Susan Orlean

Hardcover (1 to 2 lbs)

Massachusetts

A REESE WITHERSPOON x HELLO SUNSHINE BOOK CLUB PICK A WASHINGTON POST TOP 10 BOOK OF THE YEAR * A NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER and NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK OF 2018 “A constant pleasure to read…Everybody who loves books should check out The Library Book.” —The Washington Post “CAPTIVATING…DELIGHTFUL.” —Christian Science Monitor * “EXQUISITELY WRITTEN, CONSISTENTLY ENTERTAINING.” —The New York Times * “MESMERIZING…RIVETING.” —Booklist (starred review) A dazzling love letter to a beloved institution—and an investigation into one of its greatest mysteries—from the bestselling author hailed as a “national treasure” by The Washington Post. On the morning of April 29, 1986, a fire alarm sounded in the Los Angeles Public Library. As the moments passed, the patrons and staff who had been cleared out of the building realized this was not the usual fire alarm. As one fireman recounted, “Once that first stack got going, it was ‘Goodbye, Charlie.’” The fire was disastrous: it reached 2000 degrees and burned for more than seven hours. By the time it was extinguished, it had consumed four hundred thousand books and damaged seven hundred thousand more. Investigators descended on the scene, but more than thirty years later, the mystery remains: Did someone purposefully set fire to the library—and if so, who? Weaving her lifelong love of books and reading into an investigation of the fire, award-winning New Yorker reporter and New York Times bestselling author Susan Orlean delivers a mesmerizing and uniquely compelling book that manages to tell the broader story of libraries and librarians in a way that has never been done before. In The Library Book, Orlean chronicles the LAPL fire and its aftermath to showcase the larger, crucial role that libraries play in our lives; delves into the evolution of libraries across the country and around the world, from their humble beginnings as a metropolitan charitable initiative to their current status as a cornerstone of national identity; brings each department of the library to vivid life through on-the-ground reporting; studies arson and attempts to burn a copy of a book herself; reflects on her own experiences in libraries; and reexamines the case of Harry Peak, the blond-haired actor long suspected of setting fire to the LAPL more than thirty years ago. Along the way, Orlean introduces us to an unforgettable cast of characters from libraries past and present—from Mary Foy, who in 1880 at eighteen years old was named the head of the Los Angeles Public Library at a time when men still dominated the role, to Dr. C.J.K. Jones, a pastor, citrus farmer, and polymath known as “The Human Encyclopedia” who roamed the library dispensing information; from Charles Lummis, a wildly eccentric journalist and adventurer who was determined to make the L.A. library one of the best in the world, to the current staff, who do heroic work every day to ensure that their institution remains a vital part of the city it serves. Brimming with her signature wit, insight, compassion, and talent for deep research, The Library Book is Susan Orlean’s thrilling journey through the stacks that reveals how these beloved institutions provide much more than just books—and why they remain an essential part of the heart, mind, and soul of our country. It is also a master journalist’s reminder that, perhaps especially in the digital era, they are more necessary than ever.

The Library Book

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Light Paperback (1 lb or less)

Pennsylvania

The Blooding

Robert Kolker

California

An Unsolved American Mystery

New York Times Bestseller Soon to be a Netflix film. The bestselling account of the lives of five young women whose fates converged in the perplexing case of the Long Island Serial Killer. Now updated, with a new afterword by the author. "Rich, tragic...monumental...true-crime reporting at its best."--Washington Post One late spring evening in 2010, Shannan Gilbert--after running through the oceanfront community of Oak Beach screaming for her life--went missing. No one who had heard of her disappearance thought much about what had happened to the twenty-four-year-old: she was a Craigslist escort who had been fleeing a scene--of what, no one could be sure. The Suffolk County police, too, seemed to have paid little attention--until seven months later, when an unexpected discovery in a bramble alongside a nearby highway turned up four bodies, all evenly spaced, all wrapped in burlap. But none of them Shannan's. There was Maureen Brainard-Barnes, last seen at Penn Station in Manhattan three years earlier, and Melissa Barthelemy, last seen in the Bronx in 2009. There was Megan Waterman, last seen leaving a hotel in Hauppauge, Long Island, just a month after Shannon's disappearance in 2010, and Amber Lynn Costello, last seen leaving a house in West Babylon a few months later that same year. Like Shannan, all four women were petite, in their twenties, and had come from out of town to work as escorts, and they all had advertised on Craigslist and its competitor, Backpage. Lost Girls is a portrait of unsolved murders in an idyllic part of America, of the underside of the Internet, and of the secrets we keep without admitting to ourselves that we keep them. Long considered "one of the best true-crime books of all time" (Time), this edition is now updated, with an afterword about developments in the case, including the shocking fate of Mari Gilbert, Shannan's mother, for whom this case became the crusade of a lifetime.

