Reddit mentions: The best true crime biographies
We found 4,248 Reddit comments discussing the best true crime biographies. We ran sentiment analysis on each of these comments to determine how redditors feel about different products. We found 1,473 products and ranked them based on the amount of positive reactions they received. Here are the top 20.
1. Wild Brews: Beer Beyond the Influence of Brewer's Yeast
- Brewers Publications
Features:
Specs:
Height | 8.69 Inches |
Length | 5.58 Inches |
Number of items | 1 |
Weight | 1.02735414092 Pounds |
Width | 0.77 Inches |
2. The Cuckoo's Egg: Tracking a Spy Through the Maze of Computer Espionage
- Brewers Publications
Features:
Specs:
Height | 8.25 Inches |
Length | 5.3125 Inches |
Number of items | 1 |
Release date | October 2000 |
Weight | 1.16183612074 Pounds |
Width | 1 Inches |
3. Solitary Fitness
- Blake Publishing
Features:
Specs:
Height | 8 Inches |
Length | 5 Inches |
Number of items | 1 |
Weight | 0.49824471212 Pounds |
Width | 0.7 Inches |
4. Flawless: Inside the Largest Diamond Heist in History
Specs:
Height | 9 Inches |
Length | 5.5 Inches |
Number of items | 1 |
Weight | 0.95 Pounds |
Width | 1 Inches |
5. The Devil in the White City: A Saga of Magic and Murder at the Fair that Changed America
Specs:
Release date | February 2004 |
6. Everything you didn't know about the Casey Anthony Trial
- Part Number: 39683
- Country Of Origin: United States
- Package Dimensions: 6.35 L X 6.35 W X 23.622 H (Centimeters)
- Package Weight: 0.567 Kilograms
Features:
Specs:
Release date | February 2018 |
7. The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair That Changed America
- Chicago Exposition
- Nineteenth Century
- True Crime
- Serial Killer
- Thriller
Features:
Specs:
Color | Black |
Height | 8.01 Inches |
Length | 5.23 Inches |
Number of items | 1 |
Release date | February 2004 |
Weight | 0.95 Pounds |
Width | 0.84 Inches |
8. The Open-Source Everything Manifesto: Transparency, Truth, and Trust (Manifesto Series)
Evolver Editions
Specs:
Color | Multicolor |
Height | 6.9 Inches |
Length | 4.2 Inches |
Number of items | 1 |
Release date | June 2012 |
Weight | 0.48060773116 Pounds |
Width | 0.56 Inches |
9. The Big Con: The Story of the Confidence Man
- Anchor Books
Features:
Specs:
Color | Black |
Height | 7.95 Inches |
Length | 5.2 Inches |
Number of items | 1 |
Release date | July 1999 |
Weight | 0.57540650382 Pounds |
Width | 0.72 Inches |
10. The Sword and the Shield: The Mitrokhin Archive and the Secret History of the KGB
- Three Rivers Press CA
Features:
Specs:
Color | Multicolor |
Height | 9.25 Inches |
Length | 6.125 Inches |
Number of items | 1 |
Release date | August 2000 |
Weight | 2.04 Pounds |
Width | 2.4 Inches |
11. The Puzzle Palace: Inside the National Security Agency, America's Most Secret Intelligence Organization
- Sleek MakeUP’s legendary i-Divine palettes are 12 shades of super-pigmented, longlasting, mineral based eyeshadow, designed to suit all.
- Ultra Matte Darks are creamy and super blend-able. Due to the intense colour, a little goes a long way. The browns, blues and purples ideal for contouring and creating intense eyes. The light creams and whites are also perfect for highlighting inner corners or your brow bone.
- The i-Divine palette contains pearlescent shades, which contain mica particles that highlight and illuminate giving an overall radiant effect.
- Store in a cool dry place. Not tested on animals.
- Sold in 1000's of stores across the globe, the product is developed in UK and manufactured in an ISO certified plant a
Features:
Specs:
Color | Black |
Height | 7.72 Inches |
Length | 5.11 Inches |
Number of items | 1 |
Release date | September 1983 |
Weight | 1.1243575362 Pounds |
Width | 1.48 Inches |
12. The Cases That Haunt Us
- 100M Water Resistant, 3-Hand Analog
- Day/Date Display, Bi-directional rotating bezel
- Accuracy: +/- 20 seconds per month, Battery: SR626SW
- Approx. battery life: 3 years, Module 5125
- Size of case / total weight: 47.9 x 44.6 x 11.6mm / 39g
Features:
Specs:
Height | 6.7499865 Inches |
Length | 4.1873932 Inches |
Number of items | 1 |
Release date | December 2001 |
Weight | 0.55997414548 Pounds |
Width | 1.0999978 Inches |
13. Killing Hope: U. S. Military and CIA Interventions Since World War II
- Polity
Features:
Specs:
Height | 9 Inches |
Length | 6 Inches |
Number of items | 1 |
Weight | 1.35 Pounds |
Width | 1 Inches |
14. The Number: How the Drive for Quarterly Earnings Corrupted Wall Street and Corporate America
- Stainless steel case; Brown leather strap
- White dial; Roman numerals; Date window
- Scratch-resistant sapphire crystal
- Swiss quartz movement
- Water resistant to 99 feet (30 M): withstands rain and splashes of water, but not showering or submersion
Features:
Specs:
Color | Yellow |
Height | 8 Inches |
Length | 5.2 Inches |
Number of items | 1 |
Release date | April 2004 |
Weight | 0.77 Pounds |
Width | 0.7 Inches |
15. Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil: A Savannah Story
Great product!
Specs:
Color | Multicolor |
Height | 7.94 Inches |
Length | 5.11 Inches |
Number of items | 1 |
Release date | June 1999 |
Weight | 0.66 Pounds |
Width | 0.77 Inches |
16. Behind Bars: Surviving Prison
Specs:
Color | Grey |
Height | 8.75 Inches |
Length | 0.5 Inches |
Number of items | 1 |
Release date | May 2002 |
Weight | 2.20462262 Pounds |
Width | 5.75 Inches |
17. The Hacker Crackdown: Law And Disorder On The Electronic Frontier
- ✅ Get An Extra-Durable Exercise Band Set: Our exercise bands have a robust and patented Snap Reduction and Safety Tech design. The reinforced inner safety cord increases the fitness bands’ durability and safety by helping to prevent overstretching and snapping.
- ✅ Durable Clips For Safe Attachment: Our resistance bands have premium patented clips with a no fade nickel finish and a custom closure. Unlike other brands, our clips stay in place and do not flop around when using them. The custom gate closure ensures that the Bodylastics resistance bands are securely anchored every single time, and are safer for fingers.
- ✅ Wirecutter Pick For Many Years Running: Our premium tube exercise bands are recommended by The Wirecutter, a highly respected news source.
- ✅ Workout With Easy Grip Ergonomic Handles: The upgraded, nonslip, sweat resistant handles for our exercise bands provide a firm, secure, and comfortable grip and help you make the most of your cardio, weightlifting, or strength-building workout.
- ✅ Long-Lasting Tube Resistance Bands: This workout set includes 7 premium workout bands of different resistance levels, 3lb, 5lb, 8lb, 13lb, 19lb, 23lb, 30lb, offering a total of 202lbs stackable resistance. Our resistance bands are crafted of 100% natural Malaysian Latex with a continuous dip method which creates a superior resistance band. Each band incorporates our patented Snap Reduction tech and are great for high-impact training.
Features:
Specs:
Height | 6.87 Inches |
Length | 4.17 Inches |
Number of items | 1 |
Release date | November 1993 |
Weight | 0.4078551847 Pounds |
Width | 0.85 Inches |
18. Jawbreaker: The Attack on Bin Laden and Al-Qaeda: A Personal Account by the CIA's Key Field Commander
- Politics
- Current Affairs
- Jawbreaker
- Gary Berntsen
- Ralph Pezzullo
Features:
Specs:
Color | Grey |
Height | 7.94 Inches |
Length | 5.15 Inches |
Number of items | 1 |
Release date | October 2006 |
Weight | 0.68784225744 Pounds |
Width | 0.8 Inches |
19. Boardwalk Empire: The Birth, High Times, and Corruption of Atlantic City
- Plexus Publishing
Features:
Specs:
Height | 8.499983 Inches |
Length | 5.499989 Inches |
Number of items | 1 |
Release date | August 2010 |
Weight | 0.89 Pounds |
Width | 0.6999986 Inches |
20. The World Was Going Our Way: The KGB and the Battle for the the Third World - Newly Revealed Secrets from the Mitrokhin Archive
Specs:
Height | 9.2 Inches |
Length | 6.2 Inches |
Number of items | 1 |
Release date | October 2006 |
Weight | 2.05 pounds |
Width | 2.1 Inches |
🎓 Reddit experts on true crime biographies
The comments and opinions expressed on this page are written exclusively by redditors. To provide you with the most relevant data, we sourced opinions from the most knowledgeable Reddit users based the total number of upvotes and downvotes received across comments on subreddits where true crime biographies are discussed. For your reference and for the sake of transparency, here are the specialists whose opinions mattered the most in our ranking.
The first problem you're going to run into is that no one (with good reason) wants to tell you what "works" because as soon as that becomes public knowledge, people will craft means and methods against it. There's absolutely no value to disclosing what works aside from for public relations. So understand that.
Books like this and this are great for grasping a bit of knowledge and getting a storyline, but don't share much about the nitty gritty. I've read them both, and though I have no experience in operations in the 40s-70s, I do with what Bamford speaks of and there's quite a bit of fearmongering there. Either way, it's helpful to find the perspective of what's trying to be done. These aren't people trying to trample your friends, it's people trying to find a balance between freedom and security.
A book like this is basically just a nice story. It's a few biopics in one and the writer clearly likes the people he's writing about, so he's extremely pretty sympathetic to them. Still good for motivations and perspective, though.
These two are extremely useful because they get into that nitty-gritty that I spoke of earlier.
But as I said, it basically comes down to the balance between freedom and security. If you- like a crazy amount of redditors and young people seem to be- are way way way more interested than freedom than you are security, you're never going to like what people in the IC do. And that's your preoperative, but it seems that many people that of that cloth usually live within a secure environment and just don't really worry about. It's easy to not give a shit about heavy jackets when you live in West Maui. Moreover, the craze that I've seen in reddit is just...amazing? So many people with so little experience of education in these things that insist they know just so much. These same people will flip shit if you wander into their area of expertise acting like you know what's up when you clearly don't but...if someone's talking about CIA/NSA/FBI/etc or even just international politics in general? Suddenly they're the expert. It's weird.
