Like podcasts, but for your eyes

Utterly compelling real-life stories that scour the outer reaches of human behaviour, for better or worse. This list is not sponsored by Squarespace.

Premonitions Bureau, by Sam Knight

​If you’re a fan of the narrative investigations of Jon Ronson, Julia Ebner and Patrick Radden Keefe, we’ve found your new favourite book. Sam Knight’s painstakingly researched and beautifully written history of a little known government department which logged reports of premonitions submitted by the general public through the 1960s and beyond hits that perfect intersection of ‘I can’t believe this happened’ and ‘it’s so ludicrous it had to happen’. Tragedies like the Aberfan disaster, plane crashes, assassinations: all predicted if you look at the premonitions from a certain angle, and Knight’s knack for relaying them sensitively, analytically and with a nose for the absurd, gives this book the dynamic feel of a well-plotted thriller.

Porn: An Oral History, by Polly Barton

With its knowingly grandiose title, Polly Barton’s remarkable project of a new book is already one of the most talked-about releases of the year (we mean nationally, not just us chattering about it incessantly in the shop). Taking the form of 19 frank and sensitively edited conversations about pornography – attitudes towards, benefits of problems with, ethics of – Barton coaxes gleaming truths from her carefully chosen interviewees thanks to her brilliant command of tone and knowing the precisely correct question to ask. It is resolutely not a comprehensive or arch history of pornography (surely this exists somewhere else), but it is an eye-opening banquet of knotty ideas presented with anxieties and humanity completely intact.

Action Park, by Andy Mulvihill

The story behind America’s least stringent theme park: a combination of horrifying safety records, insane security policies, cheap Oktoberfest booze and terrific weather.

Another Day In The Death Of America, by Gary Younge

Stark and utilitarian, but agonisingly beautiful: Gary Younge simply and sympathetically pays tribute to the young victims of gun violence during one single day in America.

Going Dark, by Julia Ebner

We cannot salute Julia Ebner’s journalistic gumption enough as she inveigles herself into the unsurprisingly wretched world of online extremism, from gnarly Nazi punk festivals and trad-wives to internet terrorism workshops.

Notes From An Apocalypse, by Mark O’Connell

Dryly humorous and compelling humane dispatches from the people who are trying to safeguard themselves from the end of the world, from doomsday preppers to tech billionaires buying up huge chunks of New Zealand to ride out the apocalypse in comfort.

The Zookeepers’ War, by J.W. Mohnhaupt

Eye-widening history of the power struggle between the major zoos in East and West Germany as they sought to outdo one another. Reads like a Cold War thriller, but with an elephant wedged into a train carriage.

My Friend Anna, by Rachel DeLoache Williams

The heart-botheringly tense story of Anna Delvey, the conwoman who turned the better nature of countless friends and acquaintances to her quite unbelievable advantage. Feel your cheeks redden with embarrassment and disbelief in real time!

Catch and Kill, by Ronan Farrow

Reads like a spy thriller, but it’s painfully, painfully true: Ronan Farrow’s determined pursuit of Harvery Weinstein makes for some brutal and uncomfortable conclusions about the power of celebrity and the complicity of those around it.

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