cult

    The Hive by Gregg Olsen

    I’m not sure whether Gregg Olsen is inconsistent, or I am, but it sort of seems like I don’t know what to expect when I pick up one of his books. There have been some excellent ones in the true crime genre (If You Tell) but I have found the fiction titles (mostly in series) …

    Educated: a Memoir by Tara Westover

      Perhaps I should wait to write this, because I just finished reading it fifteen minutes ago and my head is still spinning. I scanned the reviews and found tons of 5-stars, and then several one-stars. I loved it, so I thought WTF? And then realized a few of those 1-stars were admittedly written by …

    Are You Sleeping by Kathleen Barber

    As a big podcast fan (admittedly sparked by Serial), I found the premise of this thriller intriguing: a hugely popular podcast has begun exploring the murder of a young woman’s father. The young woman is Josie Buhrman – who has changed her name and removed herself from the midwestern town where it happened, cutting herself …

    The Road to Jonestown: Jim Jones and Peoples Temple by Jeff Guinn

    I’ve been curious about Jonestown since the 1970s, finding myself fascinated in general about cults and repelled by the horror of Jonestown. I lived in Humboldt County, not all that far from Jones’s settlement in Ukiah, and we heard bits and pieces about the group (sort of like when we moved to Santa Cruz, hearing about …