Columbine

Columbine

by Dave Cullen  · 3 Mar 2010  · 519pp  · 142,851 words

, and the police blunders and cover-ups, it is a compelling and utterly human portrait of two killers-an unforgettable cautionary tale for our times. COLUMBINE A Novel by Dave Cullen Copyright © 2009 by Dave Cullen Dedication: For Rachel, Danny, Dave, Cassie, Steven, Corey, Kelly, Matthew, Daniel, Isaiah, John, Lauren,

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infected the classrooms. Teachers zipped through remaining chapters; kids started to stress about finals and daydream about the summer. Seniors looked ahead to fall. Columbine had one of the best academic reputations in the state; 80 percent of graduates headed on to degree programs. College dominated the conversation now: big

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the wilderness to accommodate the stampede. The high schools were identical hollow shells, ready for conversion to industrial use if the population failed to materialize. Columbine resembled a factory by design. Inside, mobile accordion-wall separators were rolled out to create classrooms. Sound carried from room to room, but students

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gravitated toward the name of the nearest high school—the hub of suburban social life. For thirty thousand people clustered around the new high school, Columbine became the name of their home. Dave Sanders taught typing, keyboarding, business, and economics. He didn’t find all the material particularly interesting, but

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study, youth group, fellowship, and retreats. The “thought for the day” started the morning; Scripture came before bed. West Bowles kids roamed the halls of Columbine sporting WWJD? bracelets—What Would Jesus Do?—and exchanging Christian rock CDs. Occasionally, they witnessed to the unbelievers or argued Scripture with the mainline Protestants

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. The Columbine Bible Study group met at the school once a week; its major challenges were resisting temptation, adhering to a higher standard, and acting as worthy

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eight-minute gap. The first frame shows the bombs visible and students near the windows beginning to react. Something peculiar outside has caught their attention. Columbine ran on a bell schedule, and most of its inhabitants followed a strict routine. Several of them had broken it Tuesday morning. Patrick Ireland,

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something was coming from up there. They spotted a frightened air-conditioner repairman and instantly identified him as the rooftop gunman. Word whipped through the Columbine community. Kids called home on their cell phones the minute they got to safety—or someplace they hoped would remain safe. About five hundred

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this magnitude spawns conspiracy theories, but this time they appeared sound. The legacy of those theories, and Jeffco’s response to them, would haunt the Columbine recovery in peculiar ways. Wednesday morning, Fuselier entered the ghastly crime scene. The hallways were scattered with shell casings, spent pipe bombs, and unexploded

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from “cradle to reality.” 24. Hour of Need Reverend Marxhausen led a congregation of several thousand at St. Philip Lutheran Church. Quite a few attended Columbine. He spent much of the “hostage crisis” at Leawood, searching for students, calming parents. His parish appeared to be spared. He organized a vigil

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infested with erroneous assumptions and comically wrong conclusions. But the data is there. 29. The Missions Two years before he hauled the bombs into the Columbine cafeteria, Eric took a crucial step. He had always maintained an active fantasy life. His extinction fantasies progressed steadily, but reality held firm and

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that Plough delay publication until the authorities issued their report. Plough declined. In July, the Wall Street Journal ran a prominent story titled “Marketing a Columbine Martyr.” The publishing house was obscure, but Zimmerman had called in a team of heavy hitters. For public relations, the firm hired the New

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your objection?” “I think he was a full-blown psychopath.” His colleagues agreed. Eric Harris was textbook. Several of the experts continued studying the Columbine shooters after the summit. Michigan State University psychiatrist Frank Ochberg flew in several times to help guide the mental health team, and every trip doubled

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exacerbated a credibility problem already hovering over the sheriff’s department. In addition to why, the public had two pressing questions: Should authorities have seen Columbine coming? And should they have stopped it sooner once the gunfire began? On both those controversial questions, Jeffco had obvious conflicts of interest. And

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margin. The gun show loophole was closed in Colorado. It was defeated in Congress. No significant national gun-control legislation was enacted in response to Columbine. The season ended well. On May 20, the second class of survivors graduated. Nine of the injured crossed the stage, two in wheelchairs. Patrick

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FBI and the Secret Service each published reports in the first three years, guiding faculty to identify serious threats. The central recommendations contradicted prevailing post-Columbine behavior. They said identifying outcasts as threats is not healthy. It demonizes innocent kids who are already struggling. It is also unproductive. Oddballs are

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loaded with sites unabashedly recounting the myth. Cassie’s youth pastor was right: the church stuck with the story. Local churches felt a surge following Columbine. Attendance spiked, fervor was unprecedented. It faded. Pastors reported no long-term impact. The Harrises and Klebolds remained secluded. The Harrises eventually sold their

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police interview. Eric had a phone engagement: Susan gave a detailed account of her interaction with Eric in her police interview. CHAPTER 5. TWO COLUMBINES in the Columbine Lounge: Most descriptions of the Lounge and its clientele were my observations from several Friday and Saturday night trips, all after the murders. The

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. Lead investigator Kate Battan: Accounts of Kate Battan’s involvement were drawn from my interviews with her, police reports, and the excellent “Inside the Columbine Investigation” series, led by investigative reporter Dan Luzadder and published in the Rocky Mountain News in December 1999. I also discussed Luzadder’s findings with

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from my interview with her. Details involving DA Dave Thomas and the coroner came from police reports and news accounts, particularly Luzadder’s “Inside the Columbine Investigation” series. CHAPTER 19. VACUUMING Marjorie Lindholm had spent: Marjorie Lindholm’s reflections came from her memoir. CHAPTER 20. VACANT There is a photograph:

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pages of police files and my interviews with Agent Fuselier and senior Jeffco officials, including Kate Battan and John Kiekbusch. Luzadder’s “Inside the Columbine Investigation” series was extremely helpful for corroboration. Dan spent months working on the series and was generous and candid in discussing his observations and perceptions

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one or two national reporters. These individuals returned to Denver after the storms, while many others did not. Regardless, the lull in coverage abruptly ended Columbine as a daily national story. CHAPTER 37. BETRAYED Their rates varied: Wayne took detailed notes on possible lawyers and shrinks. Eric told Dr. Albert:

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It is issued only to qualified practitioners, who are instructed to combine interviews with case histories and archival data. But in many cases, such as Columbine, the subject is not available for an interview. Studies by outside researchers have concluded that the tool is reliable without the interview in situations where

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from the Leesburg summit were described to me by several participants. Quotes were based on their recollections. Several of the experts continued: Several continued studying Columbine. Drs. Fuselier, Ochberg, and Hare agreed to several interviews for this book and were of great assistance. Others requested anonymity but continued conferring behind

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; 60 Minutes sued for information and lost. An exception was made for Agent Fuselier to participate with Jeffco officers in the Rocky’s “Inside the Columbine Investigation” series—discussing his role in the investigation, but not his conclusions. Jeffco commanders were lying: After several years of withholding, Jeffco released documents

