Here are 100 books that Beneath a Ruthless Sun fans have personally recommended if you like
Beneath a Ruthless Sun.
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Growing up in Indiana and Illinois meant that Chicago has always been, for me, the cityāthe place where people went to make a name for themselves and took the world by storm. From my local Carnegie Library, I read voraciously across genresāhistory, science, literature. They transported me out of my small townāacross the universe sometimes. I learned that setting in fiction was for me a major feature of my enjoyment, and Chicago was where I set my own mystery series. These books, when I read them, explored that grand metropolisāand brought Chicago to life on and off the page. I hope you enjoy these books as much as I have.
It is a book that deep dives into a historical event, in this case, the 1893 World Columbian Exposition. Check. It is a nonfiction book that reads like a gripping thriller, in this case, the serial killer H.H. Holmes, who built a three-story building featuring secret rooms, torture chambers, and a crematorium.Ā Check. Chicago leaps off the page. By the end of the book, I was able to envision the massive exposition, its hundreds of temporary buildings, all white colored, interlaced with ponds and canals.
Much like that exposition helped raise Chicago up from its Great Fire, so I could see a Chicago of the past, in a glorious triumph of industry and innovation. Oh, and yeah, a serial killer constructing a horrific murder building.
The Chicago World Fair was the greatest fair in American history. This is the story of the men and women whose lives it irrevocably changed and of two men in particular- an architect and a serial killer. The architect is Daniel Burnham, a man of great integrity and depth. It was his vision of the fair that attracted the best minds and talents of the day. The killer is Henry H. Holmes. Intelligent as well as handsome and charming, Holmes opened a boarding house which he advertised as 'The World's Fair Hotel' Here in the neighbourhood where he was onceā¦
From the New York Times bestselling author of The Last CastleĀ and The Girls of Atomic CityĀ comes a new way to look at American history: through the lens of giving thanks.
Author Denise Kiernan tells the fascinating story of Sarah Josepha Hale, a widowed mother of five who campaignedā¦
As a writer, I consider myself lucky to be born and raised in the Deep South. Although I currently live near Los Angeles, I continue to draw upon the regionās complex history, regional color, eccentric characters, and rich atmosphere for inspiration. I also love to read fiction set in the South, especially mysteries and thrillersāthe more atmospheric, the better!
This classic is technically nonfiction, but it reads like a mystery novel as it follows the story of Jim Williams, an antiques dealer on trial for the killing of Danny Hansford.
Iāve read this book more than once, savoring John Berendtās lyrical prose and his brilliant evocation of the charm, eccentricityāand fearāone can find in Americaās most beautiful and haunted city: Savannah, Georgia.
Genteel society ladies who compare notes on their husbands' suicides. A hilariously foul-mouthed black drag queen. A voodoo priestess who works her roots in the graveyard at midnight. A morose inventor who owns a bottle of poison powerful enough to kill everyone in town. A prominent antiques dealer who hangs a Nazi flag from his window to disrupt the shooting of a movie. And a redneck gigolo whose conquests describe him as a 'walking streak of sex'.
These are some of the real residents of Savannah, Georgia, a city whose eccentric mores are unerringly observed - and whose dirty linenā¦
As a child in Oklahoma and Texas during the 1960s and 1970s, I remember being told two things: āOklahoma is OKā and āThe Eyes of Texasā were upon me. My grandparents and great-grandparents helped carve the new state of Oklahoma out of nothing within the span of only a few years. For a long time, I accepted the party line, but as an adult, I realized I wasnātāthe picture was incomplete. Underneath the inspiring tales of grit and heroism was something darker. Thatās a big part of what my writing is about.
My great-grandfather came to Oklahoma during the Run of 1893, the fourth of the five land runs that officially opened the state to white settlement. As a kid, I was spoon-fed, uplifting stories about the stateās founding while being kept in the dark about its bleaker episodes.
One of them was the theft by white men in the 1920s of oil rights owned by the Osage people of northern Oklahoma. A story of murder, theft, and betrayal, Grannās book made me angry about the lies I was told as a child, not to mention the injustice still showntoĀ Oklahomaās indigenous population.Ā
In the 1920s, the richest people per capita in the world were members of the Osage Indian nation in Oklahoma. After oil was discovered beneath their land, they rode in chauffeured automobiles, built mansions and sent their children to study in Europe.
Then, one by one, the Osage began to be killed off. As the death toll climbed, the FBI took up the case. But the bureau badly bungled the investigation. In desperation, its young director, J. Edgar Hoover, turned to a former Texas Ranger named Tom White to unravel the mystery. Together with the Osage he and his undercoverā¦
From the New York Times bestselling author of The Last CastleĀ and The Girls of Atomic CityĀ comes a new way to look at American history: through the lens of giving thanks.
