Here are 86 books that A Conspiracy of Silence fans have personally recommended if you like A Conspiracy of Silence. Book DNA is a community of 12,000+ authors and super readers sharing their favorite books with the world.

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Book cover of Where the Crawdads Sing

Melanie Maure Author Of Sisters of Belfast

From my list on women discovering strength through tragedy.

Why am I passionate about this?

My passion for this topic of women overcoming the odds stems from having worked with powerful, resilient women as a life coach and therapist for the past 15 years. I witness and continue to be inspired by women who surpass what they or those around them believe is possible internally and externally. Women are powerful in unimaginable ways, and I love to read a great story that depicts this truth.

Melanie's book list on women discovering strength through tragedy

Melanie Maure Why Melanie loves this book

Kaya Clark is the wild child I longed to be growing up. Although her family story is tragic and well-explored, how she inhabits her world of nature and allows it to inhabit her is stunning. Once again, she is a young woman who is an outcast who manages to rise above her limitations and those placed on her by society. 

Beyond the incredible storytelling and intriguing plot lines, I was mesmerized by the natural world of the North Carolina marshes, being as much a main character as Kaya herself. The intricate details of the lushness and cruelty of the natural world were incredible. In looking back at my favorite novels, one of the commonalities is the writing’s ability to come alive in my head and to take up a permanent space as much as my own lived memories. This novel is one of those.

By Delia Owens ,

Why should I read it?

59 authors picked Where the Crawdads Sing as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

OVER 12 MILLION COPIES SOLD WORLDWIDE
NOW A MAJOR MOTION PICTURE
A NUMBER ONE NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER

For years, rumours of the 'Marsh Girl' have haunted Barkley Cove, a quiet town on the North Carolina coast. So in late 1969, when handsome Chase Andrews is found dead, the locals immediately suspect Kya Clark, the so-called Marsh Girl. But Kya is not what they say. Sensitive and intelligent, she has survived for years alone in the marsh that she calls home, finding friends in the gulls and lessons in the sand. Then the time comes when she yearns to be…


If you love A Conspiracy of Silence...

Book cover of December on 5C4

December on 5C4 by Adam Strassberg,

Magical realism meets the magic of Christmas in this mix of Jewish, New Testament, and Santa stories–all reenacted in an urban psychiatric hospital!

On locked ward 5C4, Josh, a patient with many similarities to Jesus, is hospitalized concurrently with Nick, a patient with many similarities to Santa. The two argue…

Book cover of To Kill a Mockingbird

David Churchill Barrow Author Of And Justice for All, Even Redcoats

From my list on learning lessons from history the easy way.

Why am I passionate about this?

I am a descendant of William Bradford and Myles Standish, of Pilgrim fame. I was raised in a Massachusetts farmhouse where the commission of James Churchill as a Captain in the militia still hangs, signed by John Hancock. I have lived and breathed this stuff since first opening my eyes. My wife, MaryLu, is a retired elementary teacher who helps bring life to the young characters. Together, through the medium of novels they would actually enjoy reading, we seek to inspire American youth with the principles of our founding, so that they may be more effective in preserving and defending them.

David's book list on learning lessons from history the easy way

David Churchill Barrow Why David loves this book

Many an idealistic young law student like me felt that jolt in our spine early on when we saw up in the balcony of that courthouse a sleepy Scout being told, “Stand up, Jean Louise. Your father’s passin’.”

The movie is as faithful to the novel as the medium would allow. The novel is told entirely from Scout’s POV and not only focuses upon the racism of the time and place, but also upon her coming of age as a tomboy and being told to act “As a little girl should.”

The book offers more to those of us for whom the rule of law and not of men is a passion, especially in Finch’s closing: “There is one human institution that makes a pauper the equal of Rockefeller, a stupid man the equal of Einstein… That institution, gentlemen, is a court.” 

By Harper Lee ,

Why should I read it?