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the items from all four areas. The risk factors were also highly correlated with substance abuse. A national task force: It included officers involved in Columbine, and leaders in the field, from the Los Angeles Police Department’s SWAT team to the National Tactical Officers Association. CHAPTER 50. THE BASEMENT

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Mortality Weekly Report 57, no. 2 (January 18, 2008): 33-36. EI Paso County Sheriff’s Office. Reinvestigation into the Death of Daniel Rohrbough at Columbine High School on April 20, 1990. April 10, 2002. Federal Bureau of Investigation. U.S. Department of Justice. Critical Incidence Response Group. National Center

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2000. Colorado Bureau of Investigation. Laboratory Report. CD. Released by Jefferson County on February 6, 2002. Colorado Department of Law, Office of the Attorney General. Columbine-Related Grand Jury Report: Supplemental Attorney General Investigative Report. Released on September 16, 2004. Colorado Department of Law, Office of the Attorney General. Grand Jury

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Klebold Residences/Vehicles. CD. Released by Jefferson County on July 6, 2006. Harris, Eric, and Dylan Klebold. Klebold/Harris Footage. Contains miscellaneous footage retrieved from Columbine High School or provided by citizens. VHS tape. Released by Jefferson County on February 26, 2004. ———. “Rampart Range” Video. VHS tape. Released by Jefferson

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Released on August 7, 2000. ———. Miscellaneous Items. CD. Contains the draft search affidavit, audio of the shoot team interviews, written transcript of an interview with Columbine High School community resource officer Neil Gardner, and the executive summary of the library investigative team. Released on April 10, 2001. ———. Miscellaneous Missing Documents. CD

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. Released in 2003. ———. Tracking Sheets, Investigative Index and Other Columbine Documents. CD. Released on January 8, 2003. ———. Warrants Book. CD. Released on June 9, 2003. Klebold, Dylan. Journal, school essays, yearbook inscription, schedules, and

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1999. Emery, Erin, Steve Lipsher, and Ricky Young. “Video, Poems Foreshadowed Day of Disaster.” Denver Post, April 22, 1999. Gibbs, Nancy, and Timothy Roche. “The Columbine Tapes.” Time, December 12, 1999. Johnson, Dirk, and Jodi Wilgoren. “The Gunman: A Portrait of Two Killers at War with Themselves.” New York Times, April

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Center for Journalism and Trauma. http://www.dartcenter.org/articles/special_features/ptsd101/00.php. SURVIVORS: MEMOIRS AND INTERVIEW TRANSCRIPTS Bernall, Brad, and Misty Bernall. “Columbine Victim Cassie Bernall’s Story.” Interview by Peter Jennings. World News Tonight, ABC, April 26, 1999. Bernall, Misty. She Said Yes: The Unlikely Martyrdom

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.” Rocky Mountain News, July 3, 1999. Edwards, Bob, anchor, and Andrea Dukakis, reporter. “Controversy over How to Spend the Millions of Dollars Donated Since the Columbine High School Shooting.” Morning Edition, NPR, June 22, 1999. Fox, Ben. “School Shooting Suspects Appear in Court.” Associated Press, March 26, 2001. “Grace Under

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Denver Post, April 3, 2000. Johnson, Dirk. “The Teacher: As They Mourn, They Are Left to Wonder.” New York Times, April 28, 1999. Kurtz, Holly. “Columbine-Area Groups Reap Funds: Nine Agencies, Charities to Use Money for Victim Counseling, Anti-violence Teen Programs.” Rocky Mountain News, August 14, 1999. ———. “Healing Fund

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Gives to Families: Columbine Victims Satisfied with Plan; Half of Distribution Goes to Students, Staff.” Rocky Mountain News, July 3, 1999. Lowe, Peggy. “Aired Video Irks Sheriff.” Denver Post

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, October 14, 1999. ———. “Columbine: They Are 5A Champions; Team Triumphs After Tragedy.” Denver Post, December 5, 1999. Lowe, Peggy, and Kieran Nicholson. “CBS Airs Cafeteria Tape.” Denver Post, October

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End?” Associated Press, October 23, 1999. “Phenomenon of the Goth Movement.” Interview by Brian Ross. 20/20, ABC, April 21, 1999. Prendergast, Alan. “Deeper into Columbine.” Westword, October 31, 2002. Scanlon, Bill. “‘Nothing but Cheers, Yells and Tears’: First Day Back Starts with Music, Parents Forming Human Chain.” Rocky Mountain News

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, August 17, 1999. Slevin, Colleen. “Mother of Columbine Victim Kills Self in Pawn Shop.” Associated Press, October 22, 1999. Sullivan, Bartholomew. “In Memory of Daniel Rohrbough.” Rocky Mountain News, April 27, 1999. “

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Video from Inside Columbine: Students, Teachers Seen Fleeing Cafeteria.” CBS News, October 12, 1999. LAWSUITS: COURT FILINGS AND CASE SUMMARIES Grenier, Peter C. “Civil Litigation Arising Out of the

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Modern Martyr.” Independent (London, U.K.), August 21, 1999. Fong, Tillie. “Crosses for Harris, Klebold Join 13 Others: Killers Remembered in Memorials on Hillside Near Columbine High School.” Rocky Mountain News, April 28, 1999. ———. “Fifteen Crosses Traced to Mystery Builder.” Rocky Mountain News, April 30, 1999. Go, Kristen. “Pastor Criticizes

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.” Rocky Mountain News, April 29, 1999. Vaughan, Kevin. “Divided by the Crosses.” Rocky Mountain News, May 2, 1999. Zoba, Wendy Murray. Day of Reckoning: Columbine and the Search for America’s Soul. Grand Rapids, MI: Brazos Press, 2001. MEDIA COVERAGE OF THE ATTACK Bai, Matt. “Anatomy of a Massacre.” Newsweek

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December 14, 1999. McPhee, Mike. “Sheriff’s Former No. 2 Man Denies Coverup.” Denver Post, September 17, 2004. McPhee, Mike, and Kieran Nicholson. “Deputy in Columbine Case Fired Sheriff: Taylor Admits Lying to Families; Rohrbough Kin Calls Confession a Ruse.” Denver Post, January 10, 2002. Prendergast, Alan. “Chronology of a Big

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.” Associated Press, Denver, CO, May 19, 2000. Schwartz, Emma. “Gun Control Laws.” U.S. News & World Report, March 6, 2008. Soraghan, Mike. “Colorado After Columbine: The Gun Debate.” State Legislatures Magazine, June 2000. Tapper, Jake, “Coming Out Shooting: In the Wake of the Littleton Massacre, the NRA Holds Its Convention

Parkland: Birth of a Movement

by Dave Cullen  · 12 Feb 2019  · 368pp  · 108,222 words

on gun legislation without changing some legislators. And putting the rest on notice. It’s a particular sort of fear Jackie shares with survivors of Columbine and the Pulse nightclub shooting. Most mass shootings end within fifteen minutes, but Jackie and her friend Cameron Kasky were crouched in lockdown on the

