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aaronj21's Reviews (912)
David Cullen’s non-fiction Columbine is something of a paragon in the true crime / non-fiction about real life tragedies world, a highly regarded example of how to write about a sensitive and terrible topic with empathy and journalistic precision. And after reading it I can well understand why, Cullen’s prose is immediate and urgent without being sensational it’s informative and meticulous without losing its narrative thread in the minutiae.
First, a note about the event itself. I took an active shooter training recently for work and the speaker told us to think back to a time before we were aware of threats like school shooters, to a time before we identified multiple exits upon entering somewhere new. For me that time never existed, or did sometime before I could remember it. I recall being in elementary school and hearing all about Columbine over and over again. I was always aware that my school could be a site of danger and devastation. This awareness only heightened over the years for obvious reasons.
But despite hearing about the event as a child and teen, I realized I knew little of the concrete facts of what happened. This struck me as odd so I read David Cullen’s book. Columbine was difficult to read; it certainly wasn’t fun or what I would call enjoyable. But the author did what he set out to do, his goal in writing, as far as I could tell, was to tell the complete story of the Columbine shooting, from planning, to the day itself, to the fallout and impact on individuals, families, and the nation. This aim was ambitious but it was (in my opinion) achieved. I wish all non-fiction titles were as comprehensive, as in depth, as this book was. The tragedy itself is given appropriate weight, but the author doesn’t neglect the aftershocks of the event, the way it changed the Columbine community and the nation, the way it has been remembered and misremembered ever since it happened. Indeed, Cullen takes care to point out numerous myths that surround the shooting, noting their origin and providing evidence debunking them. The killers idolized Marilyn Manson, their murder spree was the result of bullying, they targeted an evangelical Christian girl and murdered her when she professed her faith, all of these were things I had taken for fact but in reality are all incorrect, rumors with a long half-life.
This kind of journalistic rigor is what set this book apart for me. Far more than just a catalog of atrocities, Columbine places the events of the shooting in proper context while also making sense of the legacy this tragedy had on our country.
First, a note about the event itself. I took an active shooter training recently for work and the speaker told us to think back to a time before we were aware of threats like school shooters, to a time before we identified multiple exits upon entering somewhere new. For me that time never existed, or did sometime before I could remember it. I recall being in elementary school and hearing all about Columbine over and over again. I was always aware that my school could be a site of danger and devastation. This awareness only heightened over the years for obvious reasons.
But despite hearing about the event as a child and teen, I realized I knew little of the concrete facts of what happened. This struck me as odd so I read David Cullen’s book. Columbine was difficult to read; it certainly wasn’t fun or what I would call enjoyable. But the author did what he set out to do, his goal in writing, as far as I could tell, was to tell the complete story of the Columbine shooting, from planning, to the day itself, to the fallout and impact on individuals, families, and the nation. This aim was ambitious but it was (in my opinion) achieved. I wish all non-fiction titles were as comprehensive, as in depth, as this book was. The tragedy itself is given appropriate weight, but the author doesn’t neglect the aftershocks of the event, the way it changed the Columbine community and the nation, the way it has been remembered and misremembered ever since it happened. Indeed, Cullen takes care to point out numerous myths that surround the shooting, noting their origin and providing evidence debunking them. The killers idolized Marilyn Manson, their murder spree was the result of bullying, they targeted an evangelical Christian girl and murdered her when she professed her faith, all of these were things I had taken for fact but in reality are all incorrect, rumors with a long half-life.
This kind of journalistic rigor is what set this book apart for me. Far more than just a catalog of atrocities, Columbine places the events of the shooting in proper context while also making sense of the legacy this tragedy had on our country.
A compelling, well researched book that places the Oklahoma City Bombing in it's proper context of right wing political violence in America.
A wonderfully compelling, unique little nightmare of a story, quite unlike anything I've read in a while. I quite enjoyed the quick pacing and style.
What an interesting book! I never knew quite what to expect and was always pleasantly off balance but nonetheless entertained. This book was full of wit, humor, and heart.
When I read the excellent Camp Damascus by Dr. Chuck Tingle I was pleasantly surprised and genuinely impressed. When I finished Straight, and equally engaging, deliciously horrifying novella length treat, I was disappointed in myself that I had not read it sooner.
