100 Best Cults Books of All Time (Updated for 2026)

1

Educated

Tara Westover

5.0

Tara Westover was 17 the first time she set foot in a classroom. Born to survivalists in the mountains of Idaho, she prepared for the end of the world by stockpiling home-canned peaches and sleeping with her "head-for-the-hills bag". In the summer she stewed herbs for her mother, a midwife and healer, and in the winter she salvaged in her father's junkyard.

Her father forbade hospitals, so Tara nev

Recommended by Barack Obama, Bill Gates, Alexander Stubb, and 6 others.

Barack Obama

Former USA President

As 2018 draws to a close, I’m continuing a favorite tradition of mine and sharing my year-end lists. It gives me a moment to pause and reflect on the year through the books I found most thought-provoking, inspiring, or just plain loved. It also gives me a chance to highlight talented authors – some who are household names and others who you may not have heard of before. Here’s my best of 2018 list. [source]

Bill Gates

CEO/Microsoft

Tara never went to school or visited a doctor until she left home at 17. I never thought I’d relate to a story about growing up in a Mormon survivalist household, but she’s such a good writer that she got me to reflect on my own life while reading about her extreme childhood. Melinda and I loved this memoir of a young woman whose thirst for learning was so strong that she ended up getting a Ph.D. from Cambridge University. [source]

Alexander Stubb

If you read or listen to only one book this summer, this is it. Bloody brilliant! Every word, every sentence. Rarely do I go through a book with such a rollecoaster of emotion, from love to hate. Thank you for sharing @tarawestover #Educated https://t.co/GqLaqlcWMp [source]

2

The Road to Jonestown: Jim Jones and Peoples Temple

Jeff Guinn, George Newbern, et al

4.9

By the New York Times bestselling author of Manson, the comprehensive, authoritative, and tragic story of preacher Jim Jones, who was responsible for the Jonestown Massacre—the largest murder-suicide in American history.

In the 1950s, a young Indianapolis minister named Jim Jones preached a curious blend of the gospel and Marxism. His congregation was racially integrated, and he was a much-lauded l

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3

Going Clear: Scientology, Hollywood, and the Prison of Belief

Lawrence Wright

4.8

A clear-sighted revelation, a deep penetration into the world of Scientology by the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of the now-classic study of al-Qaeda's 9/11 attack, the Looming Tower. Based on more than two hundred personal interviews with both current and former Scientologists--both famous and less well known--and years of archival research, Lawrence Wright uses his extraordinary investigative s

Recommended by Bryan Callen.

Bryan Callen

I love this author. [source]

4

Beyond Belief: My Secret Life Inside Scientology and My Harrowing Escape

Jenna Miscavige Hill, Lisa Pulitzer

4.8

Jenna Miscavige was raised to obey. As niece of the Church of Scientology's leader David Miscavige, she grew up at the center of this controversial organization. At 21, she made a break, risking everything she'd ever known and loved to leave Scientology once and for all. Now she speaks out about her life, the Church, her escape, going deep inside a religion that, for decades, has been the subject

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5

Escape

Carolyn Jessop

4.7

The dramatic first-person account of life inside an ultra-fundamentalist American religious sect, and one woman’s courageous flight to freedom with her eight children.

When she was eighteen years old, Carolyn Jessop was coerced into an arranged marriage with a total stranger: a man thirty-two years her senior. Merril Jessop already had three wives. But arranged plural marriages were an integral par

6

Under the Banner of Heaven: A Story of Violent Faith

Jon Krakauer

4.7

A multilayered, bone-chilling narrative of messianic delusion, savage violence, polygamy, and unyielding faith. This is vintage Krakauer, an utterly compelling work of nonfiction that illuminates an otherwise confounding realm of human behavior.

Jon Krakauer’s literary reputation rests on insightful chronicles of lives conducted at the outer limits. In Under The Banner of Heaven: A Story of Violent

7

Breaking Free: How I Escaped Polygamy, the FLDS Cult, and My Father, Warren Jeffs

Rachel Jeffs

4.6

In this searing memoir of survival in the spirit of Stolen Innocence, the daughter of Warren Jeffs, the self-proclaimed Prophet of the FLDS Church, takes you deep inside the secretive polygamist Mormon fundamentalist cult run by her family and how she escaped it.

Born into the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, Rachel Jeffs was raised in a strict patriarchal culture defined

8

Helter Skelter: The True Story of the Manson Murders

Vincent Bugliosi

4.6

Prosecuting attorney in the Manson trial, Vincent Bugliosi held a unique insider's position in one of the most baffling and horrifying cases of the twentieth century: the cold-blooded Tate-LaBianca murders carried out by Charles Manson and four of his followers. What motivated Manson in his seemingly mindless selection of victims, and what was his hold over the young women who obeyed his orders? H

9

Troublemaker: Surviving Hollywood and Scientology

Leah Remini

4.6

The outspoken actress, talk show host, and reality television star offers up a no-holds-barred memoir, including an eye-opening insider account of her tumultuous and heart-wrenching thirty-year-plus association with the Church of Scientology.