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voices, perspectives, and talents—healing each other as they fought. 2 I swore I would never go back. I spent ten years researching and writing Columbine, and discovered that post-traumatic stress disorder can strike even those who have not witnessed a trauma directly. First responders, therapists, victim advocates, and journalists

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space. In the immediate aftermath, I engage with a cadre of mental health and criminology experts, and with countless informal survivor networks, especially the many Columbine survivors I now count as friends. Months, or preferably years, later, I have gone back to the scene of some of the worst crimes. I

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because of the carnage. It was something entirely different; something the producer was sensing, but couldn’t put her finger on. “This one feels like Columbine,” she said. Producers kept repeating versions of that all afternoon: The images look strangely familiar. Why? I felt it too, and was equally puzzled at

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rifles to line up for pat-downs. Victims as suspects. Yet we had gone nearly two decades without seeing this horrifying sight again, because after Columbine, law enforcement threw out the old rulebook and developed the Active Shooter Protocol. Now police charge in immediately, and these spectacle murders end abruptly. Of

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the horrors post-Columbine, only one lasted more than fifteen minutes. Most perpetrators die in the act, often by their own hand, as authorities close in. The Pulse

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half hours before the SWAT team cleared the last classrooms and gave the all clear. Americans respond to most mass shootings with shock and grief. Columbine and Parkland provoked fear. Hours of fear. Human responses to those emotions are dramatically different. Fear floods the brain with norepinephrine, a hormonal cousin

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reruns the same headline after every time: “‘No Way To Prevent This,’ Says Only Nation Where This Regularly Happens.” Hope for gun reform swelled after Columbine, but even the Colorado legislature failed. Guns laws actually grew much looser when the federal assault weapons ban expired five years later. Virginia Tech brought

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to spot threats and address underlying causes. And it’s fruitful to study influential cases—influential to subsequent killers—particularly the false narrative of the Columbine killers as heroes fighting for the bullied and outcasts everywhere. Most of the perpetrators buy into that myth, which is why it’s imperative that

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the media avoid creating new ones by jumping to conclusions too soon. Sadly, Columbine ignited the school-shooter era, which we’re still dealing with, and it’s getting much worse. While keeping top-ten lists of these

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public. On Valentine’s Day, Laura Farber was gearing up for the film festival circuit. She had finished postproduction on her documentary feature, We Are Columbine, about her freshman class surviving that tragedy. It had taken nineteen years. David Hogg filmed his Parkland ordeal as he lived it. He laid down

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finally said. David hopped on his bike, and pedaled furiously back. Twenty years. The pace has changed. So has kids’ connection to media. In the Columbine age, teachers sought to make their students wiser media consumers. The members of David’s generation spent much of their waking lives on Snapchat, Instagram

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were going to think and pray and legislate to keep the deadly system precisely the same. What had begun with good intentions after horrors like Columbine rang hollow nineteen years and 81 mass shootings later. The Parkland kids welcomed thoughts and prayers in addition to solutions, not instead. Sunday, the

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memorabilia, and realized I was standing inside the sprawling memorial. A wave of sadness knocked me to my knees, and all I could feel was Columbine. This one had promised to be different, but these spontaneous memorials are horribly familiar. All the memorials include flowers, candles, and teddy bears, but

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The babies briefly defused the pressure and reminded Jackie whom they were fighting for. Would those babies still fear gunmen in their high school? The Columbine students were old enough to be Jackie’s parents. They had never thought to fear for their own kids. We knew better now. Jackie looked

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with his friend’s ghost about slitting his throat to join them. Broadway heavyweights Duncan Sheik and Steven Sater had been so distraught by the Columbine massacre in 1999 that they adapted Frank Wedekind’s play, subtitled A Children’s Tragedy, as a rock musical. They retained the period setting

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when they settle into their grief and trauma recovery down the road,” said Robin Fudge Finegan, who led victims’ advocate teams at Oklahoma City and Columbine, then served as a senior FEMA official. “One cannot go end around grief and trauma.” Exactly two weeks after the attack, MSD classes were

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a rally. But that would be enough. It was already enough. Coni Sanders’s father, Dave Sanders, was the teacher killed saving students at Columbine. Coni had become a prominent champion of gun reform, waging a relentless struggle; the activists seemed to lose every skirmish on every front. I got

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wife, Patricia, were repeating a ghastly process first improvised in 1999, improved through repetition, yet still horribly inadequate. When a SWAT team rescued hundreds of Columbine students, school administrators had to wing it. They loaded the kids onto school buses, drove them to nearby Leawood Elementary School, and announced the rendezvous

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stage to silence. Vital data collection was also haphazard. Police had no triage procedure for questioning or sorting survivors. Astute officers questioned some kids fleeing Columbine, and ran promising leads over to lead investigator Kate Battan, but most fell through the cracks. Battan was racing to establish the killers’ identities while

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better than their school. MSD’s seven-syllable name had probably saved them that indignation. But what did they call the shooting—obviously not “Parkland”? Columbine survivors had coalesced around “the tragedy,” but other communities favor “the shooting” or “the attack.” In New Orleans, it was commonly “pre-K” and “

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OK.” He was smiling again. “Good,” I said. “I’m gonna put quotes around that.” There would be many more breakups ahead of them. When Columbine happened, the federal government rushed in a huge team of grief counselors. One of the leaders, who had just spent years with Oklahoma City survivors

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in high school, recounted their horror in 2012. At the worst of it, they’d drawn tremendous solace from a simple act of solidarity, when Columbine survivors sent a banner encouraging them. Then they unfurled their own banner with their school logo, reading “Newtown High School stands with Stoneman Douglas” over

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spiking to 5 percent for the first walkout. It hit 9 percent the day of the march. No other tragedy, not even Newtown, not even Columbine, had accomplished anything near that. 7 They had set an audacious goal, and surpassed it in five weeks. Now what? The horizon always looks different

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students did not all respond with activism. Most supported gun reform, came out to the occasional walkout or rally, but their priority was healing. The Columbine event helped some Douglas students do both. It began with an invitation to the MFOL kids. Emmy, Madison, and the other organizers worked with the

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former Columbine principal Frank DeAngelis to honor them with a leadership award. The MFOL leaders had made a prior commitment, so the organizers invited a handful of

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away inside the studio at that moment. Much of the team had drama class with these kids every day. 4 The Douglas group traveling to Columbine was supportive of the MFOL kids. Some came from undocumented families, so they were keeping a low media profile. Others just didn’t feel

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The downside was lack of control. The second National School Walkout caused some blowback. It was timed to commemorate the nineteenth anniversary of the Columbine massacre, and Columbine refused to participate. The victims it sought to revere were furious. The national media never got wind of the controversy, but it happened at

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that the lockdown drills, now ubiquitous, barely predated them. They were sick of hiding as a strategy, and tragedy meant response, anniversaries demanded action. The Columbine survivors had never been trained in lockdown drills. They had never heard the term. They didn’t rise up against the epidemic of school shooters

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has turned it into a day of service and kindness, and reserve politics to the other 364 days of the year. DeAngelis and the current Columbine principal, Scott Christy, quietly lobbied for the Connecticut organizers to change the date. About a week before the event, the principals released a gently