47 authors picked To Kill a Mockingbird as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

'Shoot all the bluejays you want, if you can hit 'em, but remember it's a sin to kill a mockingbird.'

Atticus Finch gives this advice to his children as he defends the real mockingbird of this classic novel - a black man charged with attacking a white girl. Through the eyes of Scout and Jem Finch, Lee explores the issues of race and class in the Deep South of the 1930s with compassion and humour. She also creates one of the great heroes of literature in their father, whose lone struggle for justice pricks the conscience of a town steeped…


Book cover of Chiefs

G Richard Hoard Author Of The Missing Boys

From my list on Southern rural crime.

Why am I passionate about this?

I was only fourteen when my father, a District Attorney in rural Georgia, was murdered by criminals later known as members of the Dixie Mafia. While I was reading a daily newspaper interview several weeks after the murder, I was surprised to find myself as a topic. My mother told a reporter that “(He) has his father’s gifts for words. Maybe one day he will write a book about it.” Nearly thirty years later, I did write the book. After the pain of that memoir, I turned to fiction, where I placed young protagonists coming of age who faced the corruption and murders of the rural south in the 1960s. 

G's book list on Southern rural crime

G Richard Hoard Why G loves this book

Stuart Woods's first book may be his best. Again, the setting of the book is rural Georgia, describing the terrain where I grew up and even mentioning the real cities where the fictional events took place.

I love the story because of my own growing up in small-town Georgia where my uncle was Chief of Police and other members of my family were attorneys. The flavor of the politics and how a murderer is discovered reminds me of the willful blindness and corruption that must take place for such perverse murders to happen. 

By Stuart Woods ,

Why should I read it?

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

What is this book about?

Stuart Woods’s Edgar Award-winning debut novel—a classic American mystery saga about three generations of lawmen tangled in a web of passion, secrets, destiny, and murder in their small Southern town...

In the winter of 1920, the first body is found in Delano, Georgie—the naked, brutalized corpse of a young boy. It is a crime too horrific to be ignored, the first of many that will span four decades—embroiling three police chiefs in a remarkable manhunt that will expose the hatreds, fear, and festering wounds beneath the surface of their sleepy God-fearing community.


If you love Mike Buffington...

Book cover of Everyday Medical Miracles: True Stories from the Frontlines in Women’s Health Care

Everyday Medical Miracles by Joseph S. Sanfilippo (editor),

Frontiers of Women from the healthcare perspective. A compilation of 60 true short stories written by an extensive array of healthcare providers, physicians, and advanced practice providers.

All designed to give you, the reader, a glimpse into the day-to-day activities of all of us who provide your health care. Come…

Book cover of Grace and Disgrace: Living with Faith and the Leader of the Dixie Mafia

G Richard Hoard Author Of The Missing Boys

From my list on Southern rural crime.

Why am I passionate about this?

I was only fourteen when my father, a District Attorney in rural Georgia, was murdered by criminals later known as members of the Dixie Mafia. While I was reading a daily newspaper interview several weeks after the murder, I was surprised to find myself as a topic. My mother told a reporter that “(He) has his father’s gifts for words. Maybe one day he will write a book about it.” Nearly thirty years later, I did write the book. After the pain of that memoir, I turned to fiction, where I placed young protagonists coming of age who faced the corruption and murders of the rural south in the 1960s. 

G's book list on Southern rural crime

G Richard Hoard Why G loves this book

I love the nonfiction book because Phil Hudgins tells the story of Billy Sunday Birt, who killed more than fifty people in the 1970s in Georgia before his arrest. I was intrigued by the honesty of Birt’s widow as she told of the fear she lived with as the true character of her husband unfolded and why she stayed with him because of the threats of what would happen if she tried to leave. I was also interested in how she tried to keep her faith in God as she learned more and more about the killings.

I love the book because Hudgins shows Birt's gradual dehumanization until a spiritual awakening in prison brings him to a recognition of the pain he has caused others. However, the awakening does not bring about the happy ending people might expect of such a story. 