This is why I chuckle when people think the redacted portions of the 9/11 Commission Report somehow point to an inside job, letting it happen, or a vast Saudi conspiracy. The redacted portions were redacted because of classification, and things are classified to protect means and methods, 99% of the time. Sometimes technology is classified, but it's rare and I don't know much about that anyway.
Can I give you a list? Imma give you a list with a little from each category. I LOVE books and posts like this!
Non-fiction or Books About Things:
The Lost City of Z: In 1925, the legendary British explorer Percy Fawcett ventured into the Amazon jungle, in search of a fabled civilization. He never returned. Over the years countless perished trying to find evidence of his party and the place he called “The Lost City of Z.” In this masterpiece of narrative nonfiction, journalist David Grann interweaves the spellbinding stories of Fawcett’s quest for “Z” and his own journey into the deadly jungle, as he unravels the greatest exploration mystery of the twentieth century. Cumberbatch will play him in the movie version of this.
Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers: Hilariously gross and just super interesting. Her writing is like a non-fiction Terry Pratchett. Everything she's written is great, but this one is my favorite.
Devil in the White City: All about HH Holmes and his murder hotel during the Chicago World's Fair. Incredibly well-written and interesting.
The Outlaw Trail: Written in 1920 by the first superintendent of Capitol Reef National Park (aka, the area around Robber's Roost). He went around interviewing the guys who were still alive from the original Wild Bunch, plus some of the other outlaws that were active during that time. Never read anything else with actual interviews from these guys and it's a little slice of life from the end of the Wild West.
Fiction, Fantasy, Sci-Fi:
Here I'm only going to give you the less known stuff. You can find Sanderson (light epic fantasy), Pratchett (humor / satire fantasy), Adams (humor fantasy), etc easily in any bookstore. They are fantastic and should be read, but they are easy to find. I suggest:
The Cloud Roads: Martha Wells is an anthropologist and it shows in her world building in every series. She creates societies instead of landscapes. These are very character-driven and sometimes emotional.
The Lion of Senet: Jennifer Fallon starts a great political thriller series with this book. If you like shows like House of Cards or things where there's a lot of political plotting, sudden twists, and a dash of science v. religion, then you'll love these.
The Book of Joby: Do you want to cry? This book will make you cry. Mix arthurian legend with some God & Devil archetypes and it's just this very powerful story. Even though it deals with religious themes and icons, I wouldn't say it's a religious book. Reads more like mythology.
On Basilisk Station: Awesome military space opera. Really good sci-fi.
Grimspace: Pulpy space opera. Brain bubble gum instead of serious reading. But that's fun sometimes too!
There are actually a lot of diamonds, but just 20-30 % of raw-diamonds are usable as gemstones...70-80%, as mentioned, are used in other industries. Paths in underground mines or tunnels get drilled with tools, which have diamonds attached to them. Because of there density, they can cut through tones of hard rock.
There are two factors that determines the price of diamonds.
1. Quality
In the diamond industry they talk about "the 4 C's"
Color - pretty self-explaining
Clarity - how many (if any) impurities are visible? How pure is the stone?
Carat - how dense, big and heavy is the stone?
Cut - in which way was the rough diamond processed?
So, the "perfect stone" has to be in an orthodox color with no impurities, as big as an Orange and perfectly cut (preferably the "Heart and Arrows"-cut , which was invented in Antwerp...diamond capital of the world). To give you an idea, -0,1 Carat can mean 100-200 Bucks of lost value. Finding diamonds out of those 20-30 % where all C's are on the highest level isn't easy because they are rare...maybe not as rare as the diamond industry wants use to believe, but rare enough.
which brings me to the next point
2. Monopolization
All diamond mines on this planet are owned by just a few companies that have complete control over the market price. They can regulate the sale price by holding back these rough-diamonds, even though the demand for them are as high as ever ( supply DOWN + demand UP = price UP).
The rest of the industry (cutter, salesman etc.) doesn't mind neither, because they get rich as well. If the market would by flooded with rough-diamonds the price would decrease.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
If you want to lean more about the diamond industry I can recommend the Book "Flawless: Inside the Largest Diamond Heist in History" by Greg Campbell (author of "Blood Diamond"). It's manly about the biggest diamond heist in history made in Antwerp on February 15, 2003 (Loot: $108 million worth of diamonds). But besides that, it explores the diamond industry, gives insight into the Turin diamond Mafia ("School of Turin") and explains diamond trade in general. It is one of the most interesting books I red in recent memory.
Non-fiction. A lot of people seem to discount anything that's not fiction, on the grounds that it will be boring, 'hard', or extraneous to their lives. What's I've found is that I'll often pick up a book because I'm interested in a particular topic, and 'new' non-fiction often takes you into many other related topics, how they've influenced/been a symbol of that society, etc.
A few of the books that really stick in my mind are
The Devil in the White City: A Saga of Magic and Murder at the Fair that Changed America. I'd originally picked it up because I've got an interest in serial killers (yeah, I know), but all of the information about engineering, the history of the World's Fair, Chicago etc. was just fascinating.
Last Call: The Rise and Fall of Prohibition. It's supposedly about Prohibition, but it says a lot more about the political/religious climate of the U.S. from the mid-1800s on, ties prohibition in with women's rights, churches, gangsters etc. And it's a great read.
Pretty much anything by Jon Krakauer. A lot of his books are about 'individualism vs. society', but they cover a lot of ground. Into Thin Air is one of the best extreme sports books I've ever read, Into the Wild is incredibly sad, Under the Banner of Heaven was a very interesting look at Mormon-related culture, etc.
At Home: A Short History of Private Life is just interesting, accessible reading, that touches on everything from why we have closets to when the desire for privacy influenced house design.
Quiverfull: Inside the Christian Patriarchy Movement is ostensibly about a splinter fundamentalist group that started in the U.S., but eventually ends up touching on everything from PACs, to racism, education styles, women's rights, how Catholic/Protestant/Jewish/Islamic fundamentalists are coming to an accord on some fairly major issues, and how that's likely to play out.
And because I'm a Tudor history nut, Henry VIII: the King and his Court, and The Creation of Anne Boleyn: A New Look at England's Most Notorious Queen were both very interesting, and go well beyond the standard royal biography. I think that it's pretty awesome that so much new information and scholarship is turning up around facts that we've 'known' for centuries.
Pretty much anything by Nathaniel Philbrick or David McCullough.
Non-fiction is just great, especially right now. I think that we're in a bit of in a Golden Age of non-fiction right now, as there's a demand for it, and authors are making it more accessible and interesting than ever.
I've done two sours with some wild yeast I caught.
Hope that helps! Cheers and good luck!
Nice, if you are into morbid things, I recommend reading the mudraking stories of that exposition there are a few books regarding the racism (I haven't read it but some profs recommended it) or about one of the notorious serial killers that took advantage of that exposition, which is a really cool book.
As for the exposition itself, it was groundbreaking since it was one of the most grand expositions since the Crystal Palace at Hyde Park, London in 1851 (and it didn't spark a genre of literature such as with Crystal Palace and existentialist Fyodor Dostoyevsky). It also helped establish a Disney-esque feel to world fairs (such as the 1915 Panama–California Exposition in Balboa Park, San Diego) with grand, yet temporary, structures. But this sucks because most of the buildings at the Columbian were awesome even by today's standards and would have been kept to symbolize the city in the same fashion as Balboa Park and the Eiffel Tower, also temporary structures for the 1915 expo in SD & 1889 expo in Paris. You could argue that the ones kept from the 1964 New York and 1968 Hemisfair at San Antonio weren't that famous but they are location fixed landmarks. But I am glad that at least the Palace of Fine Arts and the World's Congress Auxiliary Building still stand (Art Institute & Museum of Science), and they are impressive to see when visiting them.
Arcadia Publishing did this good book (prominent among the olde timey historians) encompassing the exposition for us Millenials.
As for history itself, it is interesting to know which part you interests you. The whole length of human history is separated into many parts but most of what I focus on is with "late modern history" (Yes, 200 years ago is still modern to international historian standards) which begins after the French revolution and Industrial revolution.
Great to know you got your feet wet with history books!
I own two that I think are really good in the sense that they're really useful in examining the case, but I'm not sure if that's the 'good' you're looking for in terms of vacation reading!
If you want something entertaining, but isn't overly long and dry, you might pick up a book called 'The Cases That Haunt Us' by the "real life" Jack Crawford, John Douglas. That book has overviews of several different famous, unsolved cases, including an interesting section about The Ripper (link: http://www.amazon.com/The-Cases-That-Haunt-Us/dp/0671017063). This one is probably the best vacation reading sort of book.
If you don't mind something dry & academic, I like 'The Ultimate Jack The Ripper Companion' by Stuart Evans & Keith Skinner (link: http://www.amazon.com/The-Ultimate-Jack-Ripper-Companion/dp/0786707682). It's the only contemporary source material encyclopedia that I know of.
Finally, there's a book that sort of marries these two types called 'Complete History of Jack the Ripper', but Philip Sugden (link: http://www.amazon.com/Complete-History-Ripper-Philip-Sugden/dp/1841193976). Like the one above, this one is pretty long, but is written in a more accessible way.
If you have a tablet or other mobile device that you're bringing with you, you can always enjoy my favorite Ripper website, http://casebook.org/
For whatever reason Robert's reply isn't showing. For those interested this is his [unedited] reply:
[robert_steele]
The subtitle of my new book, please buy it at Amazon, is: Transparency, Truth, & Trust. Below are five links, first four graphics and then the book link:
Graphic: Epoch B Swarm Leadership
http://www.phibetaiota.net/2011/07/2010/09/2008/08/graphic-epoch-b-swarm-leadership/
Graphic: Strategy for a Prosperous World at Peace
http://www.phibetaiota.net/2011/07/2010/09/2009/07/graphic-strategy-for-a-prosperous-world-at-peace/
Graphic: Intelligence Maturity Scale
http://www.phibetaiota.net/2011/07/2010/09/2010/01/graphic-intelligence-maturity-scale/
Graphic: Open Source Agency Broad Concept
http://www.phibetaiota.net/2011/08/graphic-open-source-agency-broad-concept/
You know what I really want to do, until such time as the public is ready to fund the Open Source Agency and put me in charge of it? I want to go around the country doing talks and encouraging people to demand electoral reform and open source everything. Now that Togather exists, people can self-organize to invite me, here is the URL for my Togather page:
http://www.togather.com/robert-steele
THE OPEN SOURCE EVERYTHING MANIFESTO: Transparency, Truth & Trust
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1583944435/ossnet-20
[/robert_steele]
Where it all began: The Big Con: The Story of the Confidence Man by David Maurer
In the 1930s a University of Louisville professor interviewed many veterans of the great confidence games from the first generation of the 20th century. He published his observations in 1940, and his book became an immediate underground classic. It was especially influential in Hollywood, where writers mined it for years as source material -- most notoriously screenwriter David Ward appropriated huge chunks of the book for The Sting (Maurer sued and won a $300K settlement). But The Big Con had already been reworked for years, especially in the TV shows of Roy Huggins (Maverick, Alias Smith and Jones).