Lost Girls

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Georgia

An Extraordinary Life and Mysterious Death in Africa

With compassion and an unswerving regard for the truth, veteran journalist Mark Seal lays bare the deeply moving, inspirational story of Joan Root, a dedicated environmentalist and Oscar-nominated wildlife filmmaker. He covers her early days in Kenya as a shy young woman with an almost uncanny ability to connect to animals; her whirlwind courtship with the dashing Alan Root, their marriage, and the twenty years of nonstop adventure and passionate romance that followed, both in Africa and around the world; the shattering disintegration of the marriage and partnership; and Joan's triumphant struggle to reinvent herself as the protector of her lakeshore community's fragile ecosystem--a struggle that would lead to her tragic death in January 2006. Joan Root dreamed of a bright future for Kenya, a country blessed with unmatched beauty but scarred by decades of colonization and a culture of corruption. She spent her life fighting to make that dream a reality. Her life ended too soon, but "thanks to Seal's meticulous re-creation, her extraordinary life lives on." (People, four-star review)

Wildflower

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Jonathan Harr

Paperback copy with movie poster cover of A Civil Action by Jonathan Harr

Oklahoma

A young Boston trial lawyer is drawn into a case involving two industrial chemical plants and a cluster of childhood leukemia victims that is to encompass nine difficult years and bring him to near bankruptcy. Reprint. 100,0000 first printing. Tour.

A Civil Action

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Charles Graeber

A True Story of Medicine, Madness, and Murder

The mesmerizing basis of the movie starring Eddie Redmayne and Jessica Chastain⁠--a "stunning book...that should and does bring to mind In Cold Blood"--takes you inside the mind of America's most prolific serial killer, whose 16-year long "nursing" career left as many as 400 dead. (New York Times)   

 

Edgar Award Nomination, Mystery Writers of America

 

BBC (Top Ten Books of the Year)

 

"The best books I read this year" (top ten books, EW)

--Stephen King

 

"The Best Journalism of the Year.".

--The Daily Beast

 

"The most terrifying book published this year. It is also one of the most thoughtful...call it literary true crime..."

--Kirkus Reviews ("Best Books of the year")

 

After his December 2003 arrest, registered nurse Charlie Cullen was quickly dubbed "The Angel of Death" by the media. But Cullen was no mercy killer, nor was he a simple monster. He was a favorite son, a husband and beloved father, a best friend and a celebrated caregiver. Implicated in the deaths of as perhaps as many as 400 patients, he was also perhaps the most prolific serial killer in American history.

        When, in March of 2006, Charles Cullen was marched from his final sentencing in an Allentown, Pennsylvania, courthouse into a waiting police van, it seemed certain that the chilling secrets of his life, career, and capture would disappear with him. Now, in a riveting piece of investigative journalism nearly ten years in the making, Charles Graeber gives us the unbelievable true story.

        Based on hundreds of pages of previously unseen police records, wire-tap recordings and videotapes and interviews with whistleblowers and confidential informants, and years of exclusive jailhouse conversations with Cullen himself, the homicide detectives who worked against the clock and administrators to try and finally crack the code on Cullen's crimes, and Cullen's fellow nurse Amy, an overworked single mom asked to choose between protecting her friend Charlie and stopping a potential serial killer, The Good Nurse weaves an urgent and terrifying tale of madness, humanity and heroism. 

        Cullen's murderous career in the world's most trusted profession spanned sixteen years and nine hospitals. Time and again he was fired or allowed to resign. But Cullen continued to work and kill, shielded by a hospital system that, by accident or design, successfully protected the institution while failing to protect patients. THE GOOD NURSE is a searing indictment of a crushing and dehumanizing for-profit medical system, and an inspiring human story of the previously unknown individuals who chose to risk their jobs and lives to do the right thing. Mesmerizing and irresistibly paced, this book will make you look at hospitals and the people who work in them in an entirely different way.