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revamped or rescheduled their events. Adams herself met the organizers at the march in DC and pleaded with them. She sent a letter from the Columbine principals. Columbine’s lead student organizer, Kaylee Tyner, reached out repeatedly. No one wanted the dispute to erupt in public. Adams, Tyner, and DeAngelis were

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200 classmates from media coverage. That was true, and unique among mass shootings. The media always did its best to create celebrity victims and survivors. Columbine had produced the mistaken Christian martyr Cassie Bernall; “The Boy in the Window,” Patrick Ireland; and the heroic teacher Dave Sanders. There were usually several

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a theme so many stricken communities have chosen, depicting their lost children as angels, silently walking beside them, encouraging the survivors on. It took the Columbine survivors eight years to break ground on their permanent memorial, and Dawn Anna Beck, who lost her daughter, Lauren Townsend, in the library, spoke on

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Dylan had never been sucked into a mass shooting vortex before. They were rife with competing agendas, and the most sensitive was honoring the dead. Columbine remained closed for four months after its tragedy, until the first day of fall semester. Students felt so robbed of their school’s identity that

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by surprise. The kids also made a conscious decision to route their tour through the sites of several tragic shootings—including Newtown, Aurora, Ferguson, and Columbine. The survivors taught them a great deal about recovery, coping with the spotlight, and the stages of trauma ahead. And they got a crash course

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the godfather of their movement, appeared with them at the Denver town hall. Tom was the only parent or spouse of the thirteen murdered at Columbine to take on gun safety aggressively in 1999. He soldiered on alone, later joined by hundreds affected by subsequent tragedies—and in nineteen years,

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revolutionary Irish newspaper publisher, to open up a whole new understanding of how long writing has been in my blood. For all the readers of Columbine still emailing or tagging me on social media nearly every day, especially the high school students—and the teachers and librarians bringing the book into

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The iconic photograph was published in the Rocky Mountain News, which deservedly won the 2000 Pulitzer for Breaking News Photography for its collection of twenty Columbine photographs. The Rocky went bankrupt and its site disappeared, but the photos are all collected at the Pulitzer site mentioned in the bibliography. The CNN

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numbers of mass shootings and Americans killed in mass shootings are pulled from Mother Jones’s database on American mass shootings. We included data from Columbine (April 20, 1999) through the Chicago Mercy Hospital shooting (November 19, 2018). 1. Valentine’s Day 1 I have been talking to Laura Farber

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about her Columbine documentary for several years, since its inception phase. It eventually debuted at the Minneapolis Saint Paul International Film Festival in April, and has since won

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Concerning the pervasive feeling after these tragedies: I have observed it and discussed it with trauma experts countless times over the past two decades. The Columbine example is portrayed in that book. 6. Back to “Normal” 1 Daniel’s father, Brian, his two brothers, Brendan and Connor, and Connor’s

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wrote an incredible piece for Univision, “Where Is My Son?” It is the basis for most of section 1, interspersed with my reporting in Columbine. I later confirmed the veracity of their account with Tío Manny. The Univision piece provided the last names of Sergeants Rossman and Brown, but I

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Ley come from interviews with them. I have been consulting with Dr. Ochberg about trauma issues since 1999, when he played a big role at Columbine. I became an Ochberg Fellow at the nonprofit organization he founded, the Dart Center for Journalism and Trauma, at Columbia University’s Graduate School of

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the kids about what they had scheduled, and then confirmed those details with local news coverage. The Denver sibling march and the April event outside Columbine were huge undertakings, and I talked to dozens of people involved in organizing them. I could name only a few in the text without

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pulled into the strange gravitational orbit of these awful events, and are part of it together. Normal journalistic boundaries have blurred. In the years after Columbine was published, I also faced an ethical dilemma. I had always sought to remain neutral and objective on issues like the gun debate. However, I

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Kallie about him being too upset to call the insurance company. 5 Two years after Paula Reed taught Dylan Klebold, he and Eric Harris attacked Columbine. Most of Dylan’s friends shared Reed’s perception that Dylan was a sweet kid, and were shocked that he participated. 17. Setbacks 1

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December 2018. But I have a feeling that will prove temporary. About the Author Dave Cullen is the author of the New York Times bestseller Columbine. Cullen has also written for the New York Times, BuzzFeed, Vanity Fair, Politico Magazine, the London Times, the New Republic, Newsweek, the Guardian, the

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The Millions, Lapham’s Quarterly, and NPR’s On the Media. Discover great authors, exclusive offers, and more at hc.com Also by Dave Cullen Columbine Copyright parkland. Copyright © 2019 by Dave Cullen. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have

More Guns, Less Crime: Understanding Crime and Gun-Control Laws

by John R. Lott  · 15 May 2010  · 456pp  · 185,658 words

even had arrived at the scene—4½ minutes before in the Pearl, Mississippi, case and 11 minutes before in Edinboro. In a third instance, at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado, an armed guard was able to delay the attackers and allow many students to escape the building, even though he

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how these attacks were stopped. 230 | CHAPTER NINE For a simple comparison, take the justified news coverage accorded the heroic actions of Dave Sanders, the Columbine High School teacher who helped protect some of the students and was killed in the process. By the Sunday morning five days after the incident

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. Neither Myrick nor Strand was killed during their heroics. That might explain why they were ignored to a greater degree than Dave Sanders in the Columbine attack. Yet one suspects a more politically correct explanation—especially when the media generally ignore defensive gun use. With five public-school-related shootings occurring

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An effective as well as moving piece I recently read was written by Dale Anema, a father whose son was trapped for hours inside the Columbine High School building during the April 1999 attack. His agony while waiting to hear what happened to his son touches any parent’s worst fears

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fewer victims per attack.179 That killers often choose gun-free zones for their attacks is not a new phenomenon. Thirteen were killed in the Columbine High School shooting in 1999; twenty-three were shot dead at Luby’s Cafeteria in Killeen, Texas, in 1991; and twenty-one were slain at

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suffered at least two major multiple-victim shootings. The worst school shooting in Germany resulted in seventeen killed (four more than were killed at the Columbine High School attack); in Switzerland, one attacker fatally shot fourteen legislators in a regional parliament building; in Finland in 2008, an attack took the lives

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Tragedies,” Cleveland Plain Dealer, May 30, 1999, p. 19A. 29. Pam Belluck and Jodi Wilgoren, “Shattered Lives—a Special Report: Caring Parents, No Answers, in Columbine Killers’ Pasts,” New York Times, June 29, 1999, p. A1; and Virginia Culver, “Pastor Comforts Gunman’s Family,” Arizona Republic, May 1, 1999, p. D7

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, Jr., “More Gun Controls? They Haven’t Worked in the Past,” Wall Street Journal, June 17, 1999, p. A26. 109. Dale Anema, “A Father at Columbine High,” American Enterprise, Sept. / Oct. 1999, pp. 48–50. CHAPTER TEN 1. Matt Bai, “The Gun Crowd’s Guru,” Newsweek, Mar. 12, 2001. 2. John