There are some great TV episodes about con men if you are willing to look for them (many clearly owing debts to the aforementioned Big Con). You should especially check out the Maverick "Shady Deal At Sunny Acres" and its semi remake on the Rockford Files, "There's One in Every Port".
Finally, the novel Addie Pray deals with less glamorous grifters in the Depression South. It was made into the film Paper Moon.
The subtitle of my new book, please buy it at Amazon, is: Transparency, Truth, & Trust. Below are five links, first four graphics and then the book link:
Graphic: Epoch B Swarm Leadership
http://www.phibetaiota.net/2011/07/2010/09/2008/08/graphic-epoch-b-swarm-leadership/
Graphic: Strategy for a Prosperous World at Peace
http://www.phibetaiota.net/2011/07/2010/09/2009/07/graphic-strategy-for-a-prosperous-world-at-peace/
Graphic: Intelligence Maturity Scale
http://www.phibetaiota.net/2011/07/2010/09/2010/01/graphic-intelligence-maturity-scale/
Graphic: Open Source Agency Broad Concept
http://www.phibetaiota.net/2011/08/graphic-open-source-agency-broad-concept/
You know what I really want to do, until such time as the public is ready to fund the Open Source Agency and put me in charge of it? I want to go around the country doing talks and encouraging people to demand electoral reform and open source everything. Now that Togather exists, people can self-organize to invite me, here is the URL for my Togather page:
http://www.togather.com/robert-steele
THE OPEN SOURCE EVERYTHING MANIFESTO: Transparency, Truth & Trust
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1583944435/ossnet-20
It's not too hard but it takes a long time to make traditionally. You don't typically drink a lambic straight, you drink a blend of old and young lambics like geuze or kriek. The lambics that are blended are typically one year old and two to three years old. As far as ingredients you use old or aged hops which have no aroma and little bittering. You don't need a barrel to do oak aging, you can buy oak spirals, cubes, or chips. The easiest way to get the desired microorganisms is probably just to buy something like Wyeast Lambic Blend. A lot of lambics also have fruit added. I'm sure there are shortcuts to make it easier or faster but I haven't done a ton of research into it.
I've never made one but I'd like to at some point, probably best to get started now and throw it in the basement to forget about for a couple of years. Check out Wild Brews if you're still interested.
I saw it when it first came out a long time ago. I remember reading about Mitnick from this book http://www.amazon.com/CYBERPUNK-Outlaws-Hackers-Computer-Frontier/dp/0684818620 so, I was really excited to see the movie, but It felt very 'made for TV' quality. Not nessecarily inaccurate, just treated more like a cop drama.
The book was very good, as was Bruce Sterling's http://www.amazon.com/The-Hacker-Crackdown-Disorder-Electronic/dp/055356370X
I emailed Mr. Sterling about hacking when I was in highschool, and he was one of the first people to suggest that I not take it too far, and instead work towards building things. I still follow that advice today.
Also, if you haven't read it yet, The Cuckoos Egg was a fun read http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0083DJXCM?btkr=1
It was that book that inspired me to work as a programmer for a university.
Good movies about hacking are few and far between, I'm afraid. It's all too easy to use Hacking as 'magic', and just make it rediculous.
Thanks for joining in and all the great questions! I'm going to wrap this up now but I may respond to a few good questions over the next few days. Good luck everyone with your Thanksgiving and holiday conversations this year... should be a doozy but a chance for us all to connect with loved ones on what matters most.
Let me leave you with a few links for further reading:
Christopher Andrew's "Sword and the Shield" - using historical KGB documents
https://www.amazon.com/Sword-Shield-Mitrokhin-Archive-History/dp/0465003125
Using humor to disarm disinformation:
https://youtu.be/uuKipN1aFd0
State Dept disinformation reports: 1994 baby parts
http://pascalfroissart.online.fr/3-cache/1994-leventhal.pdf
1987 AIDS report
https://www.globalsecurity.org/intell/library/reports/1987/soviet-influence-activities-1987.pdf
Learn to identify the 4D's of Russian propaganda: Dismiss, Distract, Distort, and Dismay
https://www.stopfake.org/en/anatomy-of-an-info-war-how-russia-s-propaganda-machine-works-and-how-to-counter-it
Active measures and disinformation is like "water falling on a stone" it's not any one crazy story, it's the accumulation that makes the hole.
https://youtu.be/ALfDhs-_ce4?t=20m50s
​
> Not because the CEO is gutting the company and giving himself raises.
Uh....thats' exactly what executives do. Equity gets issued to insider's (in the form of sweet options, warrants, etc), diluting the total shareholder base. That's why shareholders get pissed. Read this.
> Also public opinion, again, has absolutely zero (as it should be) effect on the CEO of a multi-billion dollar, major, international, oil companies, pay.
When did I say that? The public isn't outcrying...it's the shareholders. Did you even read the article? This is straight from the article:
Proxy adviser Glass Lewis said in a report that it remains “concerned by the disconnect between bonus payouts and financial performance and the bonus scheme structure more generally”. As a result, both firms recommended shareholders oppose the remuneration packages in a vote at Shell’s annual meeting in The Hague next week.
In fact, shareholders are becoming increasingly vocal over executive pay amid a time of a hard all in earnings and commodity prices.
There is no public movement! The bottom line is coming from very large shareholders.
Mark Cuban has been critical about CEO equity pay schemes and their allegiance to Wall Street and the chase for quarterly profits.
> There is a game played by CEOs with the corporate issuance of lottery tickets. Otherwise known as stock. Stock can be issued in any number of ways, shapes or forms. Warrants, options, restricted or unrestricted stock. No matter what you call it, every CEO hired, is asking for equity knowing that their only goal is to hit the jackpot and create a pool of wealth that puts them in the “fuck you” wealth category. Thats enough money to buy or rent just about anything you can think of and put you in position to never have to work again. You just live off the cash in the bank.
> The only possible way to change this is to put CEOs in the cash zone. Make companies generate 100pct of their compensation in cash that is 100pct expensable in the quarter paid. Thats not to say they cant own stock. Hell yes they can own stock. But make them buy it either on the open market, or as part of the programs that make stock available to every company employee, on the same terms. They are getting paid enough in cash and if they believe in their ability to run the company, they can put their money where their mouth is. Eliminate all the free lottery tickets. Make them buy stock, options, warrants, whatever, on the same terms as everyone else can.
So if you've ever seen the movie Bronson with Tom Hardy, it's based off of a real british prisoner who spent MANY YEARS In solitary confinement. I don't know about now but at one point he had the world pushup record of like 160 under a minute or something... anyway He published a book while he was in there called "Solitary fitness". I bought it last winter when I didn't have a membership anywhere and it actually worked very well. Since you already have dumbells and pullup bars you are in great shape, but he only had his cell and a chair I think and he's in amazing shape. Lots of great workouts in there when you don't have much to work with. https://www.amazon.com/Solitary-Fitness-Charlie-Bronson/dp/1844543099
That's your own fault – all of this has been documented and explained for years before Snowden started his data leaking. Someone that seems to be well-respected by lots of Snowden followers is James Bamford. Check out his books – any of them, but I'd start with The Puzzle Palace[1] – and you'll read about data collection programs that date back to Black Chamber[2][3] and analog recording of phone conversations through phone cable routers. Incredible books that I enjoyed reading, and anyone seriously interested in intelligence/security studies should read, too.
It's nothing new. Just because you didn't read the book doesn't mean it isn't out there. I wouldn't dare dispute that Snowden has given these topics a higher profile than they've ever had, but I would be equally reluctant to give him credit for exposing the existence of sophisticated data collection programs. It's an absolutely essential dialogue to have and I'm glad that the country is engaged in it, but Snowden is not the savior or intellectual that people are making him out to be.
Theft of art and antiquities if the 3rd or 4th largest black market industry in the world (it's difficult for experts to gauge...if memory serves, drugs and weapons are #'s 1 and 2 respectively; this type of theft is very close in $ amount to human trafficking).
Theft of this size is rare, but less rare with jewels than, say, paintings. A famous painting worth many millions of dollars is difficult to fence. Jewels, which can be removed from settings and cut, are easier to traffic.
You'd be amazed at how easy it is to steal extremely high value items like this. If interested, a couple great books to read are Hot Art, Flawless, or just about anything here.
That guy's (Cliff Stoll) a riot. Here's a .PDF link and here's an Amazon link.
I was at a security conference that he spoke at right after the book came out. He was the keynote speaker. I was with him and the organizer right before he was supposed to go on. Apparently he didn't know what 500 people sitting in front of a big stage looked like and once he saw it was refusing to go on. Organizer cajoles him into following through. There's a monster screen up (like most of the size of the entire stage opening) projecting his presentation from the back. He starts the presentation but noone can see him. Then you see this giant shadow on his presentation - he's presenting from behind the screen. The fantastic thing is he's got this Sideshow Bob hairdo so imagine the shadow. Anyway, he gets more comfortable as the presentation goes on and is kind of circling the screen sometimes behind sometimes in front on stage for the rest of the~~ stage~~ presentation.
Actually a brilliant guy and great presentation.
Edit: formatting.
Devil In The White City by Erik Larson
"In The Devil in the White City, the smoke, romance, and mystery of the Gilded Age come alive as never before.
Two men, each handsome and unusually adept at his chosen work, embodied an element of the great dynamic that characterized America’s rush toward the twentieth century. The architect was Daniel Hudson Burnham, the fair’s brilliant director of works and the builder of many of the country’s most important structures, including the Flatiron Building in New York and Union Station in Washington, D.C. The murderer was Henry H. Holmes, a young doctor who, in a malign parody of the White City, built his “World’s Fair Hotel” just west of the fairgrounds—a torture palace complete with dissection table, gas chamber, and 3,000-degree crematorium.
