Here are 77 books that I'd Know You Anywhere fans have personally recommended if you like
I'd Know You Anywhere.
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I came to Montgomery, Alabama, in 1988 to serve as a law clerk for a prominent federal judge (played by Martin Sheen in the movie Selma). I was convinced that the death penalty could be justly administered, and seeing Ted Bundy’s final appeal did little to change my mind. Subsequent cases, however, slowly worked a change in my attitude as I saw an execution’s effect on everyone involved in the process. My passion comes from this behind-the-scenes look at capital punishment in America.
I was shaken to my core not only by Capote’s character study of two different yet partnered killers but also by his behind-the-scenes depiction of the death penalty process. For the first time, I began to see how capital punishment affects all those involved in its machinations.
The chilling true crime 'non-fiction novel' that made Truman Capote's name, In Cold Blood is a seminal work of modern prose, a remarkable synthesis of journalistic skill and powerfully evocative narrative published in Penguin Modern Classics.
Controversial and compelling, In Cold Blood reconstructs the murder in 1959 of a Kansas farmer, his wife and both their children. Truman Capote's comprehensive study of the killings and subsequent investigation explores the circumstances surrounding this terrible crime and the effect it had on those involved. At the centre of his study are the amoral young killers Perry Smith and Dick Hickcock, who, vividly…
It is April 1st, 2038. Day 60 of China's blockade of the rebel island of Taiwan.
The US government has agreed to provide Taiwan with a weapons system so advanced that it can disrupt the balance of power in the region. But what pilot would be crazy enough to run…
I came to Montgomery, Alabama, in 1988 to serve as a law clerk for a prominent federal judge (played by Martin Sheen in the movie Selma). I was convinced that the death penalty could be justly administered, and seeing Ted Bundy’s final appeal did little to change my mind. Subsequent cases, however, slowly worked a change in my attitude as I saw an execution’s effect on everyone involved in the process. My passion comes from this behind-the-scenes look at capital punishment in America.
I loved the balance between the anguish of the family of Gary Gilmore’s victims and his desire to be executed as soon as possible. I was moved by the desperate attempts of his self-appointed lawyers to delay his death, and I’m not sure I’ve ever answered the question for myself whether a killer’s wish to die should be respected.
Wouldn’t a life sentence be an even greater punishment?
In the summer of 1976 Gary Gilmore robbed two men. Then he shot them in cold blood. For those murders Gilmore was sent to languish on Death Row - and could confidently expect his sentence to be commuted to life imprisonment. In America, no one had been executed for ten years.
But Gary Gilmore wanted to die, and his ensuing battle with the authorities for the right to do so made him into a world-wide celebrity - and ensured that his execution turned into the most gruesome media event of the decade.
I have just written my twelfth novel and quite possibly my last. I’ve returned to where my heart is. My first five crime novels came about through the generous help of some undercover California wildlife agents. Now, in a sense, I’m back where I started, except that my latest book is also a love story. We make plenty of mistakes in life, some much worse than others. My characters deal with them in their own way. I can understand that, and I like that. And hey, there’s always the possibility of redemption.
I remember summers growing up when we were out of the house seeking freedom from parents as we streamed toward our teenage years, so I can identify with this story’s start. We’d follow deer trails through brush and trees to spots up in the hills we’d claimed as our own. This book begins with a prologue made vivid with three children and Tana French’s gorgeous prose.
The children go up and over a rock wall and into “A summer full-throated and extravagant in a hot pure silk skin blue…your tongue tasting of chewed blades of long grass, your own clean sweat…” “…long slow twilight and mothers silhouetted in doorways…” and the haunted last sentence, “These children will not be coming of age, this or any other summer.”
The bestselling debut, with over a million copies sold, that launched Tana French, author of the forthcoming novel The Searcher and "the most important crime novelist to emerge in the past 10 years" (The Washington Post).
"Required reading for anyone who appreciates tough, unflinching intelligence and ingenious plotting." -The New York Times
Now airing as a Starz series.
As dusk approaches a small Dublin suburb in the summer of 1984, mothers begin to call their children home. But on this warm evening, three children do not return from the dark and silent woods. When the police arrive, they find only…
A Duke with rigid opinions, a Lady whose beliefs conflict with his, a long disputed parcel of land, a conniving neighbour, a desperate collaboration, a failure of trust, a love found despite it all.
Alexander Cavendish, Duke of Ravensworth, returned from war to find that his father and brother had…
Growing up in theatre, I was completely immersed in plays, which tend to be deep dives of the human psyche, and I latched on to those examinations like a dog with a bone. I’ve always loved the complexities of the human mind, specifically how we so desperately want to believe that anything beautiful, expensive, or exclusive must mean that the person, place, or thing is of more value. But if we pull back the curtain, and really take a raw look, we see that nothing is exempt from smudges of ugliness. It’s the ugliness, especially in regard to human character, that I find most fascinating.
