Staff Picks

I love reading about scams, history, and the history of scams, and I am pleased to report that this is simply the finest book about pyramid schemes that I have ever read. This book considers pyramid schemes within the full context of American business history, bringing the propulsive energy and weird details of a novel while remaining almost comprehensively informative and engaging. If you only read one book about pyramid schemes, ever, in your life, make it this one.

 

Publisher's description: 
A groundbreaking work of history and reportage that unveils the stranger-than-fiction world of multilevel marketing, from the shadowy cabals at the top to the strivers at the bottom, whose deferred dreams churn a massive money-making scam that has remade American society. Multilevel marketing companies like Amway, Mary Kay, and Herbalife advertise the ultimate business opportunity: the chance to be your own boss. In exchange for peddling their wares, they offer a world of pink Cadillacs, white-columned mansions, tropical vacations, and-most precious of all-financial freedom. If, that is, you're willing to shell out for expensive products, recruit everyone you know to buy them, and make them recruit everyone they know to do the same-thus creating the "multiple levels" of multilevel marketing, or MLM. Despite overwhelming evidence that multilevel marketing causes most of its participants to lose their money, and that many MLM companies are pyramid schemes, the industry's dubious origins, inextricably tied to well-known ideological figures like Ronald Reagan, have escaped public scrutiny. Behind the scenes of American life, MLM has slithered in the wake of every economic crisis of the last century, from the Depression to the pandemic, ensnaring laid-off workers, stay-at-home moms, teachers, nurses-anyone who has been left behind by inequality. In Little Bosses Everywhere, journalist Bridget Read tells the gripping story of multilevel marketing in full for the first time, winding from sunny post-war California, where a failed salesman started a vitamin business, through the suburbs of Michigan and North Carolina, where MLM bought its political protection, to the stadium-sized conventions where top sellers today preach to die-hard recruits. MLM has been endorsed by multiple American presidents, has its own Congressional caucus, and enriched powerful people, like the DeVos and Van Andel families, Warren Buffet, and Donald Trump. Along the way, Read delves into the heartbreaking stories of those enmeshed in the majority-female industry: a veteran in Florida searching for healing; a young mom in Texas struggling to feed her children; a waitress scraping by in Brooklyn. A wild trip down an endless rabbit hole of greed and exploitation, Little Bosses Everywhere exposes multilevel marketing as American capitalism's stealthiest PR campaign: a cunning right-wing political project that has shaped nearly everything about how we live.

 

Readers who enjoyed Kathryn Miles' Trailed should check out this latest book from former National Park Service investigator Lankford. In a review for NPR, author Gabino Iglesias calls it "gripping nonfiction," with "clear, fast-paced, straightforward prose that still manages to be beautiful and immersive."

 

Publisher's description:

As a park ranger with the National Park Service's law enforcement team, Andrea Lankford led search and rescue missions in some of the most beautiful (and dangerous) landscapes across America, from Yosemite to the Grand Canyon. But though she had the support of the agency, Andrea grew frustrated with the service's bureaucratic idiosyncrasies, and left the force after twelve years. Two decades later, however, she stumbles across a mystery that pulls her right back where she left off: three young men have vanished from the Pacific Crest Trail, the 2,650-mile trek made famous by Cheryl Strayed's Wild, and no one has been able to find them. It's bugging the hell out of her.
Andrea's concern soon leads her to a wild environment unlike any she's ever encountered: missing person Facebook groups. Andrea launches an investigation, joining forces with an eclectic team of amateurs who are determined to solve the cases by land and by screen: a mother of the missing, a retired pharmacy manager, and a mapmaker who monitors terrorist activity for the government. Together, they track the activities of kidnappers and murderers, investigate a cult, rescue a psychic in peril, cross paths with an unconventional scientist, and reunite an international fugitive with his family. Searching for the missing is a brutal psychological and physical test with the highest stakes, but eventually their hardships begin to bear strange fruits--ones that lead them to places and people they never saw coming. Beautifully written, heartfelt, and at times harrowing, Trail of the Lost paints a vivid picture of hiker culture and its complicated relationship with the ever-expanding online realm, all while exploring the power and limits of determination, generosity, and hope. It also offers a deep awe of the natural world, even as it unearths just how vast and treacherous it can be.

 

The Last Duel is a riveting page-turner that will please any history and true crime buff. Under 300 pages long, this utterly fascinating and well researched story of the last legal, judicial duel in France is packed with diary entries, tapestries, maps, and more from chroniclers, artists, and lawyers of the time. I was fascinated with this violent time in history as I learned about the rich rituals of judicial duels, rape culture, crime punishment of the 1300s, and the lives and business of knights and the kin during the time of the Hundred Years' War between France and England.

 

Publisher's description: 

In the midst of the devastating Hundred Years' War between France and England, Jean de Carrouges, a Norman knight fresh from combat in Scotland, returns home to yet another deadly threat. His wife, Marguerite, has accused squire Jacques Le Gris of rape. A deadlocked court decrees a trial by combat between the two men that will also leave Marguerite's fate in the balance. For if her husband loses the duel, she will be put to death as a false accuser. While enemy troops pillage the land, and rebellion and plague threaten the lives of all, Carrouges and Le Gris meet in full armor on a walled field in Paris. What follows is the final duel ever authorized by the Parlement of Paris, a fierce fight with lance, sword, and dagger before a massive crowd that includes the teenage King Charles VI, during which both combatants are wounded--but only one fatally.