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–67, 232, 300, 370n37, 386n29, 396n13 Coalition to Stop Gun Violence, 202, 393n13 Cohen, Mark, 300 Colorado, 413n59 Colorado Springs church shooting (2007), 324–25 Columbine High School (Littleton, Colorado, 1999), 195, 230, 233, 323 concealed-handgun laws, 7, 12–15, 20–21, 27, 30, 35, 56–57, 63–64, 97

American Gun: The True Story of the AR-15

by Cameron McWhirter and Zusha Elinson  · 25 Sep 2023  · 525pp  · 166,724 words

over the front pages. On April 20 of that year, eighteen-year-old Eric Harris and seventeen-year-old Dylan Klebold shot their way into Columbine High School near Littleton, Colorado. They murdered twelve fellow students and one teacher, as many of the victims pleaded for their lives. The two outcasts

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. Everyone left bitter and divided. As the gun-control movement splintered, the NRA grew stronger. Gun owners rushed to join the group after the 1999 Columbine High School massacre, fearful of new laws that never materialized. The group claimed about 4 million members in 2003. The NRA’s magazine, American Rifleman

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. He made edits to their Wikipedia pages, updating details about the guns they used. He registered as “Smiggles” on an online forum devoted to the Columbine High School killers. After the Aurora massacre, he exchanged emails with an online acquaintance about Holmes’s popularity with fans, whom he called “Holmies.” Lanza

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back this bill over a difficult push to ban AR-15s. He had worked on the background-check bill in the Clinton White House after Columbine. He had resurrected the bill during his years at Americans for Gun Safety. Bennett was a firm believer that finding a middle ground on an

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carried out by one person in American history. In about ten minutes, the gunman killed and wounded more people than the mass shooters in Stockton, Columbine, Virginia Tech, Aurora, Sandy Hook, San Bernardino, and Orlando combined. Using AR-15s, Stephen Paddock killed 58 people and wounded 413 others with bullets or

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and social media, she created the hashtag #NationalSchoolWalkout and called for students everywhere to leave school on April 20, 2018, the anniversary of the 1999 Columbine massacre. She thought it would be a way to channel the frustration she and her friends were feeling. Her hashtag swept the internet. Students across

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his mother died, a family friend called the Broward County Sheriff’s Office to report that Cruz was suicidal and collecting guns. “This could be Columbine in the making,” she said. Another woman called the FBI, worried about Cruz “getting into a school and just shooting the place up.” On Valentine

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needed to go beyond defensive measures such as metal detectors and armed guards. John McDonald, the security chief of the Colorado school district where the Columbine High School shooting occurred, started a program to monitor students who made violent threats—even after they graduated. McDonald always took threats made by students

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of Investigation and the Advanced Law Enforcement Rapid Response Training (ALERRT) Center at Texas State University, 2022. John McDonald, the security chief: Zusha Elinson, “In Columbine’s School District, Former Students Are Tracked to Prevent Attacks,” The Wall Street Journal, February 28, 2018, https://www.wsj.com/articles/in

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-columbines-school-district-former-students-are-tracked-to-prevent-attacks-1519830001. “So many of the weapons”: Author interview with James Densley. “We’ve got a problem,

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control debates and; gun production relation to campaign of Cold War cold weather Colorado: Aurora theater 2012 shooting in; Boulder 2021 grocery store shooting in; Columbine 1999 school shooting in; nightclub 2022 shooting in; student monitoring program in Colt (company): AR-15 advertising by; AR-15 commercial market in 2011; on

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after; NRA response to; Obama on; parent activism after; parents’ suffering after; Wheeler family and; see also Lanza, Adam Scheutz, Bob Schmeisser, Hugo school shootings: Columbine; fear of; gun control protests around; NRA membership and; Stockton (1989); student activism in response to; student drills on; student monitoring to prevent; trauma with

The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined

by Steven Pinker  · 24 Sep 2012  · 1,351pp  · 385,579 words

United States, Timothy McVeigh’s bombing of a federal office building in Oklahoma City in 1995 killed 165, a shooting spree by two teenagers at Columbine High School in 1999 killed 17, and no other attack has killed as many as a dozen. Other than 9/11, the number of people

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through a barely wrinkled carpet. With the lower altitudes stretched out by the logarithmic scale, we can discern peaks for Oklahoma City in 1995 and Columbine in 1999 (which is a dubious example of “terrorism,” but with a single exception, noted below, I never second-guess the datasets when plotting the

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category of violence flips from inevitable to intolerable, bullying has been targeted for elimination. The movement emerged from the ball of confusion surrounding the 1999 Columbine High School massacre, as the media amplified one another’s rumors about the causes—Goth culture, jocks, antidepressants, video games, Internet use, violent movies, the

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/n-e62.htm. 192. Rate of violent deaths of children: A. Gentleman, “ ‘The fear is not in step with reality,’ ” Guardian , Mar. 4, 2010. 193. Columbine: Cullen, 2009. 194. Effects of bullying: P. Klass, “At last, facing down bullies (and their enablers),” New York Times, Jun. 9, 2009. 195. Anti-bullying

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police battalion 101 and the final solution in Poland. New York: HarperCollins. Brownmiller, S. 1975. Against our will: Men, women, and rape. New York: Fawcett Columbine. Broyles, W. J. 1984. Why men love war. Esquire (November). Brunner, H. G., Nelen, M., Breakfield, X. O., Ropers, H. H., & van Oost, B. A

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. In P. Haggard, Y. Rosetti, & M. Kawamoto, eds., Attention and performance XXII: Sensorimotor foundations of higher cognition. New York: Oxford Univeristy Press. Cullen, D. 2009. Columbine. New York: Twelve. Curtis, V., & Biran, A. 2001. Dirt, disgust, and disease: Is hygiene in our genes? Perspectives in Biology & Medicine, 44, 17–31. Dabbs

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, Dov Cohen, Jonathan Cold War end of interstate wars in Europe mutually assured destruction proxy wars superpower confrontations Cole, Michael Collier, Paul Collins, Randall Colombia Columbine High School commerce: Christian ideology vs. cooperation in and genocide growth of international trade and money protectionist tariffs and transportation see also gentle commerce common

Rise of the Warrior Cop: The Militarization of America's Police Forces

by Radley Balko  · 14 Jun 2013  · 465pp  · 134,575 words

prerequisite. The other major incident from the late 1990s that proponents of militarization often cite in justifying SWAT teams is the 1999 mass shooting at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado. But if the justification for SWAT teams is to have a team of brave, highly trained, highly professional, well-armed

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, and well-protected cops to intervene in such tragedies, Columbine is a particularly unfortunate example. Though there were eventually eight hundred police officers and eight SWAT teams on the

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Columbine campus, the SWAT teams held off from going inside to stop shooters Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris because they deemed the situation too dangerous. A

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Jefferson County. They found that the officers had followed standard procedure. Perhaps that was just an act of professional courtesy. If not, consider the implications. Columbine was precisely the sort of incident for which the SWAT team had been invented. It was the sort of incident often cited by defenders of

