Spilled Milk (2013) is a memoir written in the form of a fictional novel by K. L. Randis (under the pseudonym Brooke Nolan). Randis was subjected to severe sexual abuse by her father as a child and became an advocate and educator determined to prevent others from having similar experiences. Randis’s family also experienced severe physical, emotional, and economic abuse. She wrote her memoir to give children and adults alike a tool to validate their... Read Spilled Milk Summary

Summer for the Gods: The Scopes Trial and America’s Continuing Debate Over Science and Religion by Pulitzer Prize-winning author and academic Edward J. Larson is a work of historical non-fiction first published in 1997 that discusses the history of the Scopes trial, the events surrounding it, and the aftermath. The 2006 edition includes a new afterword by the author.Larson begins by describing the geopolitical environment in the United States at the time of the 1925... Read Summer for the Gods Summary

Sycamore Row (2013) by John Grisham is the sequel to his debut novel and best-selling legal thriller, A Time to Kill (1989). Grisham, a practicing lawyer prior to his career as a novelist, popularized the legal thriller with his prolific work in the genre, frequently highlighting social justice and legal ethics issues. Though marketed as a legal thriller, Grisham himself makes a clear distinction between his legal thrillers and his Ford County novels—aka the Jake... Read Sycamore Row Summary

The 57 Bus: A True Story of Two Teenagers and the Crime that Changed Their Lives (2017) is a work of narrative nonfiction by Dashka Slater, a journalist and children’s book author. The book covers an event that happened on November 4, 2013, when two high school students were riding the same city bus and one set the other on fire.The interaction between these two teenagers lasts just a matter of minutes, but the events... Read The 57 Bus Summary

The Art Thief is a 2022 work of narrative nonfiction by American author and journalist Michael Finkel. The book tells the story of Stéphane Breitwieser, one of history’s most prolific art thieves. Between 1994 and 2002, he stole artwork with an estimated value of up to $2 billion from European museums, galleries, and churches. Unusually, Breitweiser’s heists were not committed for monetary gain. Instead, the art thief was motivated by a desire to surround himself... Read The Art Thief Summary

The Best Minds: A Story of Friendship, Madness, and the Tragedy of Good Intentions is a 2023 memoir by Jonathan Rosen. The book recounts the author’s friendship and rivalry with Michael Laudor, a brilliant young man who developed paranoid schizophrenia. Rosen charts Michael’s meteoric success and ultimate decline as paranoid delusions lead him to kill his pregnant fiancée. As well as providing Michael’s personal history, the author examines the history of psychiatry and the cultural... Read The Best Minds Summary

The Blood of Emmett Till is a 2017 nonfiction book by Timothy B. Tyson. The text provides an account of the 1955 murder of a young African American boy named Emmet Till. Till was visiting Mississippi from Chicago, where his parents had emigrated during the Great Migration of the 1920s. They sought employment in the North, but they also sought to escape from the terror exercised by whites on blacks in the South.The Civil War... Read The Blood of Emmett Till Summary

The Boys from Biloxi is a legal thriller written by John Grisham. Published in 2022, it tells the story of two men who are pitted against one another, as one runs a criminal enterprise and the other prosecutes crime as district attorney. An international best-selling author, Grisham worked as a lawyer for nearly a decade before becoming an author. His expertise informs the novel’s descriptions of legal processes and its thematic exploration of legality versus... Read The Boys from Biloxi Summary

The Butcher’s Tale: Murder and Anti-Semitism in a German Town (2002), a history/Judaica book by German American author Helmut Walser Smith, deals with a sensational murder case that took place in Konitz, a town in Prussia (Eastern Germany) in 1900. Ernst Winter, an 18-year-old student, was found murdered with his body parts dismembered and hidden in various places throughout the town. The residents of Konitz turned against the community’s Jewish inhabitants, accusing them of ritual... Read The Butcher's Tale Summary

John Grisham’s 1994 legal thriller, The Chamber, follows Adam Hall, a young associate at a prestigious Chicago law firm who risks his career to take on a last-chance death-penalty case. His client is Sam Cayhall, an unrepentant former Klansman sentenced to die in Mississippi’s gas chamber for a fatal bombing he committed in 1967. With the execution just weeks away, Adam’s desperate legal battle is complicated by a deep personal secret: Sam is his estranged... Read The Chamber Summary