 

Based on extensive research in Normandy and Paris, The Last Duel brings to life a colorful, turbulent age and three unforgettable characters caught in a fatal triangle of crime, scandal, and revenge. The Last Duel is at once a moving human drama, a captivating true crime story, and an engrossing work of historical intrigue with themes that echo powerfully centuries later.

Find The Last Duel in our online catalog.

A hilarious, heartwarming guide/memoir by the creators of the podcast "My Favorite Murder"! K + G get into their childhoods, their friendships, their obsession with true crime, and all the lessons they've learned along the way. Weet woo!

 

Publisher's description:

Sharing never-before-heard stories ranging from their struggles with depression, eating disorders, and addiction, Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark, the voices behind the podcast "My Favorite Murder" irreverently recount their biggest mistakes and deepest fears, reflecting on the formative life events that shaped them into two of the most followed voices in the nation. They focus on the importance of self-advocating and valuing personal safety over being "nice" or "helpful." They delve into their own pasts, true crime stories, and beyond to discuss meaningful cultural and societal issues with fierce empathy and unapologetic frankness.

 

In May 1996, the bodies of two women were found in Shenandoah National Park in a remote campsite. These young women, Julie Williams and Lollie Winans, had met and fallen in love at an outdoor skills camp and were preparing for a life full of adventure together when they met their brutal and tragic end. A thoughtful mix of true crime and sociology, Kathryn Miles asks why women and LGBTQIA+ folk are so much more at risk in the wilderness and even explicitly targeted for daring to access our shared public lands. Were these women targeted for their sexuality? Their gender? Their resolve to not be intimidated by men who claimed the wilderness as their own? She explores these questions in depth to better understand the motivations of the killer and instead walks into the startling realization that the man arrested could very well be the wrong guy. If you enjoyed I'll Be Gone In the Dark by Michelle McNamara, this book is for you.

 

Publisher's description:

In May 1996, two skilled backcountry leaders, Lollie Winans and Julie Williams, entered Virginia’s Shenandoah National Park for a week-long backcountry camping trip. The free-spirited and remarkable young couple had met and fallen in love the previous summer while working at a world-renowned outdoor program for women. During their final days in the park, they descended the narrow remnants of a trail and pitched their tent in a hidden spot. After the pair didn’t return home as planned, park rangers found a scene of horror at their campsite, their tent slashed open, their beloved dog missing, and both women dead in their sleeping bags. The unsolved murders of Winans and Williams continue to haunt all who had encountered them or knew their story. When award-winning journalist and outdoors expert Kathryn Miles begins looking into the case, she discovers conflicting evidence, mismatched timelines, and details that just don’t add up. With unprecedented access to crucial crime-scene forensics and key witnesses—and with a growing sense of both mission and obsession—she begins to uncover the truth. An innocent man, Miles is convinced, has been under suspicion for decades, while the true culprit is a known serial killer, if only authorities would take a closer look. Intimate, page-turning, and brilliantly reported, this is a love story and a call to justice, and a searching and urgent plea to make wilderness a safe space for women.

 

Find Trailed in our online catalog.

In Scoundrel, journalist Sarah Weinman once again introduces a generation of true crime readers to a sensational case that has largely faded from cultural memory. While a bare-bones retelling would be fascinating in itself--how, exactly, did the late conservative icon William F. Buckley Jr. find himself successfully lobbying for the release of a convicted murderer?--Weinman probes beyond the bizarre facts of the Edgar Smith saga to highlight the debris left in his wake. Smith, she argues, did not simply take the lives of the women he victimized, but took also their right and ability to narrate their own stories, a project in which Buckley Jr. and other enablers gladly participated. This thoughtful and thorough journalistic account is a must for true crime readers interested in the re-centering of victims in the genre, especially those who are fans of Weinman's acclaimed The Real Lolita.

 

Publisher's description: 

In the 1960s, Edgar Smith, in prison and sentenced to death for the murder of teenager Victoria Zielinski, struck up a correspondence with William F. Buckley, the founder of National Review. Buckley, who refused to believe that a man who supported the neoconservative movement could have committed such a heinous crime, began to advocate not only for Smith’s life to be spared but also for his sentence to be overturned. So begins a bizarre and tragic tale of mid-century America. Sarah Weinman leads us through the twists of fate and fortune that brought Smith to freedom, book deals, fame, and eventually to attempting murder again. In Smith, Weinman has uncovered a psychopath who slipped his way into public acclaim and acceptance before crashing down to earth once again. From the people Smith deceived—Buckley, the book editor who published his work, friends from back home, and the women who loved him—to Americans who were willing to buy into his lies, Weinman explores who in our world is accorded innocence, and how the public becomes complicit in the stories we tell one another. Scoundrel shows, with clear eyes and sympathy for all those who entered Smith’s orbit, how and why he was able to manipulate, obfuscate, and make a mockery of both well-meaning people and the American criminal justice system. It tells a forgotten part of American history at the nexus of justice, prison reform, and civil rights, and exposes how one man’s ill-conceived plan to set another man free came at the great expense of Edgar Smith’s victims.

