives with great empathy, bringing them to the forefront of the story. The five were real women who felt love, pain, and hope—not faceless victims of sensationalized murder.

These women are often portrayed as “five prostitutes” in pop culture, but Rubenhold shows that there is no evidence of sex work for most of the women. This book pulls back the curtain on the tension, violence, poverty, and heartbreak in Victorian London. This book brought me to absolute tears. 

This is the most detailed account we’re likely to get of what remains an enduring mystery: the 1996 murder of 6-year-old JonBenet Ramsey in her home in the affluent town of Boulder, Colorado. From the beginning, police and all other observers were baffled, although the victim’s parents remained under a cloud of suspicion. An added bizarre element was the mother’s grooming of her daughter to compete in child beauty pageants.

Reding’s book on the methamphetamine epidemic in small-town Ohio is distressing but essential. He is exceptional in showing rather than telling how meth is in so many ways the Great American Drug. It makes you work even more maniacally, for one. And the hollowing out of Middle America makes the drug’s proactive nature even more attractive in these forgotten towns and cities. It is painful that the meth scourge might have eased but, as is so often the case, other destructive substances have quickly replaced it. 

The Federal Writers’ Project was one of many projects undertaken by the Works Progress Administration during the Great Depression. The American Guide Series was a subset of works produced by the Federal Writers’ Project (FWP). The books, created through a cooperative effort of both Federal and State organizations, are part travel guide, part almanac. Each includes illustrations and photographs and offers a fascinating snapshot of the 48 United States in the Union, and Alaska, in the late 1930s and early 1940s. The project employed over 6,000 writers. Many of these books have been reprinted.

What's Eating Gilbert Grape is the story of a young man trapped in a dying small town, stuck in a menial job, and tethered by obligations to his dysfunctional family. The biggest event on Gilbert’s horizon is the eighteenth birthday of Artie, his mentally impaired brother, who is lucky to still be alive. Then Gilbert’s world gets turned on its head when a free-spirited girl arrives in town.

What's Eating Gilbert Grape blends poignancy, the bonds and challenges of family responsibilities, and the struggles of dealing with mental health, all told through the unique lens of the titular Gilbert Grape.

Griffin does a wonderful job in this beautiful children’s book.

She guides the reader through a heartfelt tale of a little girl moving to live with her grandmother. On the car ride, they both search for 10 beautiful things. This book will pull at the heartstrings as, together, they find beauty in little things around them on their car ride, and it ends with the pair naming the sweetest, most beautiful thing of all.

As someone who has experienced childhood loss (loss as a child), I highly recommend this beautiful story for any child going through a loss or big change in their life that might have them feeling overwhelmed, anxious, or closed off.

The Amana Colonies were the most successful communes in the United States, active from 1856 to 1932.

Elected boards groups of elders made decisions and mediated conflicts. Members worked in a variety of industries. Women managed large kitchens and dining rooms. Visitors, hired laborers, and homeless people were welcome.

Amana was settled by Germans; residents suffered from anti-German violence during World War I. 

Why did the Amana Colonies survive so long when the Preparation group and others lasted only a few years? Amana’s decisions were made by groups and Amana’s spiritual life was anchored in faith and worship.

For their Golden Wedding Anniversary in 1917, a couple gathered their family for a celebration. During the day, they share their Iowa pioneering stories. What wonderful details about living arrangements, hardships in travel, hard-to-believe hordes of grasshoppers, blizzards, even a probable encounter with Jesse James. Written as a novel but based on historical events, his dear slim book also includes several photographs.