…

Commander Peter Tyler was asked why a college town with virtually no violent crime needed a SWAT team in the first place. He pointed to Columbine and similar mass shootings. “I think it’s naive for anyone to think it couldn’t happen here in Ithaca,” he said. Perhaps. But in

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article on the spread of SWAT teams in Florida noted that “police say they want [SWAT teams] in case of a hostage situation or a Columbine-type incident. But in practice, the teams are used mainly to serve search warrants on suspected drug dealers. Some of these searches yield as little

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to justify his department’s acquisition of a military-grade armored truck.67 There have, of course, been a number of other school shootings since Columbine, on both high school and college campuses. And some, like Virginia Tech, have ended with horrifically high body counts. But most such shootings are also

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—hardly justification to rush out to get a SWAT team.68 Yet many college campuses now have their own paramilitary police teams, and many cited Columbine and Virginia Tech as the reason they needed one. A recent example is the University of North Carolina–Charlotte Campus Police Department, which started a

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prevent the loss of life. We must be prepared to respond to high risk situations such as those tragedies that occurred at Virginia Tech and Columbine.”69 The number of campuses that will ever host a mass shooting or hostage taking may be vanishingly small, but most campuses produce more than

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Shoot-Out, directed by Yves Simoneau (2003); Peter Prengaman, “10th Anniversary of Infamous LA Shootout That Changed Policing,” Associated Press, February 28, 2007. 64. The Columbine narrative is from David Kopel, “Police Stood Idle,” New York Post, April 20, 2000; Bovard, “Flash. Bang. You’re Dead”; “What Really Happened at

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Columbine?” CBS News, 60 Minutes, April 29, 2009. 65. J. R. Clairborne, “Members Start Training, Learn New Jobs, Cross Train,” Ithaca Journal, March 15, 2000. 66.

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, 179, 223, 260–261, 262, 263 Coleman, Tom, 245 Colombia, 251 Colonial period, x–xi, 3, 6, 8–9, 12, 13–14, 27–29, 140 Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado, 230–233 Common law, 4–5, 6, 45, 46, 88, 140, 196, 199, 261 Communism, 37, 38, 40, 178, 204

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, 172, 177, 188, 190, 191–193, 204, 206–214, 225, 241, 244–246, 248–249, 252, 270, 278, 281–283, 296, 310–320, 331 at Columbine High School, 230–232 and community policing, 220–221 first raid by, 76–80 INS SWAT teams, 205 numbers of teams/deployments, 137, 175, 207

The Science of Fear: How the Culture of Fear Manipulates Your Brain

by Daniel Gardner  · 23 Jun 2009  · 542pp  · 132,010 words

course this isn’t people’s sense of reality—thanks mainly to the fact that on April 20, 1999, two heavily armed teenagers walked into Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado. They murdered one teacher and twelve students, wounded twenty-four, and stunned hundreds of millions of people around the world

…

. The Columbine massacre got massive news coverage. The Pew Research Center found that almost seven out of ten Americans said they followed the event “very closely,” making

…

likely or very likely that a school shooting would happen in their community, while a USA Today poll taken following the Columbine massacre got almost the same result. One month after Columbine, a Gallup poll found that 52 percent of parents feared for their children’s safety at school; five months later

…

, that number was almost unchanged at 47 percent. As hideous as the Columbine massacre was, it didn’t change the fact that most schools, and most students in them, were perfectly safe—a fact that politicians could have

…

it. Few do. And so politicians do not struggle to quell the “unreasoning fear” Roosevelt warned against. They embrace and amplify it. The furor after Columbine faded eventually, but in the fall of 2006, the whole terrible scenario—from tragedy to panic—was revisited. On September 13, a former student entered

…

days. “Our schools are not equipped with metal detectors,” an official told the New York Times. “If we kept them open, we risk having another Columbine.” One councilman spotted the flaw in this thinking. “I think it would be safer for the kids to be in school,” he said. He was

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rates and risk perception cholera Cialdini, Robert Clarke, Lee Clarke, Richard climate change Clinton, Bill Clinton, Hillary Coggon, David Cohen, Roger Cole, Steve Collins, Sean Columbine High School shooting confirmation bias conformity Congleton, Roger Cooper, Anderson Cotler, Irwin Couey, John Cox, Sue Crace, Jim Creba, Jane Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease. See also

Home Grown: How Domestic Violence Turns Men Into Terrorists

by Joan Smith  · 5 Apr 2019

they were arrested in 2017, hero-worshipped Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, perpetrators of one of the most notorious school shootings in American history at Columbine High School in Colorado in 1999. Wylie carried out Internet searches on how to make nail bombs, boasting in his diary that he intended to

…

was sent to prison for twelve years, while his accomplice, Bolland, got ten years. The case aroused huge interest, but press reports focused on the Columbine angle, demonstrating how easy it is to miss the close connection between private and public violence. * The next generation Just as the number of adults

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. Most of Lanza’s interactions with other people were online, so she may not have known about his obsessive interest in mass killings, especially the Columbine High School shootings, or what the FBI described as an interest in children that ‘could be categorized as pedophilia’.166 Yet the erasure of Nancy

…

As we’ve seen earlier in this book, teenage boys who carry out school shootings often turn out to have idolised the perpetrators of the Columbine High School massacre. A more recent mass killer, twenty-two-year-old Elliot Rodger, has been claimed as one of the inspirations of the overtly

…

in itself, the Toronto incident also signalled the risk of copycat attacks by adherents of what appears to be a growing cult, just as the Columbine massacre has been referenced by a whole series of school shooters. * Santa Fe High School, Texas Shortly before eight a.m. on Friday, 18 May

…

fire in an art class at a school in Texas. The suspect, who was wearing a black trench coat like the ones worn by the Columbine killers, used a Remington shotgun and a revolver legally owned by his father to murder eight students and two teachers, while another thirteen people were

…

his golf clubs in Florida and made no comment on it. The Parkland massacre was the deadliest high-school attack in the US since the Columbine shootings. The attack began on the afternoon of Valentine’s day in 2018, when a nineteen-year-old man allegedly walked into his old school

…

Strength Saved Me’, Luke Hart, Huffington Post, 22 April 2017 27 Islington Gazette, 5 January 2018 28 Ibid., 14 March 2018 29 ‘Teenagers who plotted Columbine-style attack at Yorkshire school jailed’, Sky News website, 20 July 2018 30 Figures from the domestic violence charity Refuge, at www.refuge.org.uk

Masters of Doom: How Two Guys Created an Empire and Transformed Pop Culture

by David Kushner  · 2 Jan 2003  · 240pp  · 109,474 words

created enough sociopolitical heat to get banned in some countries and, in the United States, blamed for inciting a killing spree by two fans at Columbine High School in 1999. As a result, they have spawned their own unique outlaw community, a high-stakes, high-tech mecca for skilled and driven