Burnham overcame tremendous obstacles and tragedies as he organized the talents of Frederick Law Olmsted, Charles McKim, Louis Sullivan, and others to transform swampy Jackson Park into the White City, while Holmes used the attraction of the great fair and his own satanic charms to lure scores of young women to their deaths. What makes the story all the more chilling is that Holmes really lived, walking the grounds of that dream city by the lake.
The Devil in the White City draws the reader into a time of magic and majesty, made all the more appealing by a supporting cast of real-life characters, including Buffalo Bill, Theodore Dreiser, Susan B. Anthony, Thomas Edison, Archduke Francis Ferdinand, and others. Erik Larson’s gifts as a storyteller are magnificently displayed in this rich narrative of the master builder, the killer, and the great fair that obsessed them both."
I really love the cover of my copy of Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil. It helps that this is one of my favorite novels...here is what it looks like though I have the hardback version.
I also really like the new line of Agatha Christie novels. They're a bit spartan and have a really lovely texture, as well. Since I collect vintage Agathas, I also have been buying newer copies in order to re-read them. The vintage ones are really fragile and I don't want to damage them further.
More info: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitrokhin_Archive
The other book is The KGB and the Battle for the Third World.
They are large books but trust me it is beyond interesting. Now this all took place before Putin took power, but Putin was the best of the best and was rising in ranks. He was so good that they placed him as Director of the KGB. He is the brains behind basically everything.
Hey, congratulations on the husband's new job! And welcome to RAoA, very cool that you're doing your first contest. :)
16 bucks an hour!!
I love both mysteries and true crime, so I'm going to link [this book] (http://www.amazon.com/dp/0671017063/ref=wl_it_dp_o_pC_S_ttl?_encoding=UTF8&colid=WF8NZ0PKFW15&coliid=I2F7D4AGX4CCJQ) about unsolved mysteries. I've read other stuff by the author, Mark Olshaker, and really liked his work, so I'm eager to read this one.
Thanks for the contest!
Big Bill of Chicago is basically a companion volume to Lords of the Levee -- by the same authors and covering the period under mayor Big Bill Thompson. Also rollicking good fun.
For more recent history, see Boss by Mike Royko -- an eviscerating portrait of the Richard Daley administration.
All three of these books, you'll note, are the works of journalists rather than academic historians, which means they're captivating and engaging stories by people who write with a joy and a sharpness you don't typically find among more academic works.
Not a history, but Devil in the White City is an excellent novel set in Chicago at the time of the World's Fair.
As for histories, Distant Corners and Soccer in a Football World constitute the definitive history of the sport in North America.
I'm just a netsec tourist, but I've found that SANS is a good resource. You can watch trending issues with good analysis at isc.sans.edu
I would also recommend The Cuckoo's Egg It's not very relevant technically to what you will be doing, but it's worth the read because it is a fascinating story, and you might garner some hints in terms of methodology.
To be honest I am in a similar spot as you right now. I am a 3rd year accounting student at university. I don't have any money to invest yet because my plan is graduating debt free, which I will. In another 2-3 years I will be ready to actually start investing and hopefully know enough to succeed.
That being said, my only suggestion is to learn and study over the next few years. You are young and don't need to rush into it before you are ready. Also my favourite book is The Number by Alex Berenson, I think it's a good book that teaches you some fundamentals before learning about different investment strategies.
http://www.amazon.com/The-Number-Quarterly-Corrupted-Corporate/dp/0812966252
oh I like your taste :)
For true crime, I recommend the best of the best, IMO... Helter Skelter
If you want to combine that with a little more history (not really fiction), try Devil in the White City
Murder mysteries, I personally like James Ellroy though I have heard complaints about his style from lot of people.
My favorite historical fiction is usually "alternate" in some way, but if you don't mine war stories, try these -- easily the best historical interpretation of the Civil War.
the only one I would have to look into or ask around for are the psych books... those aren't my usual fare :)
If you like historical fiction The Saxon Tales is some pretty good reading. https://www.amazon.com/Last-Kingdom-Saxon-Tales-Book-ebook/dp/B000FC2RR2#navbar
bonus the bbc is doing a series on them coming out soon. I find them compelling because I have dutch/wasp ancestry.
I also like nonfiction that reads like fiction. I highly recommend literally anything by Eric Larson. I'd start with Devil in the White City. Great true story about a serial killer operating during the Chicago World's Fair in the 1890s. https://www.amazon.com/Devil-White-City-Madness-Changed/dp/0375725601/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1467895439&sr=8-1&keywords=the+white+city
You said no sci fi but The Expanse series is some of the best reading I've ever had.
https://www.amazon.com/Leviathan-Wakes-Expanse-Book-1-ebook/dp/B0047Y171G/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1467895699&sr=8-4&keywords=the+expanse#navbar
Thanks for posting this...I didn't realize this group was still going. A few random thoughts in no particular order:
In my opinion, Grugq's view of "what cybersecurity was like in 2000" was grossly oversimplified and full of personal bias. Why? All the foundational documents that shaped the environment we're stuck with today were starting to take off as an outgrowth of the Revolution in Military Affairs which took hold in the US in the 90s. In other words, the government was always a lot more involved with this shit than he realizes--and "the game got weird" long before 2010.
Case in point, In Athena's Camp: Preparing for Conflict in the Information Age was from 1997, Dorothy Denning's Information Warfare and Security was from 1998, and Networks and Netwars: the Future of Terror Crime and Militancy was from 2001. The decade also saw the rise of Andrew Marshall's protégés in the form of Dick O'Neill and John Arquilla's Highlands Group, whose influence literally can't be overstated. Also of interest: watch some lectures from that time--Thomas A. Berson's "Sun Tzu in Cyberspace") from 1998 and "International Relations in the Information Age" from 2003. What's new on a theoretical level in 2015? I'd say somewhere between "not much" and "fuck-all". lol
My jimmies were thoroughly rustled at 9:40 when he claimed the US has no way of doing defense economic analysis like the PLA. Oh really? Bullshit, that's what the TS/SCI RAND Federally Funded Research and Development Centers (FFRDCs) and the National Intelligence Council are for. As for the subject of economic espionage and industrial collection, the US most certainly DOES have that capacity; IME it's largely been outsourced to private HUMINT collection contractor firms hired directly by Fortune 500 companies. Let's just say if you want to know more, get in touch with the private sector intelligence professionals' organization and start talking to people at their meetings: I can guarantee it will be one of the biggest eye openers you'll ever get.
Strategic and Competitive Intelligence Professionals (SCIP)
Speaking of intellectual property theft, everybody knows PLA cyberwarfare strategists straight-up RIPPED OFF the ideas of Andy Marshall's RMA theorists. If you don't believe me, read the seminal Chinese documents in this field alongside Arquilla and Cebrowski and notice the extreme degree of overlap:
INFORMATION WARFARE Senior Colonel Wang Baocun and Li Fei (1995)
THE CHALLENGE OF INFORMATION WARFARE Major General Wang Pufeng (1995)
INFORMATION WAR: A NEW FORM OF PEOPLE'S WAR Wei Jincheng (1996)
Also relevant: Chinese Intelligence Collection: An Introduction.
^^^.
Back to the topic, I don't think Grugq should have been so smug at @12:11 when he claims "Russians started hacking in 1989, NSA started hacking in 1998." What was his source on that, some National Guard junior enlisted who did six months at Ft. Meade? Did he not even READ the Puzzle Palace circa 1985 or Duncan Campbell's report to the European Parliament on ECHELON? Sure, the Black Chamber and Herbert O. Yardley were ass-reaming foreign diplomats in 1920, but nobody at NSA ever thought to hack a computer till 1989? Seriously? You really think so? Watch this archive of 90s computer security lectures and pay attention.
^^^.
"There's nothing exciting about cyberwar"--er? All I can say is just show up at a meeting here or here (and several other places) and have a drink with some old retired oatmeal-colored khaki-wearing engineer who looks like George Smiley. After they loosen up and start talking, "colorful" is an understatement. True fact: getting to know serious tool developers firsthand blew my tiny mind. Publicly-available book knowledge is one thing, but if you don't learn by talking to people who've been in this game longer than you've been alive, you're 100% vulnerable to Dunning Kruger. The longer I hang around old people, the more I realize in the overall scheme of things, I barely know jack shit about anything at all. Humility counts, and what's "common public knowledge" is at best a diversionary Mickey Mouse-level sideshow.
TL;DR: "Every man takes the limits of his own field of vision for the limits of the world." --Arthur Schopenhauer. As Herman Kahn would say, at least I know enough to know I don't know what I don't know. I came to this lecture expecting to learn something, but didn't. 4/10; what a letdown.
I honestly cannot wait for this movie. I've read the book at least 5 times and would highly recommend it to anyone.
Some people couldn't get through it since it's basically two stories in one that end up intertwining at the end. One is the actual process of obtaining the right to and building of the World's fair and the men involved with that. The other is H. H. Holmes story about how he ended up in Chicago.
I think Leo is going to be fantastic in this role. H. H. Holmes is a complex character to play and it takes the right actor to bring that alive.
Link To Book on Amazon
I have several good recommendations for this one. First I will give you two fiction books you MUST read if this subject is a real interest of yours.
Islands In The Net by: Bruce Sterling
https://www.amazon.com/Islands-Net-Bruce-Sterling-ebook/dp/B00PDDKVXK/
Neuromancer by William Gibson
https://www.amazon.com/Neuromancer-William-Gibson/dp/0441569595
For non-fiction the one book that really did it for me was again by Mr. Sterling it's called The Hacker Crackdown and it is so amazing!!
https://www.amazon.com/Hacker-Crackdown-Disorder-Electronic-Frontier/dp/055356370X
Good luck. PM for more recommendations if you need them. This is a genre I am very interested in myself and have read extensively.
If anyone wants to learn more about Holmes' story or just hear about things that were going on in 1898 Chicago during the planning of the World's Fair, I highly recommend Devil in the White City. Great read, 100% non-fictional, but it's written in such a way that it feels like a fiction thriller. Really anything by Erik Larson is great.
You may enjoy the cuckoo's egg.