I’ve read this book no less than five times, and it remains one of my all-time favorite books. Tartt’s literary style of writing is not only beautiful in its own right but becomes a tool to enrich the story that surrounds all things literary.
The idea of an exclusive New England college where you have the luxury of unabashedly studying the classics and taking school breaks in Italy is my ultimate idea of luxury. Where do I sign up?! Taking it a step further, the fact that these academic outcasts are stone-cold murderers hits my sweet spot.
This juxtaposition of elevation and depravation pulls me in every single time. When I went to college, I initially wanted to study criminal psychology, and this book is a perfect example of why.
'Everything, somehow, fit together; some sly and benevolent Providence was revealing itself by degrees and I felt myself trembling on the brink of a fabulous discovery, as though any morning it was all going to come together---my future, my past, the whole of my life---and I was going to sit up in bed like a thunderbolt and say oh! oh! oh!'
Under the influence of a charismatic classics professor, a group of clever, eccentric misfits at a New England college discover a way of thought and life a world away from their banal contemporaries.…
I’m the author of the novel The Good Ones, published by Harper Books earlier this year. I grew up in a beautiful and somewhat isolated part of the country, the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia, and it’s still my favorite place to set my fiction. When I began writing crime fiction, I knew I wanted to balance telling compelling stories with creating a sense of place and interesting characters to inhabit it, and I’ve learned so much from these writers about how to do that.
I love all of Rebecca Makkai’s work, but this novel, published earlier this year, absolutely blew me away.
Makkai is adept at keeping the pages turning, but it wasn’t just the story of podcaster Bodie Kane and the murder of her high school classmate that drew me in as much as the atmosphere. The novel is set in a New England winter, and Makkai does a fantastic job of using the darkness and isolation of the season to create thematic resonance.
I’ve only been to New England a few times and don’t know it well at all, but this novel makes me feel like I’ve been there.
**A MOST ANTICIPATED BOOK FOR OPRAH DAILY, TIME, NPR, USA TODAY, BUSTLE, STAR TRIBUNE, GOOD HOUSEKEEPING AND MORE**
'Whip-smart and uncompromising' NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW
'Quietly riveting' IRISH TIMES
'It's the perfect crime' NEW YORKER
'Impressive and complex' GUARDIAN
'Addictive' OPRAH DAILY
The riveting new novel from the author of The Great Believers, finalist for the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award
A successful film professor and podcaster, Bodie Kane is content to forget her past: the family tragedy that marred her adolescence, her four largely miserable years at a New Hampshire boarding school, and the 1995 murder…
I’m the author of the novel The Good Ones, published by Harper Books earlier this year. I grew up in a beautiful and somewhat isolated part of the country, the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia, and it’s still my favorite place to set my fiction. When I began writing crime fiction, I knew I wanted to balance telling compelling stories with creating a sense of place and interesting characters to inhabit it, and I’ve learned so much from these writers about how to do that.
If I’d written this list a year ago, I probably couldn’t have found a way to include Megan Abbott, even though she’s one of my favorite writers.
Though setting is important to her work, it’s rarely given the place-based specificity we find in her newest novel, Beware the Woman, set in the wilderness of Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. I’ve vacationed in the UP and it truly is a wild place, the perfect background for this story of a pregnant woman spending an increasingly creepy week with the husband and father-in-law she’s not sure she can trust.
The woods that crowd around the family’s remote home seem threatening at first, but then come to offer the promise of escape from a domestic environment with its own set of perils. As in all these novels, setting is more than a scenic backdrop. It’s the world the reader lives in, and a crucial element…
By the "master of thinly veiled secrets often kept by women who rage underneath their delicate exteriors" (Kirkus Reviews), Beware the Woman is Megan Abbott at the height of her game.
Honey, I just want you to have everything you ever wanted. That’s what Jacy’s mom always told her. And Jacy felt like she finally did. Newly married and with a baby on the way, Jacy and her new husband, Jed, embark on their first road trip together to visit his father, Dr. Ash, in Michigan’s far-flung Upper Peninsula. The moment they arrive at the cottage snug within the lush…
The Duke's Christmas Redemption
by
Arietta Richmond,
A Duke who has rejected love, a Lady who dreams of a love match, an arranged marriage, a house full of secrets, a most unneighborly neighbor, a plot to destroy reputations, an unexpected love that redeems it all.
Lady Charlotte Wyndham, given in an arranged marriage to a man she…
I came to Montgomery, Alabama, in 1988 to serve as a law clerk for a prominent federal judge (played by Martin Sheen in the movie Selma). I was convinced that the death penalty could be justly administered, and seeing Ted Bundy’s final appeal did little to change my mind. Subsequent cases, however, slowly worked a change in my attitude as I saw an execution’s effect on everyone involved in the process. My passion comes from this behind-the-scenes look at capital punishment in America.