Author Denise Kiernan tells the fascinating story of Sarah Josepha Hale, a widowed mother of five who campaignedā¦
I am a presidential historian with a particular focus on their deaths, public mourning, and the places we commemorate them. My interest in what I like to think of as āthe final chapter of each presidentās amazing storyā grew out of frustration with traditional biographies that end abruptly when the president dies, and I believe my books pick up where others leave off. More than a moribund topic, I find the presidential deaths and public reaction to be both fascinating and critical to understanding their humanity and place in history at the time of their passing and how each of their legacies evolved over time.
Candace Millard is an expert at the historianās craft. Her dramatic prose read more like a novel and captivated me from the first page.
I also appreciated how she elevated a previously little-known episode and widely forgotten president in American history, opening the door to consider how our national story could have been different had President Garfieldās full potential been realized.
She inspired me to become a writer and continues to inspire me to this day.Ā
NATIONAL BESTSELLER ā¢ The extraordinaryĀ account of James Garfield's rise from poverty to the American presidency, and the dramatic history of his assassination and legacy, from the bestselling author of The River of Doubt. Ā James Abram Garfield was one of the most extraordinary men ever elected president. Born into abject poverty, he rose to become a wunderkind scholar, a Civil War hero, a renowned congressman, and a reluctant presidential candidate who took on the nation's corrupt political establishment. But four months after Garfield's inauguration in 1881, he was shot in the back by a deranged office-seeker named Charles Guiteau. Garfieldā¦
As a lifelong journalist, Iām riveted by stories that dissect actual events. Nonfiction is my wheelhouse and Iām fortunate to have a related body of distinguished work. Over the decades, Iāve written for exceptional newspaper and magazine editors who taught me the craft of making reality not only engaging ā but also meaningful. Instead of ignoring the not-so-convenient truths ā details that might be swept away by a historical fiction writer ā I hunt for them. My coverage of inequities, hurricanes, and real estate scams has taught me: show, donāt tell. Any author who can take a mountain of interviews, details, facts and color and transform it into a thought-provoking story, they have my attention.
When I read Gilbert Kingās story of the ruination of four Black men based on charges they raped a white woman in the 1950s, I had to check Kingās background. He won my admiration for going from small-town newspapers and photography work to tell this epic story of Thurgood Marshall-style justice.Ā Ā
The story itself will rip you apart as the Southern sheriff āinterrogatesā these men in inhumane ways. I live just an hourās drive from where this all went down and I am so grateful to King for helping me better understand the depths of our warped system of justice. The fact the book won a Pulitzer shouldnāt be a surprise. The fact that it led the town of Groveland to posthumously exonerate the men should be one.Ā
* Winner of the 2013 Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction * Nominated for a 2013 Edgar AwardĀ * Book of the Year (Non-fiction, 2012) The Boston Globe, Christian Science Monitor
In 1949, Florida's orange industry was booming, and citrus barons got rich on the backs of cheap Jim Crow labor. To maintain order and profits, they turned to Willis V. McCall, a violent sheriff who ruled Lake County with murderous resolve. When a white seventeen-year-old Groveland girl cried rape, McCall was fast on the trail of four young blacks who dared to envision a future for themselves beyond the citrusā¦
My experience is derived from actual experience and my fight to survive. I found it within me to keep my wits about me and think, think, think about my surroundings and my assailant's movements and vulnerabilities. I waited for the one and only moment I would have to escape. Once free, I sought help and I told my story again and again until I found justice.
I ordered the book because the author was described as intelligent, honest, and hopeful. She had to be hopeful; I knew that from experience. She waited 30 years for her story to receive widespread attention. Mine remained archived for 20. For both of us, society had to evolve enough to address the subject in a meaningful way. Like me, she reveals the stigmas and assumptions about the crime and its victims that make recovery such a challenge.Ā
"What We Talk About When We Talk About Rape is brilliant, frank, empowering, and urgently necessary. Sohaila Abdulali has created a powerful tool for examining rape culture and language on the individual, societal, and global level that everyone can benefit from reading." āJill Soloway
In the tradition of Rebecca Solnit, a beautifully written, deeply intelligent, searingly honestāand ultimately hopefulāexamination of sexual assault and the global discourse on rape told through the perspective of a survivor, writer, counselor, and activist
After surviving gang-rape at seventeen in Mumbai, Sohaila Abdulali was indignant about the deafening silence that followed and wrote a fieryā¦
Men have always been attracted to young women, who possess a glow that their mothers have possibly lost. Girls are more vulnerable and impressionable and are more likely to believe what they are told. Their passionate desire to be loved, combined with their conviction that no one understands them, makes them uniquely vulnerable to predators. But there is another side to the story. Girls do not passively wait to be seduced or exploited. They thrill in actively testing their own sexual power and often put themselves in physical and emotional danger with no understanding of the long-term consequences of relationships where the power dynamic leaves them exposed to exploitation and abuse.