It's a true story about a man finding a 75 cent accounting discrepancy and tracing it all the way back to the KGB. Reads like a thriller and besides Cliff Stoll is pretty funny.
http://www.amazon.com/The-Cuckoos-Egg-Tracking-Espionage/dp/0743411463
Note that kleinbottle.com is run by Cliff Stoll -- the guy of the Cuckoo's Nest fame, probably the most exciting book involving real-life computer hacking:
http://www.amazon.com/Cuckoos-Egg-Tracking-Computer-Espionage/dp/0743411463
Also, an amusing except from the "positions offered" page:
PENTIUM PROCESSOR. Must know all pentium processes, including preprocessing, postprocessing, and past-pluperfect processing. Ideal candidate pent up at the Pentagon, penthouse, or penitentiary. Pays pennies. Penurious benefits include Pension, Pencil. Pentel, Pentax, and Pentaflex. Write to pensive@kleinbottle.con
(did Stanislaw Lem write that job advert?)
i read an interesting book once called the big con which describes con artists in the beginning of the 20th century. one thing i found fascinating was how they had something like a code of honor, where they only conned people who agreed to help thim gain money by dishonest means. they didn't really prey on the weak or innocent.
If you're generally interested in police corruption in 20th century America, you may want to pick up The Big Con. It's an unusual book --- the author was a professor of linguistics who began studying criminal slang, got to know a bunch of con men, and wrote up a book explaining how these huge operations worked in the late 19th/early 20th century. These con schemes were quite elaborate, with a whole cast of players who helped fool the mark, and often a required a permanent home to function. That meant you needed a "fixer" to bribe the cops and ensure the game didn't get busted. Obviously the book is mostly about the con itself, but the discussion of the fix and how con men found places to operate touches on your interest. (Smaller towns and cities were much easier to fix than a huge place like NYC.)
Here's a link to what I have pinned at the top of the subreddit. The first link in that post is to my series. Here's my post about the remains being found. I also turned this series into a book, which fleshes it out more. I'm definitely more sympathetic to Casey than you are (I think it was most likely a drowning accident because she wasn't watching her), but I completely agree with you that all of the lies surrounding all of this crucial evidence made it difficult to parse out what the truth was. I agree with you that George was probably involved in the cover up and may very well have disposed of the remains.
If you want to read my book, I can get you a free copy.
> It doesn't matter whether Mary Lacy believed him or not.
Team Ramsey hired him.
I recently read the JBR chapter in his book
https://www.amazon.com/Cases-That-Haunt-Us/dp/0671017063
The Cases that Haunt Us.
I like John Douglas a lot, but this was written in about 2000 or so, and he makes some "deductions" based on his experience that turn out to be erroneous in retrospect.
As I recall, one was "strangulation before head injury", and I am pretty sure forensic scientists have determined it was head injury, then strangulation as coupe de gras. He made some assumptions based on his presumed sequence that I do not think fit.
>Edit: It was mentioned they put up a reward,
I think the reward kind of faded away many years ago?
Yeah, its pretty untold, except for this book which goes into great detail about the events of it. Quite a good read!
Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil!
http://www.amazon.com/Midnight-Garden-Good-Evil-Berendt/dp/0679751521/
Some of the wildest true characters out there, brilliantly described.
Also a pretty great Cusack/Spacey movie: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0119668/?ref_=sr_1.
https://www.amazon.com/Sword-Shield-Mitrokhin-Archive-History/dp/0465003125
https://www.amazon.com/World-Was-Going-Our-Way/dp/0465003133
Read these. I'm fascinated with Russian political history, especially in regards to the KGB, and these books are the best of the best when you want to learn more. They get into the deep specifics on why things are done the way they are done. Since Putin was the head of the KGB, you really get an idea on why and how he does specific things.
>You gotta have cited for 80.
Between attempts and successes it may actually be close to 80, but here are the successes:
>Iran (1953); Guatemala(1954); Thailand (1957); Laos (1958-60); the Congo (1960); Turkey (1960, 1971 & 1980); Ecuador (1961 & 1963); South Vietnam (1963); Brazil (1964); the Dominican Republic (1963); Argentina (1963); Honduras (1963 & 2009); Iraq (1963 & 2003); Bolivia (1964, 1971 & 1980); Indonesia (1965); Ghana (1966); Greece (1967); Panama (1968 & 1989); Cambodia (1970); Chile (1973); Bangladesh (1975); Pakistan (1977); Grenada (1983); Mauritania (1984); Guinea (1984); Burkina Faso (1987); Paraguay (1989); Haiti (1991 & 2004); Russia (1993); Uganda (1996);and Libya (2011).
http://www.alternet.org/world/americas-coup-machine-destroying-democracy-1953
https://www.amazon.com/Killing-Hope-Military-Interventions-Since/dp/1567510523/ref=pd_sim_sbs_b_3?ie=UTF8&refRID=064GA0M04G74H2S1MMKE
I don't know about you, but that seems like a shit ton of successful coups. No one does it better than the US.
I'm traditionally more into literary fiction, but I've been exploring non-fiction recently.
Currently Reading: 1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus
Recently Finished: The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America's Great Migration and Margaret Atwood's MaddAddam Trilogy
Next on the List: Either Guns Germs and Steel or Devil in the White City. Haven't decided yet
Devil in the White City- By Erik Larson A fantastic nonfiction that reads like fiction.
Anything by HP Lovecraft for a dose of Horror. I think the story, "Horror at Red Hook" and "Lurker in Darkness" have more of an adventurer GM theme to them than others. Fair bit of warning, when reading his stuff have a dictonary pulled up on your phone. Since it's older material there are a lot of anitquated words in there. Don't worry about learning every new word for future reference. Your brain will pick a couple.
My favorite collection.
I have used some history books about WWI and WWII to make campigns for Iron Kingdoms.
I'm a fan of varied mediums, if you haven't done graphic novels before, maybe look into one that could strike your fancy. Hellboy, Batman-The Long Halloween, most titles by Allen Moore, Superman-Red Son.
Also sneak some poetry in there. Even light stuff like Shel Silverstein was helpful to me. It helps you think of how to use words in new ways.
Edit: Formatting
Horse blanket/barnyard tends to be the descriptor. If you're unhappy with that, I see tons of other descriptors in that thread. I'm not sure what you're looking for.
horse blanket, musty, funky, crawlspace, and urine soaked hay (in a good way). Compost pile, funky, moldy, poop, manure. musty basement, barn, sweaty leather, musty hay, decomposing organics, Tack room, barn, hay, manure, plastic, damp soil., Pony quilt, maybe "forest floor" and "dirt" which people do say, 1) Cow pasture
2) Dairy farm
3) Cow manure
"Brett produces phenols.
Some give the clove and smokey aromas.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/4-ethylguaiacol
4-ethyl phenol gives the barnyard and horsey aroma.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/4-ethylphenol
Ethyl Lactate gives the furity aroma.
A compound called tetrahydropyridines gives a urine aroma (often termed mouse urine).
You can look those up. Some of you will not be convinced though.
If you are more interested read this book.
http://www.amazon.com/Wild-Brews-Culture-Craftsmanship-Tradition/dp/0937381861"
Here's a more scientific take on it by Aroxa, but I don't think that's what you're looking for either.
http://www.aroxa.com/cider/cider-flavour-standard/4-ethyl-phenol/
Hope you find better descriptors. Please post if you do.
http://www.amazon.com/Number-Quarterly-Earnings-Corrupted-Corporate/dp/0812966252
http://www.amazon.com/Bogleheads-Guide-Investing-Taylor-Larimore/dp/0470067365
Both are amazing.
"Knowing what I do now, if at age 21 I'd had my choice of $2,000,000 or the wisdom to understand the concepts in this book, I'd choose wisdom. "
is that show pretty true to the story? great book on this guy btw, devil in the white city
Charles Bronson's Solitary Fitness is the shit. I've been using it religiously for over 9 months and I feel stronger than I have in years. Gyms are completely unnecessary for strength training.
A quick browse of my bookshelf and the ones that jumped out at me... some nonfiction, some fiction... some light, some heavy...
The Culture of Contentment by John Galbraith
Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte
Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad
Pimp by Iceberg Slim
The Naked Ape by Desmond Morris
Bloom County Babylon by Berkeley Breathed
Frankenstein by Mary Shelley
The Alchemist by Paulo Coehlo
Turned On: A Biography of Henry Rollins by James Parker
Devil in the White City by Erik Larson
Beyond that, my most prized book is my hardback Norton Anthology of English Lit (2nd vol - the 'modern' stuff).
Thanks for the trip down memory lane! I'm def curling up with a good one when I hit the hay!
A picture of a Klein bottle with the famous Cliff Stoll in the background. Stoll now makes these things and sells 'em off kleinbottle.com.
If you like international spying, crime, and hacking, the man went for a pretty amazing real-life adventure and wrote a book about it (which is a fun, lighthearted read).
Stoll also has a nice description of the mathematical significance of Klein bottles.
Can't say I've read much horror fiction, but a good/terrifying (all the while tragic) tale is the true story of The Devil in the White City. I really enjoy anything by Poe and Ayn Rand. Randomly, I'd recommend A Passage to India by E.M. Forster or One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest by Ken Kesey 🖤.
I found this book great for a solution that could replace our current economic and political systems:
http://www.amazon.com/Open-Source-Everything-Manifesto-Transparency-Truth/dp/1583944435/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1406124471&sr=1-1&keywords=steele+open+source
This book is great as well. It is, Ray Kurzweil, explaining how the human brainn function as he attempts to reverse engineer it for Google in order to create an AI.
http://www.amazon.com/How-Create-Mind-Thought-Revealed/dp/0143124048/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1406124597&sr=1-1&keywords=kurzweil
I'm not sure if this will help you, but consider grabbing the book Boardwalk Empire: The Birth, High Times, and Corruption of Atlantic City. I found that learning the actual history that the show is based on was fascinating, and helped me to enjoy the show that much more.
JAWBREAKER was good as well.
I enjoined how this CIA guy on Sept 12 or 13 goes into an REI in Virginia with his CIA credit card and buys all his gear.... pretty wild.
The book also spends close to 50% of its time discussing Louis Sullivan and the politics/architecture of the 1893 Chicago World's Fair. Those chapters can be dry, but they hold a ton of cool information. That is one of those crossroads of history events that saw people like Wild Bill, Thomas Edison, and other huge names of history come together.
The chapters about Holmes and his house are haunting. Just worth noting that it is not only about HH Holmes; don't want people to be put off by the other content.
Get it here!
Here are all the local Amazon links I could find:
amazon.com
amazon.co.uk
amazon.ca
amazon.com.au
amazon.in
amazon.com.mx
amazon.de
amazon.it
amazon.es
amazon.com.br
amazon.nl
amazon.co.jp
amazon.fr
Beep bloop. I'm a bot to convert Amazon ebook links to local Amazon sites.
