I am interested in reading a compelling and impactful true story, preferably one that is emotionally challenging and thought-provoking. I appreciate books that are brutally honest and unflinching in their portrayal of events, even if they are difficult to read.
by togepi8888
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In Cold Blood by Truman Capote
It’s non-fiction but written like a story. Brilliantly done.
Beneath a Scarlet Sky was excellent.
https://books.google.com/books/about/Beneath_a_Scarlet_Sky.html?id=MiUqswEACAAJ&source=kp_book_description
Strength in What Remains
Know My Name – Chanel Miller
Caste – Isabel Wilkerson
Say Nothing – Patrick Radden Keefe
“From radical and impetuous IRA terrorists such as Dolours Price, who, when she was barely out of her teens, was already planting bombs in London and targeting informers for execution, to the ferocious IRA mastermind known as The Dark, to the spy games and dirty schemes of the British Army, to Gerry Adams, who negotiated the peace but betrayed his hardcore comrades by denying his IRA past–[this book] conjures a world of passion, betrayal, vengeance, and anguish.”–Dust jacket
I’ve been listening to *Killers of the Flower Moon*- I didn’t know the story, I went into the book completely blind. And just the sheer scale and audacity of the crime, bound up in the racism on the 1920s, is shocking.
There’s also *The Indifferent Stars Above*, about the Donner Party.
If you want a memoir, Jennette McCurdy’s *I’m Glad My Mom Died* is really brutal and sad.
In Kotkin’s Stalin biography the Russian february revolution is recounted and feels way too dramatic and weird to actually have happened.
I’m Glad My Mom Died by Jennette McCurdy
Hundred Years’ War on Palestine
*The Justice Game* by Geoffrey Robertson, a human-rights lawyer who discusses many important cases he’s been involved in, and the struggle for civil liberties (in the UK and in Commonwealth countries). Some of the cases were complex, some involved some very unpleasant people, some are actually rather funny.
*The Curious Case of the Mayo Librarian* by Pat Walsh is about small-town politics and religious bigotry in 1930s Ireland. It’s a well told story.
*The Bloodied Field* by Michael Foley tells the story of a massacre by British soldiers in Dublin in 1920, the leadup and the aftermath and the complex politics and ramifications.