Leah Remini has never been the type to hold her tongue. That willingness to speak her mind, stand her ground, and rattle the occasional cage has enabled this

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10

Stolen Innocence: My Story of Growing Up in a Polygamous Sect, Becoming a Teenage Bride, and Breaking Free of Warren Jeffs

Elissa Wall, Lisa Pulitzer

4.6

Stolen Innocence is the gripping New York Times bestselling memoir of Elissa Wall, the courageous former member of Utah’s infamous FLDS polygamist sect whose powerful courtroom testimony helped convict controversial sect leader Warren Jeffs in September 2007. At once shocking, heartbreaking, and inspiring, Wall’s story of subjugation and survival exposes the darkness at the root of this rebel offs

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11

The Girls

Emma Cline

4.6

Northern California, during the violent end of the 1960s. At the start of summer, a lonely and thoughtful teenager, Evie Boyd, sees a group of girls in the park, and is immediately caught by their freedom, their careless dress, their dangerous aura of abandon. Soon, Evie is in thrall to Suzanne, a mesmerizing older girl, and is drawn into the circle of a soon-to-be infamous cult and the man who is

12

Seductive Poison: A Jonestown Survivor's Story of Life and Death in the Peoples Temple

Deborah Layton

4.6

Told by a former high-level member of the Peoples Temple and Jonestown survivor, Seductive Poison is the "truly unforgettable" (Kirkus Review) story of how one woman was seduced by one of the most notorious cults in recent memory and how she found her way back to sanity.

From Waco to Heaven's Gate, the past decade has seen its share of cult tragedies. But none has been quite so dramatic or compelli

13

Inside Scientology: The Story of America's Most Secretive Religion

Janet Reitman

4.5

Scientology, created in 1954 by pulp science fiction writer L. Ron Hubbard, claims to be the world’s fastest growing religion, with millions of members and huge financial holdings. Celebrity believers keep its profile high. Teams of volunteer ministers offer aid at disaster sites like Haiti and the World Trade Center. But Scientology is also a very closed faith, harassing journalists and others th

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14

Prophet's Prey: My Seven-Year Investigation Into Warren Jeffs and the Fundamentalist Church of Latter-Day Saints

Sam Brower

4.5

From the private investigator who cracked open the case that led to the arrest of Warren Jeffs, the maniacal prophet of the polygamous Fundamentalist Church of Latter Day Saints (FLDS), comes the page-turning, horrifying story of how a rogue sect used sex, money, and power disguised under a favßade of religion to further criminal activities and a madman's vision.

Despite considerable press coverage

15

The Witness Wore Red: The 19th Wife Who Brought Polygamous Cult Leaders to Justice

Rebecca Musser and M. Bridget Cook

4.5

Rebecca Musser grew up in fear, concealing her family's polygamous lifestyle from the "dangerous" outside world. Covered head-to-toe in strict, modest clothing, she received a rigorous education at Alta Academy, the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints' school headed by Warren Jeffs. Always seeking to be an obedient Priesthood girl, in her teens she became the nineteenth wife

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16

A Thousand Lives: The Untold Story of Hope, Deception, and Survival at Jonestown

Julia Scheeres

4.5

“A gripping account of how decent people can be taken in by a charismatic and crazed tyrant” (The New York Times Book Review).In 1954, a pastor named Jim Jones opened a church in Indianapolis called Peoples Temple Full Gospel Church. He was a charismatic preacher with idealistic beliefs, and he quickly filled his pews with an audience eager to hear his sermons on social justice. After Jones moved

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17

The Sacred Lies of Minnow Bly

Stephanie Oakes

4.5

With a harrowing poetic voice, this contemporary page-turner is perfect for fans of Laurie Halse Anderson's Speak, Julie Berry's All The Truth That's in Me, and the works of Ellen Hopkins.

The Kevinian cult has taken everything from seventeen-year-old Minnow: twelve years of her life, her family, her ability to trust.

And when she rebelled, they took away her hands, too.

Now their Prophet has been mu

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18

The Triumph of Injustice: How the Rich Dodge Taxes and How to Make Them Pay

Emmanuel Saez

4.5

America’s runaway inequality has an engine: our unjust tax system.

Even as they became fabulously wealthy, the ultra-rich have seen their taxes collapse to levels last seen in the 1920s. Meanwhile, working-class Americans have been asked to pay more. The Triumph of Injustice presents a forensic investigation into this dramatic transformation, written by two economists who revolutionized the study o

Recommended by Dani Rodrik and Keith Ellison.

Dani Rodrik

Congratulations @gabriel_zucman. Just finished reading it. Fantastic book. https://t.co/ZRxkDzpx7a [source]

Keith Ellison

Great new book by Emmanuel Saez The Triumph of Injustice: How the Rich Dodge Taxes and How to Make Them Pay. Saez is advising @BernieSanders and @ewarren campaign. [source]

19

Raven: The Untold Story of the Rev. Jim Jones and His People

Tim Reiterman, John Jacobs

4.5

The basis for the upcoming HBO miniseries and the "definitive account of the Jonestown massacre" (Rolling Stone) -- now available for the first time in paperback.
Tim Reiterman s Raven provides the seminal history of the Rev. Jim Jones, the Peoples Temple, and the murderous ordeal at Jonestown in 1978.
This PEN Award winning work explores the ideals-gone-wrong, the intrigue, and the grim realities

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20

The Sound of Gravel

Ruth Wariner

4.5

A riveting, deeply affecting true story of one girl’s coming-of-age in a polygamist family.