By Ruby Nell Birt , Phil Hudgins ,

Why should I read it?

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

What is this book about?

Discover the power of faith and the human spirit through Ruby Nell Birt's inspiring memoir, which chronicles how one woman chose to "dance in a flood," work to provide for her children, and become a well-respected part of her community. 

Marriage will always have its ups-and-downs - but the valley that Ruby Nell Birt had to walk through was something no one should have to experience. 

Ruby Nell Birt was married to Billy Sunday Birt of Winder, Georgia - a man who authorities say killed at least 50 people between the late 1960s and 1974. Known as the deadliest man…


Book cover of Untamed: The Wildest Woman in America and the Fight for Cumberland Island

Jennifer Pharr Davis Author Of Becoming Odyssa: Adventures on the Appalachian Trail

From my list on women who love the outdoors.

Why am I passionate about this?

Jennifer Pharr Davis has covered over 14,000 miles - and explored trails on six different continents - and in all fifty states. In 2011 she set a record on the Appalachian Trail by covering 2,190 mile miles in 46 days (an average of 47 miles per day). Jennifer is a National Geographic Adventurer of the Year and a member of the President’s Council on Sports, Fitness and Nutrition.

Jennifer's book list on women who love the outdoors

Jennifer Pharr Davis Why Jennifer loves this book

Carol Ruckdeschel is one of the foremost naturalists of our time. The majority of her learning did not come from books or classrooms but from tens of thousands of hours spent outdoors studying animals and their environment. A book that leaves you feeling more wild.

By Will Harlan ,

Why should I read it?

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

What is this book about?

Carol Ruckdeschel is the wildest woman in America. She wrestles alligators, eats roadkill, rides horses bareback, and lives in a ramshackle cabin that she built by hand in an island wilderness. A combination of Henry David Thoreau and Jane Goodall, Carol is a self-taught scientist who has become a tireless defender of sea turtles on Cumberland Island, a national park off the coast of Georgia.

Cumberland, the country’s largest and most biologically diverse barrier island, is celebrated for its windswept dunes and feral horses. Steel magnate Thomas Carnegie once owned much of the island, and in recent years, Carnegie heirs…


Book cover of A Thousand Naked Strangers: A Paramedic's Wild Ride to the Edge and Back

Dave Horowitz Author Of Emergency Monster Squad

From my list on for and about emergency medicine.

Why am I passionate about this?

I am a paramedic. I like being a medic. Not so much because of the science and medicine related to the job, but I like connecting with people. People from every walk of life. I like the chaos and unpredictability of the streets. The books on my list portray what it’s like to be out there. Not just war stories. But stories of humility and grace.  

Dave's book list on for and about emergency medicine

Dave Horowitz Why Dave loves this book

A Thousand Naked Strangers is the definitive book about life on an ambulance. I’ve never read another book about this or any other topic for that matter, which made me think, “Yes! Exactly, you get me!” When anyone asks me—and they never do—what is it really like working on an ambulance? this is the book I point to.

Not only is A Thousand Naked Strangers full of great stories from the author’s time on the bus, but Kevin Hazzard, is also a journalist and it shows. This book is fast-paced, funny, and authentic.

By Kevin Hazzard ,

Why should I read it?

2 authors picked A Thousand Naked Strangers as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

A former paramedic’s visceral, poignant, and mordantly funny account of a decade spent on Atlanta’s mean streets saving lives and connecting with the drama and occasional beauty that lies inside catastrophe.

In the aftermath of 9/11 Kevin Hazzard felt that something was missing from his life—his days were too safe, too routine. A failed salesman turned local reporter, he wanted to test himself, see how he might respond to pressure and danger. He signed up for emergency medical training and became, at age twenty-six, a newly minted EMT running calls in the worst sections of Atlanta. His life entered a…


If you love A Conspiracy of Silence...