The Good Nurse

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Paul Holes

Robin Gaby Fisher

Louisiana

My Life Solving America's Cold Cases

From the detective who found the Golden State Killer, a memoir of investigating America's toughest cold cases and the rewards-and toll-of a life solving crime.

I order another bourbon, neat. This is the drink that will flip the switch. I don't even know how I got here, to this place, to this point. Something is happening to me lately. I'm drinking too much. My sheets are soaking wet when I wake up from nightmares of decaying corpses. I order another drink and swig it, trying to forget about the latest case I can't shake.

Crime solving for me is more complex than the challenge of the hunt, or the process of piecing together a scientific puzzle. The thought of good people suffering drives me, for better or worse, to the point of obsession. People always ask how I am able to detach from the horrors of my work. Part of it is an innate capacity to compartmentalize; the rest is experience and exposure, and I've had plenty of both. But I have always taken pride in the fact that I can keep my feelings locked up to get the job done. It's only been recently that it feels like all that suppressed darkness is beginning to seep out.

When I look back at my long career, there is a lot I am proud of. I have caught some of the most notorious killers of the twenty-first century and brought justice and closure for their victims and families. I want to tell you about a lifetime solving these cold cases, from Laci Peterson to Jaycee Dugard to the Pittsburg homicides to, yes, my twenty-year-long hunt for the Golden State Killer.

But a deeper question eats at me as I ask myself, at what cost? I have sacrificed relationships, joy--even fatherhood--because the pursuit of evil always came first. Did I make the right choice? It's something I grapple with every day. Yet as I stand in the spot where a young girl took her last breath, as I look into the eyes of her family, I know that, for me, there has never been a choice. "I don't know if I can solve your case," I whisper. "But I promise I will do my best."

It is a promise I know I can keep.

Unmasked

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Rachel DeLoache Williams

Light Hardcover (1 lb or less)

The True Story of a Fake Heiress

Sex and the City meets Catch Me if You Can in the astonishing true story of Anna Delvey, a young con artist posing as a German heiress in New York City—as told by the former Vanity Fair photo editor who got seduced by her friendship and then scammed out of more than $62,000. Vanity Fair photo editor Rachel DeLoache Williams’s new friend Anna Delvey, a self-proclaimed German heiress, was worldly and ambitious. She was also generous—picking up the tab for lavish dinners at Le Coucou, infrared sauna sessions at HigherDOSE, drinks at the 11 Howard Library bar, and regular workout sessions with a celebrity personal trainer. When Anna proposed an all-expenses-paid trip to Marrakech at the five-star La Mamounia hotel, Rachel jumped at the chance. But when Anna’s credit cards mysteriously stopped working, the dream vacation quickly took a dark turn. Anna asked Rachel to begin fronting costs—first for flights, then meals and shopping, and, finally, for their $7,500-per-night private villa. Before Rachel knew it, more than $62,000 had been charged to her credit cards. Anna swore she would reimburse Rachel the moment they returned to New York. Back in Manhattan, the repayment never materialized, and a shocking pattern of deception emerged. Rachel learned that Anna had left a trail of deceit—and unpaid bills—wherever she’d been. Mortified, Rachel contacted the district attorney, and in a stunning turn of events, found herself helping to bring down one of the city’s most notorious con artists. With breathless pacing and in-depth reporting from the person who experienced it firsthand, My Friend Anna is an unforgettable true story of money, power, greed, and female friendship.

My Friend Anna

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John Berendt

New York

Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil

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Sam Stall

True Tales of Murder, Mayhem, and Minivans

Land of carpools and cul-de-sacs! Home to good schools and green lawns! An idyllic place where nothing bad ever happens--right? Right?Wrong. As David Lynch and Desperate Housewives have taught us, life in the 'burbs has a dark side--and Surburban Legends shows the worst of it. Here are 75 spooky tales of corpses buried in back yards, ghosts in department stores, UFO sightings, vanishing persons, and much more!