It is one of the most disturbing what-ifs in the moral argument over capital punishment: What if someone innocent of the crime is put to death before the evidence that would exonerate them can be brought to light? John Grisham’s The Confession (2010) is at once a tense race-against-the-clock legal thriller about the doomed efforts of a defense attorney and a Lutheran minister to prevent the execution of an innocent man on death row in... Read The Confession Summary

Published in 2004, The Corporation, by legal scholar Joel Bakan, demonstrates that corporations often misbehave because it is in their nature to do so. The corporate legal mandate, to pursue profit on behalf of shareholders, impels corporations to take any action, including callous, antisocial, and even unlawful behaviors, so long as they generate a profit.  Because corporations are created by governments, they are beholden to the state for their survival, yet they often manage to... Read The Corporation Summary

The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair That Changed America is a 2003 nonfiction historical thriller by American journalist Erik Larson. The book revisits the 1893 World’s Fair in Chicago, following the stories of two very different history-making men: Daniel Hudson Burnham, the architect of the fair, and H. H. Holmes, the notorious serial killer. The book explores themes such as the contrast between sanity and insanity; the anonymity... Read The Devil in the White City Summary

The Elements by Irish author John Boyne is a collection of four interconnected novellas first published together on 2025. It is a work of literary fiction, and each novella is titled after one of the four basic elements—Water, Earth, Fire, and Air—and follows a different protagonist who is a character in the previous story. Each character represents a different perspective on child abuse and sexual assault: the enabler, the accomplice, the perpetrator, and the victim... Read The Elements Summary

The Executioner’s Song (1979) is a work of literary true crime by American author Norman Mailer. The book portrays the last nine months of the life of Gary Gilmore, who kills two men after being released from prison. Using interviews, court records, and witness accounts, Mailer pieces together the story of Gilmour’s trial and execution, exploring The Death Penalty as Public Spectacle, The Influence of Love and Hate in Human Lives, and Individual Will Versus... Read The Executioner's Song Summary

The Feather Thief by American author, screenwriter, and journalist Kirk Wallace Johnson is about the 2009 heist of the British Natural History Museum at Tring. It retraces the background of the 20-year-old American thief, professional flautist, and master fly-tier, Edwin Rist, who stole 299 rare bird skins from the museum. Johnson first heard about the heist while fly-fishing on a river in New Mexico. Living with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) after years of aid work... Read The Feather Thief Summary

OverviewBook DetailsThe Firm is the second legal thriller written by attorney John Grisham. It followed his 1988 debut novel A Time to Kill. The Firm was the top-selling novel of 1991 on the New York Times bestseller list, bringing its author international fame. It focuses on new Harvard Law School graduate Mitch McDeere, who accepts a financially lucrative position with a Memphis law firm that he discovers is embroiled in unethical and illegal activities.Author HighlightsGrisham... Read The Firm Summary

The Five: The Untold Lives of the Women Killed by Jack the Ripper (2019) is a nonfiction historical work by Hallie Rubenhold. In the book, Rubenhold offers a closer look at the lives of the “canonical five,” the five women who are agreed by scholars to have been killed by the 19th-century serial killer Jack the Ripper in the Whitechapel district of London. Rubenhold’s work aims to restore dignity to the five women by centering... Read The Five Summary

The Gift of Fear: Survival Signals That Protect Us from Violence is a nonfiction guide to guaranteeing one’s safety. Written by internationally renowned safety-and-violence expert Gavin de Becker, The Gift of Fear was published in 1997 by Little, Brown, and Company. It has been the #1 bestselling book on the subject since its publication, with government organizations and public figures attesting to its philosophy. Gavin de Becker is the founder of private security firm Gavin... Read The Gift of Fear Summary

The Girl Who Fell from the Sky is Heidi Durrow’s debut novel. Published in 2010 by Oneworld Publications, the novel won the PEN/Bellweather Prize for Socially Engaged Fiction, an award that recognizes work by a previously unpublished author that explores a social issue. The Girl Who Fell from the Sky explores the impact of racism and loss on a young girl whose mother is a White woman from Denmark and whose father is a Black... Read The Girl Who Fell From The Sky Summary