Book cover of Girl in the Ashes

Girl in the Ashes by Douglas Weissman,

Odette Lefebvre is a serial killer stalking the shadows of Nazi-occupied Paris and must confront both the evils of those she murders and the darkness of her own past.

This young woman's childhood trauma shapes her complex journey through World War II France, where she walks a razor's edge…

Book cover of Red Dirt Zombies

David A. Simpson Author Of Convoy of Carnage

From my list on zombies from someone who loves old monster movies.

Why am I passionate about this?

I’ve been an avid horror fan since staying up late and watching old monster movies on the television when I was a kid. Zombies were always my favorite and after reading hundreds of zombie books I thought I could write with a unique perspective. Drawing from years of military, trucking, and prepping experience, I wrote the Zombie Road series as a tale that offered more hope than doom and gloom. Most of the characters are based on real people so they have real personalities, real hopes and dreams, and real flaws. If you decide to read the series and want to be surprised by the story arc, don’t read too many reviews, just dive right in. 

David's book list on zombies from someone who loves old monster movies

David A. Simpson Why David loves this book

Pierce writes intelligent military zompoc because he’d been in the thick of things during the Rhodesian war. He knows a thing or two about writing battle scenes because he’s done a thing or two in real life. This story is different because it isn’t about a tiny group of survivors trying to make through the apocalypse. It’s bigger in scope and encompasses one governor and the national guard doing all they can to hold the line against the undead hordes. Intelligent writing and “believable” scenarios set this military thriller apart from many of the rest.

By Michael Peirce ,

Why should I read it?

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

What is this book about?

In the midst of a Zombie apocalypse and nuclear horror the libertarian governor of Georgia must impose martial law and act against her personal beliefs to enable the people of her state to survive. Ultimately new problems arise: mass insanity and almost universal PTSD. Virtually everyone is armed and suicides actually threaten human viability. In Georgia the National Guard, State Defense Forces and militia fight a series of desperate battles while the central government unleashed a frenzied and ill planned nuclear response that almost completed what the re-animates had failed to accomplish. With Washington buried in radioactive dust, US Army…


Book cover of White Flight: Atlanta and the Making of Modern Conservatism

Kyle Burke Author Of Revolutionaries for the Right: Anticommunist Internationalism and Paramilitary Warfare in the Cold War

From my list on the history of American conservatism.

Why am I passionate about this?

I’m a professor of modern US and global history at Hartwick College in upstate New York. I have been reading and researching the history of conservative and right-wing movements in the United States and the wider world for almost two decades. My first book, Revolutionaries for the Right: Anticommunist Internationalism and Paramilitary Warfare in the Cold War, was published by University of North Carolina Press in 2018. My articles, essays, and reviews have appeared in Jacobin, Diplomatic History, Terrorism and Political Science, H-War, and H-Diplo. I’m currently at work on two projects: a history of the transatlantic white power movement and a film documentary about the short-lived white supremacist nation of Rhodesia and its contemporary legacies.

Kyle's book list on the history of American conservatism

Kyle Burke Why Kyle loves this book

The rise of the right was in many ways a southern phenomenon as the Old South transformed into the Sun Belt. White Flight explores how white supremacy and fears over desegregation propelled the conservative movement in Atlanta and on the national stage. As federal initiatives spelled the end for segregation in the 1950s and 1960s, southern whites managed to preserve racial discrimination through more subtle avenues. Whites fled Atlanta’s urban core for its suburbs where they reformed the world of white supremacy, giving birth to new causes such as tax revolts, tuition vouchers, and the privatization of public services.

By Kevin M. Kruse ,

Why should I read it?

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

What is this book about?

During the civil rights era, Atlanta thought of itself as "The City Too Busy to Hate," a rare place in the South where the races lived and thrived together. Over the course of the 1960s and 1970s, however, so many whites fled the city for the suburbs that Atlanta earned a new nickname: "The City Too Busy Moving to Hate." In this reappraisal of racial politics in modern America, Kevin Kruse explains the causes and consequences of "white flight" in Atlanta and elsewhere. Seeking to understand segregationists on their own terms, White Flight moves past simple stereotypes to explore the…


Book cover of On the Edge

Tina Wainscott Author Of Until I Die Again (Love and Light)

From my list on to escape into another world.