I currently look here: amazon.com, amazon.co.uk, amazon.ca, amazon.com.au, amazon.in, amazon.com.mx, amazon.de, amazon.it, amazon.es, amazon.com.br, amazon.nl, amazon.co.jp, amazon.fr, if you would like your local version of Amazon adding please contact my creator.
Yes I agree. Ive been reading a book called The Open-Source Everything Manifesto by Robert David Steele whos trying to lay the groundwork for a new type of governance. Its a radically different approach and idea but it covers the bases well on whats actually happening (clear definitions of why and how corruption happens and solutions to it in governance). You might like it:
http://www.amazon.com/The-Open-Source-Everything-Manifesto-Transparency/dp/1583944435
There is a book that the show was based on, but I was largely disappointed because the era the show takes place in was only one or two chapters.
This is the book:
Boardwalk Empire: The Birth, High Times, and Corruption of Atlantic City https://www.amazon.com/dp/0966674863/ref=cm_sw_r_awd_5pqwub1CSBS85
This is a book about Lucky Luciano that I especially liked. It's mostly about his life but talks about his association with Meyer Lansky too, as that was a big part of his life. (In paperback it was called Boardwalk Gangster: The Real Lucky Luciano)
Lucky Luciano: The Real and the Fake Gangster https://www.amazon.com/dp/0312601824/ref=cm_sw_r_awd_Wnqwub0C9QY5P
This is a book about Arnold Rothstein that I really enjoyed too.
Rothstein: The Life, Times, and Murder of the Criminal Genius Who Fixed the 1919 World Series https://www.amazon.com/dp/0465029388/ref=cm_sw_r_awd_quqwub0XWB3GD
I haven't read any books about Capone- yet. I read a book about Frank Nitti that talks a lot about Capone though. I can look it up if you're interested.
Unfortunately I haven't found a book about everybody involved in the show. I wish that somebody would write a couple of novels about the seven years between season four and season five. Even though they'd be largely fictional due to Nucky's life being fictional in the show they could be VERY interesting, I think.
I love reading nonfiction books, thanks to a college professor that required us to read two of them for a class. Never realized how interesting they actually are!
After reading The Lost City of Z I have also read Black Hills and am currently reading The Devil in the White City. It's great! Check it out if you want to read about "Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair that Changed America".......http://www.amazon.com/The-Devil-White-City-Madness/dp/0375725601/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1341154254&sr=8-1&keywords=devil+in+the+white+city
Edit: Guess I should say that I love reading nonfiction books that are told in a fictional style.
Books are an excellent gift idea. I would also recommend Wild Brews
According to modern books on art theft e.g. FBI agent Robert K. Wittman's memoir and journalistic research into famous modern art heists, the answer is probably not, at least as far as art crime goes. While there appears to be evidence that there are criminal gangs who specialize in dealing with stolen art, it's extremely unlikely that their operations are being bankrolled by a secretive, wealthy benefactor who hides away his stolen treasures for private use. There is one book called Stolen Masterpiece Tracker by a retired FBI agent named Thomas McShane which claims that almost every art theft ever is absolutely ordered by some rich person who hires a team of criminals, however he offers absolutely no evidence to support this and quite frankly the rest of the book makes him sound like a bit of a loony old man so I can't say I trust what he says (not a terrible read if you're really interested in the topic though).
The boring truth is that, as far as we can tell, most art is stolen as a type of black market collateral or bearer bond. Valuable paintings and other artworks are often bartered for drugs, held as collateral on loans between groups, and sometimes used like retirement funds for career criminals. I can't recall which exact painting it was, but a few years ago I was reading a news article, and one of the works listed in Museum of the Missing was found practically by accident when police raided an apartment looking for a suitcase of drugs, only to find that the case had already been exchanged for the stolen painting.
The laws in various countries for the statute of limitations and ownership also make using pieces as long term investments reasonably practical. If a thief can steal a painting and successfully hide it from law enforcement for the period outlined by the law, they can legally claim themselves as the rightful owners of that piece, even if they were convicted and served time for its theft. This often ends up being a few decades but nonetheless, for someone who has no legal money to invest it's a tempting prospect, especially when the punishments for such crimes are relatively lenient.
Other times it's the thieves themselves who want to keep the artwork for their personal collections. A recent example is a French man (sorry for the wiki link but I can't remember which books he was listed in) who simply liked the art so much that he wanted it for himself. There was a similar case investigated by the FBI of a man in New York a few years back who liked to use his stolen art to help him seduce the young men he brought home.
tl;dr As far as art crime goes, there are several motives for thefts, but as far as we can tell none of them involve a greedy billionaire hiring a gang to provide him with his own secret room of treasures. It's certainly possible that statistically there are one or two people like that in the world, but even if this were the case it would only account for a very tiny percentage of art thefts. In reality it's mostly just regular people being greedy.
If you're interested in learning about art crime I highly suggest starting with The Rescue Artist by Edward Dolnick. He's a good writer and is very thorough in his research. Other books I've enjoyed in addition to the ones I already linked are Provenance, The Forger's Spell, and The Gardener Heist. There are plenty of other great books on thefts throughout the more modern era, such as The Napoleon of Crime and Flawless that aren't strictly art related but still good reads.
*Sorry I don't list more specific citations, but it's been a while since I've read most of these and it's hard to remember which information came from which books or was shared among several books.
Edit: typo
Well publicly available information may not always be the best place for information on conspiracies. Whether big secrets can stand the test of time is itself a paradox. What is publicly known is that the USA/CIA has been involved in covert activity around the world killing elected presidents, funding death squads, destabilising democracies...
here is the contents page for Killing Hope
East Timor - 1975: And 200,000 more
the President of the United States
to which our friend gave this epitaph
"Far and away the best book on the topic."
Noam Chomsky
The question is certainly not would or could this be an inside job
just simply was it. For the record I don't know, in many ways I don't care. There is enough public information to know how power operates to lead me the conclusion that all these things are inside jobs whether planned directly or not. A relatively small group of people hold sway over huge resources militarily, economically, culturally and create an environment that maintains the status quo - a status quo of hopelessness, environmental destruction and human misery. Power is not passive in this it continually lobbies for it and against any challenge to this status quo by 'pretty much' all means necessary.
killing hope - William Blum
EDIT: How could I forget?
The case is covered in this book by John Douglas. I had to read it for a 3000 level Criminalistics course.
He covered the Ramsey case from it's beginning. According to the book (Chapter Six), here are facts:
The body (DOA) was found in the basement (hereafter referred to as F0).
The note was found on the bottom steps of a staircase that lead from the top floor (F2) to the ground floor (F1). It was written on three sheets of white lined legal paper, in all capitals, with a black felt tip pen.
The note was found around 6 A.M. local time.
The police were called around then, and arrived shortly thereafter.
A little after 8 A.M. VISA allowed a credit line of $118, 000 to be approved- the money could be wired to any local bank in order to pay the ransom.
The parent state that the night prior, they left the White's house around 8:30 P.M. local time. They made two stops before returiong home. Jon fell asleep in the car and had to be carried to her bed.
Due to short staff, after the window of communication with the kidnapper (8-10:00 A.M. local time) had closed, there was only one officer left to watch seven civilians.
A around 1:00 P.M. local time, John and Fleet White requested to search the house.
Dective Ardnt gave them permission.
They (John and Fleet) entered the basement (F0) around 1:10 local time. A window leading into the basement was found opened, and a suitcase was underneath.
Sometime between 1:15 and 1:35 local time, the body was discovered in a wine cellar (F0.2)
It is important to note that the detective thought John was responsible for his daughter's death due to personal conjecture.
Here are documents from the case:
Handwriting analysis of P. Ramsey by Tom Miller
Handwriting analysis of P. Ramsey by Cina L. Wong
Handwriting analysis of P. Ramsey by David Liebman
The case was looked at again in 2010
There has been speculation in the legality of the case for years.
Docs from the FBI Vault, p.181-185, search: Jon
Collection of documents from JBR case, '97+
Complete collection of documents in JBR case, '97-'01
EDIT: grammar
If they simply "stopped paying attention", how would you explain the CIA's orders to the Jeddah consulate to grant Al Qaeda operatives visas into the country?
How do you explain the fact that once in the country, the alleged hijackers received training at secure military installations.
It is you, sir, who needs to read some books:
Killing Hope: US Military and CIA Interventions Since World War II
Confessions of an Economic Hitman
Tragedy and Hope
Wall Street and The Bolshevik Revolution
Wall Street and The Rise of Hitler
Foundations: Their Power and Influence
Bank Control of Large Corporations in the United States
Wake up to reality my friend. These people are not, and have never been, incompetent or negligent. If they were either, they wouldn't be in the positions of power they are in today.
Billy's Afghan adventures are chronicled in First In by Gary Schroen. First person account of the first team into Afghanistan after 9/11 (CIA prep for SF).
Also read Jawbreaker by Gary Berntsen which picks up where First In leaves off, including the taking of Kabul. Also a first person account.
Then read the prequel that ends on Sep 10: Ghost Wars. 2005 Pulitzer Prize.
These three books are truly a trilogy in every sense.
This isn't exactly an answer to your question, but The Devil in the White City by Erik Larson is a very interesting historical account of the 1893 World's Fair in Chicago. It was where George Ferris premiered the very first Ferris Wheel, created to compete with the famous Eiffel Tower that was created for the 1889 World's Fair. There were world-renowned architects that spent sleepless nights creating temporary (yet incredibly intricate and complex) constructions on an incredibly tight time schedule. It is also where Pabst Blue Ribbon got their Blue Ribbon status, plus where a murderer was loose in the city during the festivities, building a hotel in the city to capitalize on the surge of visitors coming to Chicago for the fair.
I don't consider Orval sour. Brett can produce lactic acid, but it is not nearly as proficient as some bacteria, which is where the sourness in the RR beers is coming from. Orval is definitely "wild" fermented, meaning it uses something other than brewers yeast for fermentation, but isn't particularly sour. Check out this book if you want to know way more than could every be useful.
Orval uses one strain of brettanomyces bruxellensis in their beer when the bottle it. RR uses a combination of probably 3-10 different organisms in their beer. Cantillon in Belgium claims over 200 organisms are found in their beer, which is fermented from organisms existing in the air and structures of their brewery.
From Devil In The White City, p.252:
"Although such interior exhibits were compelling, the earliest visitors to Jackson Park saw immediately that the fair's greatest power lay in the strange gravity of the buildings themselves."
"Some visitors found themselves so moved by the Court of Honor that immediately upon entering they began to weep."
