Books like The Devil in the White City

01

Killers of the Flower Moon

David Grann · History

In the 1920s, members of the Osage Nation in northeastern Oklahoma were being murdered.

A kindred history read.

02

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 history read.

03

Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption

Laura Hillenbrand · Biography

Unbroken follows Louis Zamperini from his juvenile delinquency in Depression-era California to the 1936 Berlin Olympics, where he ran the 5,000 meters at nineteen and briefly caught Hitler's attention.

A kindred history read.

04

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks

Rebecca Skloot · Science

In 1951, a Black woman named Henrietta Lacks died of cervical cancer at Johns Hopkins Hospital.

A kindred history read.

05

Bad Blood: Secrets and Lies in a Silicon Valley Startup

John Carreyrou · Business

Bad Blood is Wall Street Journal reporter John Carreyrou's account of Theranos, the blood-testing startup founded by Elizabeth Holmes that claimed its proprietary technology could run hundreds of diagnostic tests from a single finger-prick of blood.

Both dig into deception.

06

American Moonshot

Douglas Brinkley · History

Douglas Brinkley's American Moonshot focuses less on the engineering triumph of Apollo 11 than on the political decision that made it possible: John F.

Both dig into american ambition.

07

Delirious New York

Rem Koolhaas · History

Rem Koolhaas published Delirious New York in 1978 with the subtitle "a retroactive manifesto for Manhattan," and that framing is essential to understanding what the book is and isn't.

Both dig into architecture.

08

Operation Mincemeat: How a Dead Man and a Bizarre Plan Fooled the Nazis and Assured an Allied Victory

Ben Macintyre · History

In 1943, British intelligence planted a dead man on a Spanish beach carrying fabricated documents designed to convince the Germans that the Allied invasion of southern Europe would target Greece and Sardinia rather than Sicily.

Both dig into deception.

09

A Pattern Language

Christopher Alexander · Science

A Pattern Language is an extraordinary attempt to describe, in systematic form, the conditions that make human habitats feel alive.

Both dig into architecture.

10

Experiencing Architecture

Steen Eiler Rasmussen · Philosophy

Experiencing Architecture is the Danish architect and town planner Steen Eiler Rasmussen's attempt to teach non-architects how to see and feel buildings.

Both dig into architecture.

11

How Buildings Learn

Stewart Brand · Science

How Buildings Learn is Stewart Brand's argument that buildings are not finished products but ongoing processes — and that the buildings most valued over time are those designed to change gracefully rather than resist change defensively.

Both dig into architecture.

12

November 9

Colleen Hoover · Contemporary fiction

Fallon and Ben meet in a diner on November 9th, the day Fallon is leaving Los Angeles to move across the country.

Both dig into deception.