Why am I passionate about this?

I’ve always been fascinated by things paranormal and supernatural. There is so much in the “real” world that we don’t understand and can’t prove their existence, but there is enough video and photos, as well as stories, that I don’t see how we can say there’s not more beyond our five senses. Many of my own books center on paranormal abilities and events, and I do love reading about them as well!

Tina's book list on to escape into another world

Tina Wainscott Why Tina loves this book

This is a second series for the writing team of Ilona Andrews. Though I do like the Kate Daniels series, like so many others, I liked the world here a little better. Each book focused on a different couple, and the two main characters felt real in a fantasy landscape full of nightmares and danger.

By Ilona Andrews ,

Why should I read it?

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

What is this book about?

Step into a whole new world in the first Novel of the Edge from the #1 New York Times bestselling author of the Kate Daniels series.

The Edge lies between worlds, on the border between the Broken, where people shop at Wal-Mart and magic is a fairy tale—and the Weird, where blueblood aristocrats rule, changelings roam, and the strength of your magic can change your destiny...

Rose Drayton thought if she practiced her magic, she could build a better life for herself. But things didn’t turn out the way she’d planned, and now she works an off-the-books job in the…


If you love Mike Buffington...

Book cover of Courting the Sun: A Novel of Versailles

Courting the Sun by Peggy Joque Williams,

Can a free-spirited country girl navigate the world of intrigue, illicit affairs, and power-mongering that is the court of Louis XIV—the Sun King--and still keep her head?

France, 1670. Sixteen-year-old Sylvienne d’Aubert receives an invitation to attend the court of King Louis XIV. She eagerly accepts, unaware of her mother’s…

Book cover of Ecology of a Cracker Childhood

Theresa Kishkan Author Of Mnemonic: A Book of Trees

From my list on plants and how our lives are woven with theirs.

Why am I passionate about this?

I grew up in a coastal landscape and aspired from childhood to read my way through it by knowing its plants. I once watched a master carver at work on a totem pole at a living museum and could relate the wood curls falling from his adze to the giant cedars growing at the site. As a university student, I worked in a botanical show garden, learning so much about the provenance of plants and what they tell us about geography, history, and beauty. These experiences, in childhood and early adulthood, formed my lifelong interest in ethnobotany, nomenclature, and mythology, explored through the lens of creative work.

Theresa's book list on plants and how our lives are woven with theirs

Theresa Kishkan Why Theresa loves this book

I am always grateful when a book introduces me to a place completely unknown to me. Janisse Ray’s gorgeous memoir does exactly that: southern Georgia's disappearing longleaf pine forests. Her introduction to this landscape is a gift to readers, who will yearn, as she does, for its regeneration after a century of exploitation.

Raised in a junkyard along a busy highway, this writer learned the land’s history through the stories of her parents and others; she learned the intricate ecology of the pines and their companion flora and fauna, almost lost to industry and greed. Lyrical and beautifully written, Ray’s evocations of complex plant communities linger in the mind long after you’ve finished the book.

By Janisse Ray ,

Why should I read it?

3 authors picked Ecology of a Cracker Childhood as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

From the memories of a childhood marked by extreme poverty, mental illness, and restrictive fundamentalist Christian rules, Janisse Ray crafted a "heartfelt and refreshing" (New York Times) memoir that has inspired thousands to embrace their beginnings, no matter how humble, and to fight for the places they love. This new edition updates and contextualizes the story for a new generation and a wider audience desperately searching for stories of empowerment and hope.

Ray grew up in a junkyard along U.S. Highway 1, hidden from Florida-bound travelers by hulks of old cars. In language at once colloquial, elegiac, and informative, Ray…


Book cover of Where the Crawdads Sing
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