A selection of great nonfiction
Books
- The Executioner’s Song by Norman Mailer
- The Tiger: A True Story of Vengeance and Survival by John Vaillant
- True Story: Murder, Memoir, Mea Culpa by Michael Finkel
- Homicide: A Year on the Killing Streets by David Simon
- Zoo Story: Life in the Garden of Captives by Thomas French
- I’ll Be Gone in the Dark: One Woman’s Obsessive Search for the Golden State Killer by Michelle McNamara
- Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil by John Berendt
- The Gang that Wouldn’t Write Straight: Wolfe, Thompson, Didion and the New Journalism Revolution by Marc Weingarten
- Dish: The Inside Story on the World of Gossip by Jeannette Walls
- The Secret Life of the Lonely Doll: The Search for Dare Wright by Jean Nathan
- The Night of the Gun by David Carr
- Thy Neighbour’s Wife by Gay Talese
- Young Men and Fire by Norman Maclean
- The Hot House: Life Inside Leavenworth Prison by Pete Earley
- Random Family: Love, Drugs, Trouble, and Coming of Age in the Bronx by Adrian Nicole Leblanc
- The Murder Room: The Heirs of Sherlock Holmes Gather to Solve the World’s Most Perplexing Cold Cases by Michael Capuzzo
- The White Darkness by David Grann
- The Best American Crime Writing, collection, 2002-2006
- The Best American Crime Reporting, collection, 2007-2010
Longform
- The Beating Heart by Gene Weingarten, The Washington Post, Sept. 30, 2019
- He Helped Build an Artists’ Utopia. Now He Faces Trial for 36 Deaths There by Elizabeth Weil, The New York Times Magazine, Dec. 12, 2018
- The Fourth State of Matter by Jo Ann Beard, The New Yorker, June 24, 1996
- Trial by Fire: Did Texas execute an innocent man? by David Grann, The New Yorker, Sept. 7, 2009
- The Squid Hunter: Can Steve O’Shea capture the sea’s most elusive creature? by David Grann, The New Yorker, May 24, 2004
- Can you say – hero? by Tom Junod, Esquire,1998
- Let Me Live That Fantasy by Justin Heckert, Grantland, March 11, 2014
- The Rise and Fall of Toronto’s Classiest Conman by Michael Lista, The Walrus, June 2017
- Fatal Distraction by Gene Weingarten, March 8, 2009
- A Letter to My Mother That She Will Never Read by Ocean Vuong, May 13, 2017
- Blood Spore: Of murder and mushrooms by Hamilton Morris , Harper’s Magazine, July 2013
- Mysterious Circumstances by David Grann, The New Yorker, Dec. 13, 2004
- The Last Ride of Cowboy Bob by Skip Hollandsworth, Texas Monthly, Nov. 2005
- Sex, Lies and Hit Men! by Skip Hollandsworth, Texas Monthly, Feb. 2102
- Honor Thy Father by Skip Hollandsworth, Texas Monthly, June 1998
- Midnight in the Garden of East Texas by Skip Hollandsworth, Texas Monthly, Jan. 1998
- The Case of Jane Doe Ponytail by Dan Barry and Jeffrey E. Singer, New York Times, Oct. 16, 2016
- Bringing Down the Dogmen: How a pair of undercover cops infiltrated the secret world of Houston dogfighting by Skip Hollandsworth, Texas Monthly, Aug. 2009
- In Plain View: How child molesters get away with it by Malcolm Gladwell, The New Yorker, Sept. 24, 2012
- A Pickpocket’s Tale: The spectacular thefts of Apollo Robbins by Adam Green, The New Yorker, Jan. 7, 2013
- The Long Fall of One-Eleven Heavy by Michael Paterniti, Esquire, June 1, 2009
- Animals by Chris Jones, Esquire, Feb. 6, 2012
- Metal to Bone by Anne Hull, St. Petersburg Times, 1993
- Candy: Taking the wrapper off a Texas legend by Gary Cartwright, Texas Monthly, Dec. 1976
- And always on Longform and Longreads and in The New Yorker
Classics
Podcasts
Narrative nonfiction resources