Suburban Legends

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#hardcover #nonfiction #fiction #truecrime #mystery #savannah #history #dustjackethascreaseonbottom 

Texas

Shots rang out in Savannah's grandest mansion in the misty,early morning hours of May 2, 1981. Was it murder or self-defense? For nearly a decade, the shooting and its aftermath reverberated throughout this hauntingly beautiful city of moss-hung oaks and shaded squares. John Berendt's sharply observed, suspenseful, and witty narrative reads like a thoroughly engrossing novel, and yet it is a work of nonfiction. Berendt skillfully interweaves a hugely entertaining first-person account of life in this isolated remnant of the Old South with the unpredictable twists and turns of a landmark murder case. It is a spellbinding story peopled by a gallery of remarkable characters: the well-bred society ladies of the Married Woman's Card Club; the turbulent young redneck gigolo; the hapless recluse who owns a bottle of poison so powerful it could kill every man, woman, and child in Savannah; the aging and profane Southern belle who is the "soul of pampered self-absorption"; the uproariously funny black drag queen; the acerbic and arrogant antiques dealer; the sweet-talking, piano-playing con artist; young blacks dancing the minuet at the black debutante ball; and Minerva, the voodoo priestess who works her magic in the graveyard at midnight. These and other Savannahians act as a Greek chorus, with Berendt revealing the alliances, hostilities, and intrigues that thrive in a town where everyone knows everyone else. Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil: A Savannah Story is a sublime and seductive reading experience. Brilliantly conceived and masterfully written, this enormously engaging portrait of a most beguiling Southern city is certain to become a modern classic.

James Patterson

Maxine Paetro

The 6th Target

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Iowa

Cruel Sacrifice

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#hardcover #truecrime #crime #drugs #nonfiction #deepcover 

Colorado

The Inside Story of How DEA Infighting, Incompetence and Subterfuge Lost Us the Biggest Battle of the Drug War

A twenty-five-year DEA veteran argues that mismanagement is costing the lives of agents

Deep Cover

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Investigating a massacre that took place in Guatemala in 1982, forensic anthropologist Temperance Brennan discovers that those events are linked to the disappearance of four girls from Guatemala City and the murder of a human rights investigator.

Grave Secrets

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#paperback #truecrime the book was published in 1991 but is in almost new condition minus a sticker on the front cover and a few lines along the spine from being read. 

Paperback (1 to 2 lbs)

New Mexico

The Truth and Lies of the Steinberg Case 

What Lisa Knew

#paperback #texasdynasty #murder #drama #truecrime #cullendavis

The True Story of the Richest Man Ever Tried for Murder

The co-authors of The Mormon Murders explore the murder trial of multimillionaire Cullen Davis, who killed two people at the Fort Worth mansion and used his power and wealth to protect himself from murder charges. Reprint.

Final Justice

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Ann Rule

Michigan

The Real Story of the Green River Killer - America's Deadliest Serial Murderer

Traces the serial murders of the Green River Killer, profiling Gary Ridgway as a happily married man who worked for the same company for thirty years, and discusses the DNA breakthroughs that established his link to the killings.

Green River, Running Red

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Karen Kilgariff

Georgia Hardstark

Hardcover edition of Stay Sexy and Don’t Get Murdered by Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark. 

⚜️ The dust jacket has some slight markings on the front and back
⚜️ The top and bottom of the cardboard has general wear
⚜️ Overall in very good condition
⚜️ Comes from a smoke-free home with one cat

Please be aware that this listing is cross posted.  

Feel free to message me with any questions!

Illinois

The Definitive How-To Guide

The highly anticipated first book by Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark, the voices behind the #1 hit podcast My Favorite Murder! Sharing never-before-heard stories ranging from their struggles with depression, eating disorders, and addiction, Karen and Georgia irreverently recount their biggest mistakes and deepest fears, reflecting on the formative life events that shaped them into two of the most followed voices in the nation. In Stay Sexy & Don’t Get Murdered, Karen and Georgia focus on the importance of self-advocating and valuing personal safety over being ‘nice’ or ‘helpful.’ They delve into their own pasts, true crime stories, and beyond to discuss meaningful cultural and societal issues with fierce empathy and unapologetic frankness. “My Favorite Murder started as a way for Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark to work through their fears. Now it’s a worldwide community.... Even its darkest moments are lightened by Karen and Georgia's effortlessly funny banter and genuine empathy.” —RollingStone.com

Stay Sexy and Don't Get Murdered

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#hardcover #nonfiction #truecrime #crime 

North Carolina

Prosecuting Casey Anthony

The prosecuting attorney for the trial of Casey Anthony offers an inside account of the investigation, explaining how the prosecution built their case and why the media fixation on Anthony may have undermined the case.