In Straight a mysterious astronomical anomaly in Earth’s orbit causes most of the human population to turn into murderous rage zombies for one day a year. This cosmic aberration only affects cisgender, heterosexual people though (hence the title) and the “Overwhelmed” as they’re called seek out and try to murder their queer friends and neighbors who are unaffected by the phenomenon, think The Purge meets 28 Days Later. In our novella, a group of queer friends decide to wait out this most dangerous day of the year in the seclusion of a rented cabin in the middle of the desert. I won’t veer into spoilers here because genuinely everyone should read this original and chilling little tale, but suffice to say there wouldn’t be much a book if things went exactly to plan.
In this work, as in Camp Damascus, Dr. Tingle evinces a genuine talent for sustaining creeping tension, creating memorable characters, and building a vivid and believable world with his words. Amidst all the horror, (and trust me there is plenty packed into this brief book), there’s also some genuinely thought provoking and incisive commentary on the queer experience. Ultimately this book is the best kind of horror story, chilling, memorable, and one that sticks in your mind long after the last page.
In Straight a mysterious astronomical anomaly in Earth’s orbit causes most of the human population to turn into murderous rage zombies for one day a year. This cosmic aberration only affects cisgender, heterosexual people though (hence the title) and the “Overwhelmed” as they’re called seek out and try to murder their queer friends and neighbors who are unaffected by the phenomenon, think The Purge meets 28 Days Later. In our novella, a group of queer friends decide to wait out this most dangerous day of the year in the seclusion of a rented cabin in the middle of the desert. I won’t veer into spoilers here because genuinely everyone should read this original and chilling little tale, but suffice to say there wouldn’t be much a book if things went exactly to plan.
In this work, as in Camp Damascus, Dr. Tingle evinces a genuine talent for sustaining creeping tension, creating memorable characters, and building a vivid and believable world with his words. Amidst all the horror, (and trust me there is plenty packed into this brief book), there’s also some genuinely thought provoking and incisive commentary on the queer experience. Ultimately this book is the best kind of horror story, chilling, memorable, and one that sticks in your mind long after the last page.
I’m going to make a confession, while I realize Anne Rice’s Interview With The Vampire was groundbreaking and had a major impact on fiction, I found it a bit dull and something of a slog to get through. The ideas were neat but sometimes the style was needlessly dense and Louis was a terribly annoying protagonist to spend the whole book with.
In my opinion Anne Rice’s books get better after Interview, I think she got better as a writer with time. The Vampire Lestat was pretty engaging and The Queen of the Dammed even more so. It feels like Rice really came into her own and started fleshing out the complex and intriguing mythology she began with her other books.
In my opinion Anne Rice’s books get better after Interview, I think she got better as a writer with time. The Vampire Lestat was pretty engaging and The Queen of the Dammed even more so. It feels like Rice really came into her own and started fleshing out the complex and intriguing mythology she began with her other books.
Any author attempting a single volume history of China has a gargantuan task. Not only is trying to pin down the history of possibly the longest continuous civilization on earth a tall order, new discoveries are being uncovered all the time and any book that goes to print is outdated before it even hits the shelves. In the face of such obstacles one almost wonders why historians keep trying it.
All of the preamble to say, books claiming to cover the whole history of China are trying something truly difficult so it’s very impressive when the resulting volume is good. Keay largely succeeds in his goal of covering the broad strokes of Chinese history. The narrative he spends is appropriately informative though necessarily of a summary nature. Really my only complaint with this book was that I’ve read another on the same topic which I think fulfilled the assignment better, Michael Wood’s The Story of China. Wood somewhat balanced the occasionally dry and sometimes cursory nature of his chapters by including translations of primary sources from the times he was covering. These lent an air of detail and humanity to something that might otherwise seem impossibly distant and academic, such as the Western Zhou dynasty.
All things considered this was an informative and relatively approachable history book.
All of the preamble to say, books claiming to cover the whole history of China are trying something truly difficult so it’s very impressive when the resulting volume is good. Keay largely succeeds in his goal of covering the broad strokes of Chinese history. The narrative he spends is appropriately informative though necessarily of a summary nature. Really my only complaint with this book was that I’ve read another on the same topic which I think fulfilled the assignment better, Michael Wood’s The Story of China. Wood somewhat balanced the occasionally dry and sometimes cursory nature of his chapters by including translations of primary sources from the times he was covering. These lent an air of detail and humanity to something that might otherwise seem impossibly distant and academic, such as the Western Zhou dynasty.
All things considered this was an informative and relatively approachable history book.