Find Scoundrel in our online catalog.

A detailed account of journalist Kathryn Miles' investigation into a twenty-year-old cold case. According to Kirkus Reviews, "What makes this story so chilling is not just that the author had to 'police law enforcement' in order to determine their investigative errors. She also shows how 'every year there is demonstrable evidence that women, African Americans, and nonbinary and LGBT people have good reason to wonder if they are safe in the wilderness, which in many ways is still considered a white male domain.'" This summer's must-read true crime story, this engaging book should be of particular interest to readers who were fascinated by Michelle McNamara's I'll Be Gone in the Dark.

 

In May 1996, two skilled backcountry leaders, Lollie Winans and Julie Williams, entered Virginia's Shenandoah National Park for a week-long backcountry camping trip. The free-spirited and remarkable young couple had met and fallen in love the previous summer while working at a world-renowned outdoor program for women. During their final days in the park, they descended the narrow remnants of a trail and pitched their tent in a hidden spot. After the pair didn't return home as planned, park rangers found a scene of horror at their campsite, their tent slashed open, their beloved dog missing, and both women dead in their sleeping bags. The unsolved murders of Winans and Williams continue to haunt all who had encountered them or knew their story.
 

 

The fascinating true story of a young, promising flautist, Edwin Rist, who made the ill-conceived decision to commit one of the most intriguing and destructive burglaries in modern history. The author, journalist Kirk Wallace Johnson, heard about this "Feather Thief" while fly-fishing in New Mexico and was consumed by the need to find out the truth of what happened. Even though the case was closed, he felt compelled to reopen the investigation.

 

In 2009, after performing a concert, Edwin, a 20-yr old American, driven by the need for money to complete his schooling at London's Royal Academy of Music and get a high quality flute (which can run up to $80,000), took a night train to the Tring Museum and caused the destruction of something that was priceless to the study of earth science and nature...and to fly-fishing enthusiasts everywhere.

 

A champion fly-tier in his own right, Edwin was obsessed with the Victorian art of salmon fly-tying. The most valuable and artistic flies are made from feathers of the most exotic and rare bird species to inhabit the planet--many of which are now completely illegal to hunt and gather. This in turn makes them extremely hard find and exorbitantly expensive. Traditionally, the only way to find them was to diligently canvass estate sales for Victorian women's clothing and hats. Through planning and deception, Edwin discovered this treasure trove that had been collected by such naturalists as Alfred Russel Wallace and other contemporaries of Charles Darwin. Additionally, he found that security at this museum was, shall we say, not state-of-the-art. It was the perfect target.

"Wow. Wow, this was absolutely incredible," is the feeling I walked away with after finishing Know My Name. Many of you probably remember the speech that went viral during the 2016 sexual assault case of Emily Doe vs. Brock Turner. This speech was the victim impact statement Emily Doe gave at the trial of Brock Turner, who was eventually convicted for assaulting her. It was shared millions of times on the internet. Mothers shared it with daughters. Sisters shared it with sisters. Best friends shared it with all their female friends. Know my Name is the brave, brilliant, and breathtaking memoir from Emily Doe, who has come forward as Channel Miller. It details Miller's harrowing experiences, from the night of her assault, to the frustrating ways in which she was disappointed and abused by the American justice system, to her life today as she reckons with her past. This memoir is so well written, so beautifully told, and so powerful.. I cried, I wanted to scream, I felt a lot of emotions. I'm in awe of Chanel. This should be required reading for everybody.

 

Publisher's description:

She was known to the world as Emily Doe when she stunned millions with a letter. Brock Turner had been sentenced to just six months in county jail after he was found sexually assaulting her on Stanford's campus. Her victim impact statement was posted on BuzzFeed, where it instantly went viral--viewed by almost eleven million people within four days, it was translated globally and read on the floor of Congress; it inspired changes in California law and the recall of the judge in the case. Thousands wrote to say that she had given them the courage to share their own experiences of assault for the first time. Now she reclaims her identity to tell her story of trauma, transcendence, and the power of words. Entwining pain, resilience, and humor, this memoir will stand as a modern classic.

 

This book explores the lives of people who vanish in the wilderness and the struggle of those who look for them. The author tags along with a renowned surfer from Santa Cruz who upended his life to search for his son who disappeared in Olympic National Park in 2017, documenting the unique struggles and red tape that come with such a "cold vanish." Cases of people missing in Colorado are also explored, giving us a much better idea of how widespread the issue of missing persons are within our own communities. This book has it all: true crime, cryptozoology, cults, and often more questions than answers. So if you're a lover of the outdoors or mystery in general, this will be a compelling read!

 

Publisher's description: 

Jon Billman's fascinating, in-depth look at people who vanish in the wilderness without a trace and those eccentric, determined characters who try to find them.