Imperfect Justice

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Ellery Lloyd

A Novel

A razor-sharp, wickedly smart suspense debut about an ambitious influencer mom whose soaring success threatens her marriage, her morals, and her family's safety. Followed by Millions, Watched by One To her adoring fans, Emmy Jackson, aka @the_mamabare, is the honest "Instamum" who always tells it like it is. To her skeptical husband, a washed-up novelist who knows just how creative Emmy can be with the truth, she is a breadwinning powerhouse chillingly brilliant at monetizing the intimate details of their family life. To one of Emmy's dangerously obsessive followers, she's the woman that has everything--but deserves none of it. As Emmy's marriage begins to crack under the strain of her growing success and her moral compass veers wildly off course, the more vulnerable she becomes to a very real danger circling ever closer to her family. In this deeply addictive tale of psychological suspense, Ellery Lloyd raises important questions about technology, social media celebrity, and the way we live today. Probing the dark side of influencer culture and the perils of parenting online, People Like Her explores our desperate need to be seen and the lengths we'll go to be liked by strangers. It asks what--and who--we sacrifice when make our private lives public, and ultimately lose control of who we let in. . . . --Samantha Downing, USA Today bestselling author of My Lovely Wife and He Started It

People Like Her

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Arizona

Becky Cooper

A Murder at Harvard and a Half Century of Silence

For readers gripped by In Cold Blood and I'll Be Gone in the Dark, We Keep the Dead Close is both a haunting true crime narrative of an unsolved 1969 murder at a prestigious institution and a lyrical memoir of obsession and love for a girl who dreamt of rising among men. You have to remember, he reminded me, that Harvard is older than the U.S. government. You have to remember because Harvard doesn't let you forget.1969: the height of counterculture and the year universities would seek to curb the unruly spectacle of student protest; the winter that Harvard University would begin the tumultuous process of merging with Radcliffe, its all-female sister school; and the year that Jane Britton, an ambitious 23-year-old graduate student in Harvard's Anthropology Department and daughter of Radcliffe Vice President Boyd Britton, would be found bludgeoned to death in her Cambridge, Massachusetts apartment. Forty years later, Becky Cooper a curious undergrad, will hear the first whispers of the story. In the first telling the body was nameless. The story was this: a Harvard student had had an affair with her professor, and the professor had murdered her in the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology because she'd threatened to talk about the affair. The professor still taught at the University. On the next telling a story begins to unfold, one that Cooper will follow for 10 years, one of gender inequality in academia, a 'cowboy culture' among empowered male elites, the silencing effect of institutions, and our compulsion to rewrite the stories of female victims. Though the rumor prove false, the story that unfolds, one that Cooper will follow for ten years, is even more complex: a tale of gender inequality in academia, a 'cowboy culture' among empowered male elites, the silencing effect of institutions, and our compulsion to rewrite the stories of female victims. WE KEEP THE DEAD CLOSE is a memoir of mirrors, misogyny, and murder. It is at once a rumination on the violence and oppression that rules our revered institutions, a ghost story reflecting one young woman's past onto another's present, and a love story for a girl who was lost to history.

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Save this search

Susan Orlean

The Library Book

Joseph Wambaugh

The Blooding

Robert Kolker

Lost Girls

Mark Seal

Wildflower

Jonathan Harr

A Civil Action

Charles Graeber

The Good Nurse

Paul Holes; Robin Gaby Fisher

Unmasked

Rachel DeLoache Williams

My Friend Anna

John Berendt

Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil

Sam Stall

Suburban Legends

John Berendt

Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil

James Patterson; Maxine Paetro

The 6th Target

Aphrodite Jones

Cruel Sacrifice

Michael K. Levine

Deep Cover

Kathy Reichs

Grave Secrets

Joyce Johnson

What Lisa Knew

Gregory White Smith; Steven Naifeh

Final Justice

Ann Rule

Green River, Running Red

Karen Kilgariff; Georgia Hardstark

Stay Sexy and Don't Get Murdered

Jeff Ashton

Imperfect Justice

Ellery Lloyd

People Like Her

John Berendt

Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil

Becky Cooper

We Keep the Dead Close

John Grisham

The Partner