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“RebDoomer” Harris and his best friend, Dylan “Vodka” Klebold, strapped themselves with bombs and shotguns and went on a rampage through their Littleton, Colorado, school, Columbine High, leaving fifteen people, including themselves, dead. The event, which played out on live television, galvanized the country. Parents, teachers, politicians, and children wanted to

…

Doom in a “dry run” of the real-life killings. Similarly without substantiation, others began reporting that Harris had created a mod based specifically on Columbine High. The Washington Post described the world of Doom deathmatching as a “dark, dangerous place.” Newsday wrote about how playing Doom can “widen the hole

…

does not make them causally connected… There is not, I submit, a single research 211 study which is even remotely predictive of [events like] the Columbine massacre.” Murderers, after all, had proven that they could find inspiration in anything–the White Album, Taxi Driver, Catcher in the Rye. How many acts

…

of violence had the Bible inspired? After Columbine, however, few had the nerve or the knowledge to defend games. Jon Kate, a writer for Rolling Stone and the tech community Slashdot, posted several

…

. The message from Washington was loud and clear: Rethink violent games or else. It was 1:34 A.M. in Suite 666, days after the Columbine shootings. Carmack sat at his desk behind the black windows in the black night, cursor blinking on his computer, awaiting a response. He thought over

…

. “Hey,” he said, passing the police officers in his lobby, “do you guys want anything to eat?” The cops were the most obvious sign of Columbine’s impact on id. They had been hired to stand guard shortly after the first wave of hate calls and hate mails started flaming into

…

relented but felt it was an overreaction. “Oh,” they said, “this happens all the time.” In fact, it had happened only eight days before the Columbine shootings. On April 12, 1999, the parents of three students killed in a 1997 school shooting in Paducah, Kentucky, had leveled a $130 million lawsuit

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guys had played games, there had been the detractors, the lawsuits, the sensationalism, but nothing quite as powerful as the onetwo punch of Paducah and Columbine. Because of the Paducah lawsuit, id’s 213 lawyers strongly advised the owners and employees to remain quiet. The staff obliged, but Carmack felt frustrated

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desk, he went back to work on a game that was going to be id’s most gleeful shooter yet: Quake III Arena. But, after Columbine, would people want–would the market allow–his or Romero’s games again? Jonn Schuneman gripped his bowling ball tighter as the talk turned to

…

relaxing with a good game. But not today. The people next to him, like millions across the country, were talking about the horrific events at Columbine High School. Kids today, they’re being corrupted by these violent videogames like Doom. Schuneman’s heart raced again as they spoke. He stepped over

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his boys, Steven and Michael, and play through the worlds he created. They were ready for that day, Romero decided, when they were eight. After Columbine, though, Romero kept these opinions to himself. He wasn’t being sued like id, but why say anything anyway? You talk to journalists and they

…

way they want into their story and it will only end up looking bad. The last thing Romero wanted was more bad press. Even before Columbine, after all, he’d been getting more than his share. The avalanche of trash talking–in the press and in the community–broke the moment

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had accidentally posted his e-mail file on the company computer network and that anyone within Ion could have copied them. By the time the Columbine blow came, a few months later, Romero couldn’t have been beaten down any worse. His company was a laughingstock. His game was once again

…

spotlight at the E3 convention in Los Angeles in May 1999, but this time for all the wrong reasons. Coming only one month after the Columbine shootings and the Paducah lawsuit, the show became a feeding ground for the media’s increasingly sensational investigation of video game violence. Of all the

…

that makes interactive entertainment the fastest-growing entertainment industry in the world.” The reporters responded by rushing over to id’s booth for comments on Columbine, to no avail. Any journalist who muscled up to one of the gamers 217 from id was abruptly intercepted by a PR representative, who would

…

Carmack had announced it in his plan. The animosity and competition nevertheless remained. And, with Quake III so disorganized, not to mention the heat of Columbine, there was no reprieve. Despite positive reviews of the game at E3, id began to fall apart. Two respected young employees–Brandon James, a level

…

a steady flow of crew members leaping–or pushing each other–off board. Reeling from the Ion Eight departures, the Dallas Observer story, and the Columbine controversy, the company had suffered yet another blow as a result of that year’s E3 convention. The pressure going into the convention had been

…

efforts by politicians to legislate violent games, the courts sent a message by throwing out the multimillion-dollar lawsuits that alleged the teenage shooters at Columbine and Paducah were influenced by Doom. “This was a tragic situation,” a U.S. distinct judge declared, “but tragedies such as this simply defy rational

Colorado

by Lonely Planet

pasta dishes), submarine sandwiches (good trail grub) and calzones. It’s all served in a bright corner room, decorated with those kitschy red-checkered tablecloths. Columbine Cafe DINER $ ( 970-547-4474; 109 S Main St; mains $6-10; 7:30am-2pm; ) If you’re looking for a more tasteful, flavorful breakfast

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heart is. Green Fairy Bar ABSINTHE BAR ( 970-968-2222; www.greenfairybar.com; 325 S Main St; 7pm-late) A basement bar tucked into the Columbine Square building. It’s a simple spot with Spanish tile floors, wood tables and dark-wood bar and it pours absinthe, the once forbidden aperitif

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intermediate runs are Expresso, Cappuccino and Christmas in the Mountaintop Express Lift (#4) area. Northwoods, in the Northwoods Express Lift (#11) area, Avanti, Lodgepole and Columbine in the Avanti Express Lift (#2) area and Dealer’s Choice in Game Creek Bowl are also great. Intermediate skiers also love Blue Sky Basin

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Friday night for the seafood buffet ($14). The restaurant often doubles as a club, showcasing live music. Columbine Bar PUB ( 970-533-7397; 123 W Grand Ave; 10am-2am) More than a century after Columbine Bar first opened its doors, the saloon, established in 1903 and one of Colorado’s oldest continuously

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. And it was in those suburbs that tragedy struck on April 20, 1999, in the form of the deadliest school shooting in American history at Columbine High School. That event overshadowed what was otherwise a pivotal and positive decade for the state in terms of economic growth as Denver and Boulder

…

damper areas. In the subalpine zone, above 9000ft, Engelmann spruce largely replace pine (though some stands of lodgepoles grow higher), while colorful wildflowers such as columbine, marsh marigold and primrose colonize open spaces. In the alpine zone above 11,500ft, alpine meadows and tundra supplant stunted trees, which can grow only

