s&d: True Crime! books

Watched The Cheshire Murders documentary last night. All recommendations OTM

we watched the first 40 mins of the cheshire murders doc earlier (don't know anything about the case other than ET's preceding post) but it didn't seem all that gripping, just an examination of an admittedly nasty case. is it worth watching the rest? no spoilers if there are any big twists and revelations please

WATCH

IT

GODDAMMIT

i mean if it doesnt grab you after that idk but cmon, at least watch it through

I loved it
Still trying to find a good book on the snowtown murders
Read some Robert keppel after the good nurse bc I guess I needed to hurt my brain some more

i bought masha geffen's book about the tsarnaev brothers, haven't started it yet though
i guess it's true crime?

The author was on Fresh Air a couple nights ago. Haven't heard all of the interview yet, but it's here (stream or download):
http://www.npr.org/2015/04/07/398061941/tracing-the-roots-of-the-brothers-and-the-boston-marathon-bombing

Also heard some of the discussion re Tsarnaevs during the first hour of WBUR's On Point this morning (not yet posted): incl. typological context; also somebody pointed out that there were almost no traces of the bombmaking, even though the flakey brothers seemed unlikely to have anything close to Unabomber skill sets. Possible that they were yer alienated loser textbook children *and* tools of conspiracy.

yup
i can't wait to learn the deets!

there's a masha geffen and a sasha geffen?

i guess so!

i kept wondering if her name was marcia or mosche (?) but apparently it's masha

masha geSSen

http://www.vanityfair.com/news/2015/04/the-brothers-masha-gessen-tsarnaev-brothers-book?mbid=social_twitter

She's a pretty great reporter, I'm looking forward to this. She's been writing about the verdict in the NYT, lots of interviews this week too.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/09/opinion/in-the-boston-marathon-bombing-dzhokhar-tsarnaev-verdict-but-few-answers.html

woops sorry masha!

I'd take anything Masha Gessen reports with a pinch of salt. Her brother Keith is excellent though.

So I just did something I've been wanting to do for a long time, which is create a spreadsheet of every book recommendation in this thread. I can't access Google Drive from work, but if someone wants to make this publicly accessible/editable, I will email it to you if you ILX mail me an address.

Also halfway through The Jinx. I like it, although I keep comparing it to The Staircase which I liked much better (obviously, if you happen to read through this thread gathering book titles and see the like 70 posts I posted about how great it is).

81 books mentioned by name. I pretty much put any book people said they were reading or said looked like something they wanted to read unless the person specifically un-recommended it.

sasha geffen should write true crime

Oh man I need to bump The Staircase up on our Netflix queue.

Yeahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh dude you really do.

what kind of pinch of salt?

Carl, I want to talk about the staircase with you, but don't wanna spoil it for anyone in this thread!!!!

ILX mail me!!!

this is a v troubling corner of tru crime - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fetal_abduction

I watched a Web of Lies show on the KY case.. 1 detail that I can't shake is that post-abduction (& murder obv) and before going to the hospital, the woman GOT A FRIEND OF HERS to take a picture of her w/ the baby (sitting behind the wheel of her car was the way the show restaged it) to post on facebook in order to make her ex think it was his kid to get him back, like delusions w/in delusions for this woman it was so sad

Update, The Staircase is apparently unavailable from Netflix, even on DVD? I swear it used to be on our queue.

re: fetal abduction - "Fetus abductions often happen at the hands of a friend"

Some friends.

the staircase is on tpb if anyone wants it. it was on youtube (i downloaded the files a few months back) but it's been deleted now.

looking forward to seeing the list, carl, nice work!

jesus murphy, that fetal abductions shit is fucked up

Yeah I watched all eps of the staircase on yt

Murder on A Sunday Morning, a doc by the director of The Staircase, is also on YouTube. Really good.

Here you go. It's editable!

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1IDauY2Ll7tceSnoE60V-OQdocFgI2wNJqWfuscqig_c/edit?usp=sharing

damn, nice work carl!!

you get the true crime gold star (possibly bone fragment, according to unconfirmed reports)

gold star under fingernail of vic

what kind of pinch of salt?

She is quite compelling at creating narratives but her reporting often has fairly basic factual errors. She also has a pretty challenging relationship with other writers on Russia, especially ones in the same field as her (anti-government, anti-corruption, etc, like Anna Arutunyan), which seems to be based on the idea that she's the only person who can be trusted to be infallible / honest and doesn't seem to lead to a lot of self-reflection. Maybe the Tsarnaev book is good though.

the tsarnaev book looks good - she emigrated from Russia as a teenager herself, speaks Russian, travelled around to get the family's back story before they came to the US. I wasn't aware of basic factual errors she'd made, though I see she's been in a bunch of feuds with other Moscow journalists.

xpost yeah she's one of them snooty Westernizing troublemakers, look out carl

thanks for the info -- good to know it's fairly minor inter-professional bickering?

i told some people about Sybil Exposed last night and I felt myself getting super excited about it. I wish there were a movie!

carl, i ilxmailed u!

I just wish there were a new Debbie Nathan book!

Xp

good to know it's fairly minor inter-professional bickering?

i really don't know - ShariVari seems more informed than me

finally got a hold of Raven: The Untold Story of Rev Jim Jones & His People by Tim Reiterman

It should surprise zero ppl to learn that he was a weird, creepy dude even as a teenager.

oh and I got McGuinn's recent Manson bio too, yknow for laughs :/

i had to return that to the library, didn't finish. not because it was bad but because i read too many books at once and finish none. but i am bad at returning books to the library on time and i'm afraid to even look at my fines.

can i just quit my job, get a dog, and read true crime books all day

god yes. i wish it was an employable skill

half the time i borrow three books, read half of one & quietly return them all in shame

but true crime like this i usually gobble up, feel confident that these will get finished

i need to add that i live 2 blocks from the library and i used cold weather as an excuse to not return books. the first day it was warm i did it but it was like 6 weeks late!

bought a bow saw to remove one of those awful "trees of heaven" growing unwelcomely from the side of my planter box and was thinking of THE JINX and his bow saw. as i stood in line forever at the hardware store i imagined an awkward conversation with the cashier about whether she had seen the jinx. i did not mention it.

the adversary is amazing btw. very novel-like in the best way.

Cashier: "Don't throw the body parts in the lake, remember they'll float!" (laughs)

Harbl: (laughs) "I won't! Whaddya think this is for?!" (points to bag of quicklime) (shared laughter)