It’s not often I feel the urge to recommend books. It’s not that I don’t read books, its just that they are usually quite time consuming and you don’t read that many books in a year as you watch movies, listen to music etc, so the selection is kind of narrow.
But here is one that I gladly recommend anyone to read.
Columbine by Dave Cullen [2009].
On April 20th, 1999, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold left an indelible stamp on the American psyche.Their goal was simple: to blow up their school, Oklahoma-City style, and to leave “a lasting impression on the world.”. The drove to school, planted two huge bombs in the dining area, then positioned themselves outside the main entrance to pick off fleeing teachers and students. The bombs failed, but the ensuing massacre defined a new branch of school violence – one that has started to cross the Atlantic.
Now, in a riveting piece of journalism in the tradition of Truman Capote’s In Cold Blood, nearly ten years in the making, comes the story none of us knew. In this revelatory book, Dave Cullen has delivered a profile of teenage killers that goes to the heart of psychopathology. Cullen lays bare the callous brutality of mastermind Eric Harris, and the timid, suicidal Dylan Klebold, who had been to the prom just three days earlier and wrote obsessively about love in his journal.
A close-up portrait of hatred, a community rendered helpless, 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.