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The Undertow: Scenes From a Slow Civil War

by Jeff Sharlet  · 21 Mar 2023  · 308pp  · 97,480 words

Wanderers: A Novel

by Chuck Wendig  · 1 Jul 2019  · 1,028pp  · 267,392 words

Poking a Dead Frog: Conversations With Today's Top Comedy Writers

by Mike Sacks  · 23 Jun 2014

The End of the Suburbs: Where the American Dream Is Moving

by Leigh Gallagher  · 26 Jun 2013  · 296pp  · 76,284 words

How the Mind Works

by Steven Pinker  · 1 Jan 1997  · 913pp  · 265,787 words

Against Empathy: The Case for Rational Compassion

by Paul Bloom  · 281pp  · 79,464 words

The New Urban Crisis: How Our Cities Are Increasing Inequality, Deepening Segregation, and Failing the Middle Class?and What We Can Do About It

by Richard Florida  · 9 May 2016  · 356pp  · 91,157 words

Fantasyland: How America Went Haywire: A 500-Year History

by Kurt Andersen  · 4 Sep 2017  · 522pp  · 162,310 words

Vegetable Literacy

by Deborah Madison  · 19 Mar 2013

Daily Rituals: How Artists Work

by Mason Currey  · 22 Apr 2013  · 264pp  · 68,108 words

1491

by Charles C. Mann  · 8 Aug 2005  · 666pp  · 189,883 words

Full Catastrophe Living (Revised Edition): Using the Wisdom of Your Body and Mind to Face Stress, Pain, and Illness

by Jon Kabat-Zinn  · 23 Sep 2013  · 706pp  · 237,378 words

What Every Body Is Saying: An Ex-FBI Agent's Guide to Speed-Reading People

by Joe Navarro and Marvin Karlins  · 22 Feb 2011  · 291pp  · 73,972 words

Rogue State: A Guide to the World's Only Superpower

by William Blum  · 31 Mar 2002

The Age of Radiance: The Epic Rise and Dramatic Fall of the Atomic Era

by Craig Nelson  · 25 Mar 2014  · 684pp  · 188,584 words

The Two-Income Trap: Why Middle-Class Parents Are Going Broke

by Elizabeth Warren and Amelia Warren Tyagi  · 17 Aug 2004  · 318pp  · 93,502 words

Secrets and Lies: Digital Security in a Networked World

by Bruce Schneier  · 1 Jan 2000  · 470pp  · 144,455 words

Discover Great Britain

by Lonely Planet  · 22 Aug 2012

Great Britain

by David Else and Fionn Davenport  · 2 Jan 2007

The 4-Hour Body: An Uncommon Guide to Rapid Fat-Loss, Incredible Sex, and Becoming Superhuman

by Timothy Ferriss  · 1 Dec 2010  · 836pp  · 158,284 words

The Words You Should Know to Sound Smart: 1200 Essential Words Every Sophisticated Person Should Be Able to Use

by Bobbi Bly  · 18 Mar 2009  · 251pp  · 44,888 words

The Ledge: An Adventure Story of Friendship and Survival on Mount Rainier

by Jim Davidson and Kevin Vaughan  · 26 Jul 2011

All Your Base Are Belong to Us: How Fifty Years of Video Games Conquered Pop Culture

by Harold Goldberg  · 5 Apr 2011  · 329pp  · 106,831 words

Rewired: The Post-Cyberpunk Anthology

by James Patrick Kelly and John Kessel  · 30 Sep 2007  · 571pp  · 162,958 words

Pump Six and Other Stories

by Paolo Bacigalupi  · 15 Sep 2010  · 339pp  · 100,075 words

Enigma

by Robert Harris  · 15 Feb 2011  · 387pp  · 111,096 words

A Lady's Life in the Rocky Mountains

by Isabella Lucy Bird and Daniel J. Boorstin  · 1 Jan 1873  · 536pp  · 79,887 words

The Desert and the Sea: 977 Days Captive on the Somali Pirate Coast

by Michael Scott Moore  · 23 Jul 2018  · 476pp  · 124,973 words

The Rough Guide to England

by Rough Guides  · 29 Mar 2018

The Rough Guide to Ireland

by Clements, Paul  · 2 Jun 2015

Hiding in Plain Sight: The Invention of Donald Trump and the Erosion of America

by Sarah Kendzior  · 6 Apr 2020

The Mystery of Charles Dickens

by A. N. Wilson  · 3 Jun 2020  · 336pp  · 97,204 words

Sex, Time, and Power: How Women's Sexuality Shaped Human Evolution

by Leonard Shlain  · 2 Aug 2004  · 607pp  · 168,497 words

Like, Comment, Subscribe: Inside YouTube's Chaotic Rise to World Domination

by Mark Bergen  · 5 Sep 2022  · 642pp  · 141,888 words

Don't Burn This Book: Thinking for Yourself in an Age of Unreason

by Dave Rubin  · 27 Apr 2020  · 239pp  · 62,005 words

Vertical Gardening: Grow Up, Not Out, for More Vegetables and Flowers in Much Less Space

by Derek Fell  · 25 Apr 2011

Enlightenment Now: The Case for Reason, Science, Humanism, and Progress

by Steven Pinker  · 13 Feb 2018  · 1,034pp  · 241,773 words

The Woman Who Smashed Codes: A True Story of Love, Spies, and the Unlikely Heroine Who Outwitted America's Enemies

by Jason Fagone  · 25 Sep 2017  · 592pp  · 152,445 words

What Patients Say, What Doctors Hear

by Danielle Ofri  · 1 Feb 2017  · 289pp  · 87,137 words

Circle of Greed: The Spectacular Rise and Fall of the Lawyer Who Brought Corporate America to Its Knees

by Patrick Dillon and Carl M. Cannon  · 2 Mar 2010  · 613pp  · 181,605 words

Yosemite, Sequoia & Kings Canyon

by Fodor's  · 17 Aug 2010

Frommer's California 2009

by Matthew Poole, Harry Basch, Mark Hiss and Erika Lenkert  · 2 Jan 2009

California

by Sara Benson  · 15 Oct 2010

England

by David Else  · 14 Oct 2010

Women Leaders at Work: Untold Tales of Women Achieving Their Ambitions

by Elizabeth Ghaffari  · 5 Dec 2011  · 493pp  · 139,845 words

Red Moon Rising

by Matthew Brzezinski  · 2 Jan 2007  · 497pp  · 124,144 words

The Net Delusion: The Dark Side of Internet Freedom

by Evgeny Morozov  · 16 Nov 2010  · 538pp  · 141,822 words

France (Lonely Planet, 8th Edition)

by Nicola Williams  · 14 Oct 2010

Everything Bad Is Good for You: How Popular Culture Is Making Us Smarter

by Steven Johnson  · 5 Apr 2006  · 250pp  · 9,029 words

Lonely Planet France

by Lonely Planet Publications  · 31 Mar 2013

Fool Me Twice: Fighting the Assault on Science in America

by Shawn Lawrence Otto  · 10 Oct 2011  · 692pp  · 127,032 words

Falling Upwards: How We Took to the Air

by Richard Holmes  · 24 Apr 2013  · 432pp  · 128,944 words

Generation Kill

by Evan Wright  · 19 May 2004  · 392pp  · 122,282 words

The Hero With a Thousand Faces

by Joseph Campbell  · 14 Apr 2004

Getting Past Your Past: Take Control of Your Life With Self-Help Techniques From EMDR Therapy

by Francine Shapiro  · 26 Mar 2013  · 358pp  · 112,735 words

Silicon City: San Francisco in the Long Shadow of the Valley

by Cary McClelland  · 8 Oct 2018  · 225pp  · 70,241 words

Hormone Repair Manual

by Lara Briden  · 14 Apr 2021