Books like Helter Skelter: The True Story of the Manson Murders

01

In Cold Blood

Truman Capote · Memoir

Truman Capote's account of the 1959 murders of the Clutter family in Holcomb, Kansas — and of the investigation, capture, trial, and execution of the killers Perry Smith and Richard Hickock — is the founding document of the true crime genre and one of the most admired works of American nonfiction of the twentieth century.

Both dig into violence.

02

The Devil in the White City

Erik Larson · History

The Devil in the White City tells two stories that unfolded simultaneously in Chicago in 1893.

A kindred memoir read.

03

The Executioner's Song

Norman Mailer · Memoir

The Executioner's Song is Norman Mailer's Pulitzer Prize-winning account of Gary Gilmore, the convicted murderer who in 1977 became the first person executed in the United States after the Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty.

Both dig into violence.

04

Say Nothing: A True Story of Murder and Memory in Northern Ireland

Patrick Radden Keefe · History

Say Nothing opens with a scene that sets its register precisely: Jean McConville, a widowed mother of ten, is dragged from her Belfast flat by a gang of masked strangers in December 1972 and never seen alive again.

A kindred memoir read.

05

The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test

Tom Wolfe · Memoir

The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test, published in 1968, is Tom Wolfe's account of Ken Kesey and the Merry Pranksters — the group of psychedelic adventurers who drove a painted bus across the United States in 1964, staged LSD-fueled "Acid Tests" in California, and became one of the central myths of the 1960s counterculture.

Both dig into counterculture.

06

This Boy's Life

Tobias Wolff · Memoir

Tobias Wolff's memoir of his childhood in the 1950s, moving with his peripatetic mother from Florida to Utah to Seattle to the logging town of Concrete, Washington, is one of the finest examples of what might be called the stepfather memoir — a genre that emerged in the 1980s and 1990s as writers processed childhoods marked by violence, instability, and the particular powerlessness of being a child under an adult's authority.

Both dig into violence.

07

Under the Banner of Heaven: A Story of Violent Faith

Jon Krakauer · Memoir

Under the Banner of Heaven opens with a specific crime: in 1984, Ron and Dan Lafferty — members of a fundamentalist Mormon splinter group — murdered their sister-in-law Brenda and her infant daughter, acting on a "revelation" they believed came directly from God.

Both dig into violence.

08

Citizens: A Chronicle of the French Revolution

Simon Schama · History

Simon Schama's Citizens was published to mark the bicentennial of the French Revolution in 1989 and immediately became one of the most controversial histories of the event in decades.

Both dig into violence.

09

Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution

Steven Levy · Science

Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution is Steven Levy's account of the community of computer enthusiasts who drove the digital revolution from the late 1950s through the early 1980s — the original hackers of MIT's Tech Model Railroad Club and later AI lab, the hardware hackers of the Bay Area Homebrew Computer Club, and the software entrepreneurs who built the early PC industry.

Both dig into counterculture.

10

The Better Angels of Our Nature

Steven Pinker · Science

The Better Angels of Our Nature is Steven Pinker's argument, supported by extensive historical and statistical data, that human violence has declined dramatically over long time periods and that this decline is real, not an artifact of reporting or perception.

Both dig into violence.

11

The Cruel Prince

Holly Black · Fantasy

When Jude was seven, her mortal parents were killed by a faerie general who then took her and her sisters to live in the treacherous world of Faerie.

Both dig into manipulation.

12

The Maidens

Alex Michaelides · Thriller

The Maidens opens on Mariana Andros, a group therapist living in London, still raw from the sudden death of her husband.

Both dig into manipulation.