I love this book for confronting head-on the question of whether a reformed killer on death row should escape the death penalty. As a lawyer, I was frustrated by how the law sometimes stands in the way of justice, as seen by the protagonist’s desperate efforts on behalf of his client.
I also enjoyed the ongoing mystery of who else was guilty of the bombing at the heart of the novel.
#1 NEW YORK TIMES BEST SELLER • "A dark and thoughtful tale... Grisham is at his best." —People
In the corridors of Chicago's top law firm: Twenty -six-year-old Adam Hall stands on the brink of a brilliant legal career. Now he is risking it all for a death-row killer and an impossible case.
Maximum Security Unit, Mississippi State Prison: Sam Cayhall is a former Klansman and unrepentant racist now facing the death penalty for a fatal bombing in 1967. He has run out of chances -- except for one: the young, liberal Chicago lawyer who just happens to be his…
I came to Montgomery, Alabama, in 1988 to serve as a law clerk for a prominent federal judge (played by Martin Sheen in the movie Selma). I was convinced that the death penalty could be justly administered, and seeing Ted Bundy’s final appeal did little to change my mind. Subsequent cases, however, slowly worked a change in my attitude as I saw an execution’s effect on everyone involved in the process. My passion comes from this behind-the-scenes look at capital punishment in America.
I loved this beautifully written book for its depiction of how the death penalty worked in the Jim Crow South. I loved the compassion shown by the characters, both black and white, and the attempt by Gaines to reveal the complexity of crime and punishment in an era that may not be so different from our own.
As a law clerk in the 1980s in the Deep South, I witnessed the legacy of the system that Gaines describes.
NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARD WINNER • A deep and compassionate novel about a young man who returns to 1940s Cajun country to visit a Black youth on death row for a crime he didn't commit. Together they come to understand the heroism of resisting.
"An instant classic." —Chicago Tribune
A “majestic, moving novel...an instant classic, a book that will be read, discussed and taught beyond the rest of our lives" (Chicago Tribune), from the critically acclaimed author of A Gathering of Old Men and The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman.
"A Lesson Before Dying reconfirms Ernest J. Gaines's position…
My name is Cecilia Ruiz and I am a Mexican author and illustrator living in Brooklyn. Apart from desperately trying to make more books, I teach design and illustration at Queens College and the School of Visual Arts. I’m fascinated by visual storytelling and its evocative power. One of my idols, the French filmmaker Robert Bresson, says that art lies in suggestion. Bresson believed that things should be shown from one single angle that evokes all the other angles without showing them.All the books in this list do that—they show us death but they make us think about the mysterious and poetic ways in which life operates.
The photographs compiled in this book were all captured by Enrique Metinides, my favorite Mexican photographer.
Enrique worked as a crime photographer for over 50 years, capturing murders, crashes, and all kinds of catastrophes for Mexico’s infamous tabloids. This photo book is a great testament of Mexico’s palpable surrealism, where death is just one more component of the chaotic landscape.
Even though Metinides worked for the sensationalist press, none of the images in this book could be called that. His photos emanate an enormous respect for the victims and for tragedy itself.
The beauty of his shots do not romanticize the “real-life horror” that we are looking at. Rather, they remind us that sometimes, when in the presence of the devastating forces of life, there’s nothing else to do but be a humble spectator.
This book follows the journey of a writer in search of wisdom as he narrates encounters with 12 distinguished American men over 80, including Paul Volcker, the former head of the Federal Reserve, and Denton Cooley, the world’s most famous heart surgeon.
In these and other intimate conversations, the book…
I was a broadcast journalist for many years and I’m fascinated by the experiences of others doing that work. I love everything about it in my rearview mirror! From gossip about how famous newspeople behave behind closed doors to the nitty gritty of gathering facts to shaping a story–once it’s in your blood, it’s there for life. I’ve also spent a fair bit of energy defending journalism from people who are only guessing how it happens. Each of these books reveals a different but genuine reality about it. I hope you find them as compelling as I did.
Author Tamara Cherry found the words to articulate what so many journalists like me have felt and experienced while covering stories. She explores the question of whether reporters revictimize victims of tragedies. Not only that, but she also looks at the impact on the reporter, too.
I haven’t read another book that does this as well with so much data to back up her theories. I have also knocked on the door of a bereaved parent because a producer assigned it to me, and felt sick to my stomach, wishing I’d gotten into another line of work instead. We don’t have to do it this way and this book proves it.
A groundbreaking and thorough examination of the trauma caused by the media covering crimes, both to victims and journalists, from a respected journalist and victim advocate
In The Trauma Beat, an eye-opening combination of investigative journalism and memoir, former big-city crime reporter Tamara Cherry calls on her award-winning skills as a journalist to examine the impact of the media on trauma survivors and the impact of trauma on members of the media. As Tamara documents the experiences of those who were forced to suffer on the public stage, she is confronted by everything she got wrong on the crime beat.…