The Devil in the White City by Erik Larson. I received this as a gift myself, and can highly recommend it. It's about the development of a word's fair in 1890's Chicago and a serial murder operating during that time. Not a book I normally would have bought for myself, but I guess that's what makes great gift books.
Solitary Fitness - Charlie Bronson is a fantastic book full of information, definitely what you're after in my opinion
You have a ton of options.
Depending on the workout, train alternating resistance and cardio or do 6 days of both. Charlie's book has you training 6 days a week while /r/bodyweightfitness has you training 3 days a week.
Just watched that yesterday at a local independent theater. It was entertaining, but didn't really go anywhere. I'd give it a 3.5/5, and add that it wouldn't make for a good discussion afterward.
Also, I don't know where you can get it in the US. Doesn't look like it's out on video here until February.
-------
edit: I will add that, if you've seen this film already, you might find this Amazon offering funny. (be sure to zoom in for the small print on the cover)
I've been enjoying your contributions to this sub as a long time lurker but your news made me finally create an account so I could congratulate you - so, congrats and well done! Also, for the peoples in mainland Europe, the book can be bought in EUR right here
If you want to read about some interesting fuckery during this period in South America, and other 3rd world countries, read The World Was Going Our Way https://www.amazon.com/World-Was-Going-Our-Way/dp/0465003133
this is the follow up to The SWord and the Shield, another great book.
I haven't read this one yet (just bought it) but Devil In The White City by Erik Larson looks like it's going to be good.
Infections all move at different rates. Acetobacter will show up pretty quick, but something like brett takes months to get really established (there's a graph in wild ales).
That said, this guy is totally fine.
God, I love Reddit. It has led me to read really awesome books like The Devil in the White City and The Killing Joke. Now, I guess I'm going to read Perfume. Thanks for the book suggestion.
Devil in the White City by Erik Larson is a fun and fascinating account of not only the Murder Hotel, but how it interwove with the development and building of the Chicago Worlds Fair of 1893. EDIT: Erik Larson, not Ken Larson.
The heist is the subject of the book Flawless: Inside the Largest Diamond Heist in History by Scott Andrew Selby and Greg Campbell.
Flawless
Paramount Pictures acquired the rights to create a film about the heist. It will be produced by J.J. Abrams.
Taken from wikipedia
Yes. One of the better books I have read as well
You don't even need a gym honestly all you need is a mat, maybe a good sturdy bar or pipe and you should be fine:
http://www.amazon.com/Solitary-Fitness-Charlie-Bronson/dp/1844543099?ie=UTF8&*Version*=1&*entries*=0
Solitary Fitness by Charles Bronson (yes, the Charles Bronson) is more entertaining than anything else, but it does get you motivated. Includes chapters on training your eyes, your jaws, and your penis, believe it or not.
I really enjoyed The Big Con, a non-fiction book about large-scale cons in the 1930s and 40s. If you've seen the movie The Sting, it's describing that sort of operation.
You might also like Yellow Kid Weil, an autobiography written by a con man working around that time.
Before you tackle a sour, read this book http://www.amazon.com/Wild-Brews-Culture-Craftsmanship-Tradition/dp/0937381861
It's super interesting if you're into traditional sours.
You might like The Cases That Haunt Us, by John Douglas. I read it a while ago and found it interesting, especially the section on JBR--he's one of the only experts I've found who honestly believes the parents didn't kill her.
Clifford Stole wrote a pretty good book, but, man, a visionary he ain't.
Please let us know which ones you end up doing!
A book was written about this not too long ago. Pretty good read.
I relate to this post a lot. Knocking back cans and then thinking "fuck, I'm hungry" and munching through packets of some godawful shite and then waking up feeling like a cunt.
For me, it wasn't about finding a new cycle, but breaking the one I was in. Your mileage may vary.
That said, if you want fitness with no equipment, then Charles Bronson's "Solitary Fitness" has you covered: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Solitary-Fitness-Charles-Bronson/dp/1844543099
Not only will you be fit, but you'll be able to knock out a fucking cow with a single punch.
Wild Brews and Radical Brewing are both really good if you want to go down the more advanced routes of using wild yeasts, bacteria, and exotic fermentables.
Fellow UK-er here, it is available on our Amazon here
edit - worked out how to add links properly - btw the book is only £2.83, amazing work u/Hysterymystery!!
As /u/brewtality mentioned, The Mad Fermentationist is excellent.
I would also recommend Wild Brews by Jeff Sparrow. It is, to me, the Bible of homebrewing sour beers. Well worth checking out.
Russia has a 100+ year history of successfully interfering with other countries.
This is a must read for anybody interested in Russian government subversion.
https://www.amazon.com/Sword-Shield-Mitrokhin-Archive-History/dp/0465003125/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1483754893&sr=1-1&keywords=mitrokhin+archive
Check out this book mate. I think this fits most of your criteria- its exciting too. About a notorious serial killer who did some serious damage during the world fair of 1893. Its actually a nonfiction book just packed with real history but it reads like fiction because its just so riveting and exciting. I think this is slated to be a movie staring Leo DiCaprio too.
I used this page as an overview of both cities.
Charleston and Savannah
Savannah is smaller and you can see a lot in one day. Have you ever read "Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil"? It's well-written, vivid, and makes Savannah even more interesting than it already is.
I read once that you should eat spicy food. The poor sanitation in prisons can cause all sorts of infections. Spicy food will help keep your sinuses clean and reduce the chance of respiratory infection.
Having never been to jail, let me recommend this book anyway:
http://www.amazon.com/BEHIND-BARS-Jeffrey-Ian-Ross/dp/0028643518/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1314078131&sr=1-1
The Devil in the White City <About a real serial killer, possibly America's first
Maniac <Not a movie for everyone, but I found even the horrible actress and music kind of fascinating. Special FX are great. Spinell is amazing.
I'm into the same subject, I will add more if I can think of anything.
This wine carafe would hold my wine for when we are drinking during dinner (full school experience). I would imagine I may be able to use the bottle to store potions, if needed.
This umbrella resembles the shape of a broom with it I would be able to keep myself dry when it rains, and possibly would be able to substitute it for flying, if I could figure out how.
If I had this kit, I could learn to crochet myself a hat. The hat would clearly be needed for days when it is chilly and we are doing outdoor activities, like gathering stuff for spells.
In between studies, I will need a book to help pass the time. What better than a book with murder and magic!
People carry stuff in their trunk. They also carry stuff in luggage. I will need luggage to bring things to school. I will also need these straps to keep my trunk/luggage closed, and to make sure I can identify which is mine. Obvious necessity. =)
So I have this towel, which could clearly be used as a cape. It may say yoga towel by definition, but a towel is a towel. I will have to shower sometime, and no one wants to just drip dry.
The worst part is that one of his novels, The Puzzle Palace, shares its title with a nonfiction book about the NSA by James Bamford which happens to be one of the best books written about the NSA... so now you have to be careful when mentioning it, so people don't confuse it with the Dan Brown novel (which is also about the NSA, 'The Puzzle Palace' being one of the real nicknames for the agency)
I'm going to recommend this one.
After you've read that, go with East of Eden, my favorite book.
The Devil in the White City is a great book http://www.amazon.com/Devil-White-City-Madness-Changed/dp/0375725601/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1418244016&amp;sr=8-1&amp;keywords=devil+in+the+white+city intertwining the organization/construction of the World's Fair and Holmes' escapades. Fascinating read.
if you want some fun reading about frederick law olmstead, devil in the white city is partially good non-fiction about a serial killer in chicago during the 1893 world fair but also! is about designing the fair, with frederick law olmstead making a lot of appearances and having opinions about modern landscape architecture.
Certainly!
The Cuckoo's Egg is a classic and describes a true story written by one of the "hackers" involved. It involves international espionage, the US military, the FBI, and the NSA.
Your perception is a ton of different things welded together with a hardwired steady belief in "THIS IS TRUE".
This is how people black out, misremember events when questioned by an attorney, and fall for convincing lies and believe them to their dying day, even if intelligent.
http://www.amazon.com/The-Big-Con-Story-Confidence/dp/0385495382/ref=pd_sim_b_2 is a good book about a lot of them.
>You could probably even publish something like that, you know.
You mean like these:
Behind Bars: Surviving Prison
How To Survive Prison for the First Time Inmate
Prison Stories
Looks like prison literature is already a pretty well-established genre.
GRS protects CIA officers in dangerous environments.
In addition to Horse Soldiers, you might want to check out
Jawbreaker
13 Hours (About GRS)
88 Days to Kandahar
Not a Good Day to Die
The Only Thing Worth Dying For
You won't find much about modern CIA operations because they are classified.
Ghost in the Wires - The story of famed hacker Kevin Mitnick
Any Mary Roach Book if you like Science
In the Heart of the Sea - The true story behind Moby Dick
The Omnivore's Dilemma - A great walk through our food landscape
Gang Leader for a Day - Behavioral Economist embeds with a Chicago Gang
Shadow Divers - My first audiobook. It's a thriller about a scuba discovery of a Nazi Submarine on the Eastern US coast.
The Devil In The White City - A story about a serial killer at the Chicago World's Fair of 1893
Read Puzzle Palace. While it predates Snowden by several decades, it's still probably the best book written about the organization.
Boardwalk Empire is exactly the book you're looking for. It's about the history of Atlantic City and its gangster past. It's the inspiration for the top notch HBO show.
I would also recommend William Blum's Killing Hope and Rogue State, as well as Chalmers Johnson's trilogy on empire, Blowback, Sorrows of Empire, and Nemesis.
There's a book called Behind Bars: Surviving Prison. It has a lot of good pointers about culture and manners.
Jawbreaker. Great book.
http://www.amazon.com/Jawbreaker-Al-Qaeda-Personal-Account-Commander/dp/0307351068
Eric Larson writes great, entertaining history books. If you haven't read him already, I'd recommend checking out The Devil in the White City.
The Number by Alex Berenson provides a great insight into how Wall Street actually works and I'd consider it essential reading for anyone looking to invest.
Jeff Sparrow's Wild Brews: Beer Beyond the Influence of Brewer's Yeast is a great place to start.
Read Flawless. It's a great read and addresses some of the issues with the wired article
> he also wrote a great book on body weight exercises
His book is called Solitary Fitness and you can find review of it HERE.
It's from a book. Not a common phrase though but the book is very popular.
http://www.amazon.com/Midnight-Garden-Good-Evil-Savannah/dp/0679751521
Russia nerd here. I don't have anything in my library that contains a history of espionage in the broad sense, but "The Sword and the Shield" is probably the most thorough examination of the KGB, which is pretty interesting. It's actually a compilation of smuggled KGB documents.