Itās a very clever, very funny novella about a talented literary editor,
Quin, told alternately in his own voice and by a long-term friend of
his, Margot.
Margot defends and normalises his behaviour towards women
until she is forced to reassess his actions in the light of numerous
accusations, all of which fall short of actual assault or rape, sex, or
even touching. Is he an abuser? Or is he just a playful, overgrown
manchild who thrives on emotionally intense and intimate friendships
with women?
I loved the book because it refuses to answer the question
definitively.
My experience is derived from actual experience and my fight to survive. I found it within me to keep my wits about me and think, think, think about my surroundings and my assailant's movements and vulnerabilities. I waited for the one and only moment I would have to escape. Once free, I sought help and I told my story again and again until I found justice.
Ā Lee Madigan, a clinical psychologist in Orange County, CA, specializes in treating victims of violent crime. She wrote her book after hearing repeating themes among her patients. I learned that the blame I was receiving, the adverse reactions I was experiencing, the microaggressions, were very common and not my fault. It helped me heal.
This text attempts to expose the blind, subtle betrayal of the rape victim by the perpetrators of the "second rape"- the police, medical and mental health workers and the criminal justice system.
The topic of mental health, which is prominent in all the books Iāve recommended, including my own, is one I am passionate about. As a neurodivergent person, I know first-hand how difficult the teen years can be. Not only are you dealing with the issues like friends, family, and school, but you are working with other factors that can make learning and socializing especially difficult. When I was a teen, I did not have books like these to guide me and let me know I was not alone in my feelings and struggles. It is my deepest wish that all kids have books, tools, and guides to help them.
I always say that you never know what goes on behind someone elseās closed door. How they appear physically and/or mentally in public doesnāt tell their whole story. Itās like social media. We only share the good parts of our lives. Everyone has secrets and fears and reasons they keep parts of their lives to themselves. The Way I Used to Beis a perfect example of why we should never judge a person without knowing them and why we should take the time to get to know a person, pay attention to changes in personality, and let them know you are a friend. We are all guilty of not taking the time and this book is a reminder to myself that I must be better than that.
In the tradition of Speak, this extraordinary debut novel āis a poignant book that realistically looks at the lasting effects of trauma on love, relationships, and lifeā (School Library Journal, starred review).
Eden was always good at being good. Starting high school didnāt change who she was. But the night her brotherās best friend rapes her, Edenās world capsizes.
What was once simple, is now complex. What Eden once lovedāwho she once lovedāshe now hates. What she thought she knew to be true, is now lies. Nothing makes sense anymore, and she knows sheās supposedā¦
I am a scholar of international human rights and comparative genocide studies. My father was a refugee from the Holocaust. So I was always interested in genocide, but I did not want to be another Holocaust scholar. Instead, I introduced one of the first university courses in Canada on comparative genocide studies. From a very young age, I was also very interested in social justice: I was seven when Emmett Till was murdered in the US. So when I became a professor, I decided to specialize in international human rights. I read a lot of āworld literatureā fiction that helps me to empathize with people in places Iāve never been.
This 1975 feminist discussion really opened my eyes when I was a young scholar to how pervasive rape is all over the world.Ā
Brownmiller discusses rape during war, during pogroms,Ā and during persecutions of various kinds. She focuses on sexual violence against Blacks during slavery, and against American āIndians,ā as they were then called.
She also discusses prison rape and sexual violence against children. She investigates the literature on the psychology both of rapists, and of victims of rape. Although much has changed since 1975, this is a classic that anyone interested in the history of feminism, or the history of rape, should read.Ā Ā
The bestselling feminist classic that revolutionized the way we think about rape, as a historical phenomenon and as an urgent crisisāessential reading in the era of #MeToo. Ā āA major work of history.āāThe Village Voice ā¢ One of the New York Public Libraryās 100 Books of the Century
As powerful and timely now as when it was first published, Against Our Will stands as a unique document of the history, politics, and sociology of rape and the inherent and ingrained inequality of men and women under the law. Fact by fact, Susan Brownmiller pulls back the centuries of damaging lies andā¦