How's it goin? How was church Sunday?
Your favorite animal is the bonobo. You know, because username.
From your list
From my list
Quickly buy the book Behind Bars: Surviving Prison, skim through it or ask to take it to jail with you. It contains numerous tips and explanations (and it's an interesting read even for those not going to jail).
This book: "The Puzzle Palace", was written in 1983 and is still amazing today. At that time, the source indicates that it took 14 acres of cooling equipment to keep the NSA's computers from overheating (as I remember).
It's amazing. I'm very interested in Cold War espionage history and recently read this book:
http://www.amazon.com/The-Sword-Shield-Mitrokhin-Archive/dp/0465003125
Basically, the writers take the most outrageous and intriguing stories and background details from that book and put them into the show. I love it.
FWIW: Boardwalk Empire is loosely based on real people as are many of the themes in the series. Of course, vast theatrical liberties are taken to make the story work in a modern venue, but "Nucky" and many of the other characters actually created a boardwalk empire in Atlantic City.
A surprising number of these books were assigned reading from classes.
The Devil in the White City by Erik Larson
The Jungle by Upton Sinclair
The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien
Angela's Ashes by Frank McCourt
And I'm currently reading a book recommended by an excellent redditor somewhere in this sub, Mad in America by Robert Whitaker
This article was published after he released his book, Programmed to Kill. It contains new information.
The primary sources referenced are the Mitrokhin archives and former Russian President Yeltin's own memoirs.
Some of the Mitrokhin archives are open to the public, and a book about them was written by the only historian allowed to see them. The book is The Sword and the Shield: The Mitrokhin Archive and the Secret History of the KGB.
There have been several books written on the Mitrokhin archives, but the archives have never been completely publicly revealed.
However, take a look at this:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitrokhin_Archive#Disinformation_campaign_against_the_United_States
The first two claims (the KGB's promotion of false JFK assassination theories, using writer Mark Lane and a creating a forged letter from Oswald to E. Howard Hunt, attempting to incriminate Hunt in JFK assassination) reference this book:
https://www.amazon.com/Mitrokhin-Archive-Kgb-Europe-West/dp/0140284877
They reference pages 296-298.
Google Books has a generous free preview and I just tracked down the portions which discuss KGB disinformation about JFK:
https://books.google.ca/books?id=tiNqCAAAQBAJ&amp;lpg=PP1&amp;pg=PT391#v=onepage&amp;q&amp;f=false
Unfortunately, some of the pages about this are omitted, but start from that page and read the next six or so pages.
By the way, the above book is one of 5 or so written jointly by the original leaker of the Mitrokhin archives and Christopher Andrew, the only historian allowed to see the archives. Thus, the above book is basically a primary source.
In the same vein as the Cuckoo's Egg, is Sterling's The Hacker Crackdown. I also sort of enjoyed Strickland's Looking Glass, although that might just be because on page 229 he gives a shout out to my home Class B address space. It was a little bit like seeing your hometown on TV. "Hey, I can see 127.0.0.1 from here!"
I enjoyed Devil in the White City by Erik Larson.
There was a good reason for this. The so-called antiwar movement was infiltrated and funded by Soviet intelligence.
Confirmed by Mitrokin after he defected to the West.
EDIT: http://www.amazon.com/Sword-Shield-Mitrokhin-Archive-History/dp/0465003125/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1463946856&amp;sr=8-1&amp;keywords=mitrokhin+archive
the cuckoo's egg by cliff stoll -- http://www.amazon.com/Cuckoos-Egg-Tracking-Computer-Espionage/dp/0743411463
takedown by john markoff and tsutomu shimomura -- http://www.amazon.com/Takedown-Pursuit-Americas-Computer-Outlaw/dp/0786889136
nonfiction, actually--early-computer-age stuff about chasing down hackers in the dot-matrix days. I enjoyed these when I was younger.
Someone might come along and tackle your list of Qs but sounds like you could use a book or two.
https://www.amazon.com/American-Sour-Beers-Michael-Tonsmeire/dp/1938469119
https://www.amazon.com/Wild-Brews-Beyond-Influence-Brewers/dp/0937381861
Point taken, sorry didn't mean to lecture you.
If you have an internet connection and won't get in trouble, find something of interest and skill up. I appreciate you won't be taking an online degree but at least you can grow from it personally.
Find digital books and copy/paste text into Word docs so you can read them without people seeing etc.
Start an ebay shop.
Stock and shares, even if it's only practice (fantasy stock exchange etc).
If you don't have a net connection, try writing or drawing.
If you have private space you could even exercise or meditate
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Solitary-Fitness-Charles-Bronson/dp/1844543099
I'm still someone's bitch but I enjoy what I do and get paid enough to do fun/cool stuff for my family and friends.
If you have to suck cock 40 hours a week, make it count.
Related, if you want to read a good book about a caper, check out Flawless.
A very good read.
Long time reader and teacher here -
I agree with skipping any phonics instruction at this stage, and that trying audio books is a good idea. Written language is different than spoken, and listening to written will help with reading it. (Besides that, audio books are great!)
There is a lot of great nonfiction out there that he might enjoy -
these are collections of short articles, which may make them less intimidating:
Gene Weingarten: [The Fiddler in the Subway] (https://www.amazon.com/Fiddler-Subway-World-Class-Violinist-Performances/dp/1439181594/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1505310496&amp;sr=1-1&amp;keywords=gene+weingarten) (I do my best to read everything he writes)
[Sarah Vowell's books] (https://www.amazon.com/Sarah-Vowell/e/B001ILFO7E/ref=sr_tc_2_0?qid=1505310914&amp;sr=1-2-ent)
some of [Joel Achenbach's books] (https://www.amazon.com/Joel-Achenbach/e/B001HMTVXC/ref=sr_tc_2_0?qid=1505310626&amp;sr=1-2-ent), including 'Why Things Are'
not collections, but so good
[The Boys in the Boat] (https://www.amazon.com/Boys-Boat-Americans-Berlin-Olympics/dp/0143125478)
[Seabiscuit] (https://www.amazon.com/Seabiscuit-American-Legend-Ballantine-Readers/dp/0449005615/ref=pd_sim_14_14?_encoding=UTF8&amp;pd_rd_i=0449005615&amp;pd_rd_r=4P2YTBS454KVBDDS78NP&amp;pd_rd_w=YohLc&amp;pd_rd_wg=g6ySs&amp;psc=1&amp;refRID=4P2YTBS454KVBDDS78NP)
[Tracy Kidder's books] (https://www.amazon.com/Tracy-Kidder/e/B000AQ8T3E)
[Being Mortal] (https://www.amazon.com/Being-Mortal-Medicine-What-Matters/dp/1250076226/ref=la_B00458K698_1_1?s=books&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1505310411&amp;sr=1-1)
And so many more - I just listened to Erik Larson's [The Devil in the White City] (https://www.amazon.com/Devil-White-City-Madness-Changed/dp/0375725601)...
What's old is new again... 1983 book published on NSA's intelligence gathering The Puzzle Palace. James Bamford has a couple of follow up books from 2007/2008 also.
Look into the Open Source Intelligence community and the ideas of Robert David Steele, a former CIA agent who says that "spying doesn't work".
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1583944435/ossnet-20
http://www.phibetaiota.net/
If the Panopticon is coming anyway, I'd rather it go both ways, so that The People can watch The State watching The People.
Killing Hope, by William Blum is the definitive book on these matters.
The Devil In The White City, is maybe not quite what you are looking for, It is written 90 or so years after everything actually went down, and is reconstructed from sources that could possibly be bullshit to one degree or another, but it really is a great piece of storytelling.
OP, I recommend The Cases That Haunt Us by John Douglas. He digs into a lot of the cases already mentioned here: Jack the Ripper, JonBenet Ramsey, Zodiac, Lizzie Borden... it's a very good read.
A good read - http://www.amazon.com/BEHIND-BARS-Jeffrey-Ian-Ross/dp/0028643518/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1321231423&amp;sr=8-2
[Solitary Fitness] (https://www.amazon.co.uk/Solitary-Fitness-Charles-Bronson/dp/1844543099) by Bronson is a good read, I'd also look at /r/bodyweightfitness
Not exactly ancient history, but I just got finished reading [The Devil in The White City] (https://www.amazon.com/Devil-White-City-Madness-Changed/dp/0375725601/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1469128718&amp;sr=1-1&amp;keywords=devil+in+the+white+city) about H.H. Holmes in turn of the century Chicago, and yeah, it seemed SUPER easy for him.
He did an amazing amount of bad shit in addition to the murdering and got away with it seemingly because he was well spoken and charismatic with pretty blue eyes!
Anyone with a brain who had ever read a book about the CIA or NSA would KNOW fucking KNOW that all those communications are monitored. Trump and his idiot know-nothing family deserve everything that happens to them from this point on.
Two books everyone should read.
The Puzzle Palace: Inside the National Security Agency, America's Most Secret Intelligence Organization
[Legacy of Ashes: The History of the CIA](
https://www.amazon.com/Legacy-Ashes-History-Tim-Weiner/dp/0307389006/ref=sr_1_sc_1?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1495854882&amp;sr=8-1-spell&amp;keywords=leagecy+of+ashes)
We have hung spies in this country before. We should continue that practice.
This book
https://www.amazon.com/Devil-White-City-Madness-Changed/dp/0375725601
Oh great--read the summary! The serial killer pretends o be a Charming Doctor.
Charming indeed.
Holmes pretends to be something he's not, and manipulates people.
In 1893Chicago.
Have you ever heard of a book called "The Cases That Haunt Us" by John Douglas and Mark Olshaker? It has the most compelling explanation for who Jack the Ripper was that I've ever come across and I've read a good bit on him.
https://www.amazon.com/Sword-Shield-Mitrokhin-Archive-History/dp/0465003125
https://www.amazon.com/Legacy-Ashes-History-Tim-Weiner/dp/0307389006
A couple of books I've read recently about the intelligence side of things. Not sure about how their conventional forces compare to ours.
This is discussed briefly in the book The Sword and the Shield: The Mitrokhin Archive and the Secret History of the KGB. I'm only about halfway through the book, but I've already run into some interesting stuff on shortwave radio propaganda as well.
e: According to this book, they didn't trust Eskimos and Aleuts to be reliable stay-behind agents because they were perceived as being anti-establishment drunkards (paraphrased).