RUTH WARINER was the thirty-ninth of her father’s forty-two children. Growing up on a farm in rural Mexico, where authorities turn a blind eye to the practices of her community, Ruth lives in a ramshackle house without indoor plumbing or electricity. At church, preachers teach that God will punish the wicked

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21

Survivor

Chuck Palahniuk

4.4

From the author of the underground sensation Fight Club comes this wickedly incisive second novel, a mesmerizing, unnerving, and hilarious vision of cult and post-cult life.

Tender Branson—last surviving member of the so-called Creedish Death Cult—is dictating his life story into the flight recorder of Flight 2039, cruising on autopilot at 39,000 feet somewhere over the Pacific Ocean. He is all alo

22

Not Without My Sister: The True Story of Three Girls Violated and Betrayed by Those They Trusted

Celeste Jones

4.4

The bestselling, devastating account of three sisters torn apart, abused and exploited at the hands of a community that robbed them of their childhood. It reveals three lives, separate but entwined, that have experienced unspeakable horror, unrelenting loyalty and unforgettable courage.

From as early as three years old, Juliana, Celeste and Kristina were treated as sexual beings by their 'guardians

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23

The Kingdom of the Cults

Walter Martin

4.4

The authoritative reference work on major cult systems for nearly forty years. Working closely together, Ravi Zacharias and Managing Editors Jill and Kevin Rische (daughter of Dr. Martin) have updated and augmented the work with new material. This book will continue as a crucial tool in countercult ministry and in evangelism for years to come. Among cults and religions included are: Jehovah's Witn

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24

The Chosen One

Carol Lynch Williams

4.4

Thirteen-year-old Kyra has grown up in an isolated community without questioning the fact that her father has three wives and she has twenty brothers and sisters. That is, without questioning it much - if you don't count her visits to the Ironton County Mobile Library on Wheels to read forbidden books, or her secret meetings with Joshua, the boy she hopes to choose for herself instead of having a

25

Combating Cult Mind Control: The #1 Best-Selling Guide to Protection, Rescue, and Recovery from Destructive Cults

Steven Hassan

4.4

If you're reading CCMC for the first time, please know that you've found a safe, respectful, compassionate place. This book can help you protect-or regain-your sanity, freedom, and health. It can also help you protect others from the use of mind-control techniques. In this 25th anniversary volume you'll find : • New stories of people who fell under the sway of cults and other forms of undue influe

26

Member of the Family: My Story of Charles Manson, Life Inside His Cult, and the Darkness That Ended the Sixties

Dianne Lake, Deborah Herman

4.4

In this poignant and disturbing memoir of lost innocence, coercion, survival, and healing, Dianne Lake chronicles her years with Charles Manson, revealing for the first time how she became the youngest member of his Family and offering new insights into one of the twentieth century’s most notorious criminals and life as one of his “girls”

At age fourteen Dianne Lake—with little more than a note in

27

The Handmaid's Tale

Margaret Atwood

4.4

Before The Testaments, there was The Handmaid’s Tale: an instant classic and eerily prescient cultural phenomenon, from “the patron saint of feminist dystopian fiction” (New York Times).

The Handmaid’s Tale is a novel of such power that the reader will be unable to forget its images and its forecast. Set in the near future, it describes life in what was once the United States and is now called the

Recommended by Daniel Pink, Emma Watson, Catherine Mayer, and 3 others.

Catherine Mayer

Atwood takes all the hard information about gender inequality that she sees around her and then turns it up a few notches. [source]

Cliff Bleszinski

@HandmaidsOnHulu Done. Love the show, book is a classic, can't wait for season 2. [source]

Grady Booch

I read this several years ago but — much like Orwell’s 1984 — it seems particularly relevant given our current political morass. [source]

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28

After the Fire

Will Hill

4.3

The things I've seen are burned into me, like scars that refuse to fade.

Before, she lived inside the fence. Before, she was never allowed to leave the property, never allowed to talk to Outsiders, never allowed to speak her mind. Because Father John controlled everything—and Father John liked rules. Disobeying Father John came with terrible consequences.

But there are lies behind Father John's word

29

Station Eleven

Emily St. John Mandel, Vincent Chong

4.3

Set in the days of civilization's collapse, Station Eleven tells the story of a Hollywood star, his would-be savior, and a nomadic group of actors roaming the scattered outposts of the Great Lakes region, risking everything for art and humanity.

One snowy night a famous Hollywood actor slumps over and dies onstage during a production of King Lear. Hours later, the world as we know it begins to diss

Recommended by Alfred A. Knopf and Holly Brockwell.

Alfred A. Knopf

“What sets Station Eleven apart from so many other recent dystopian novels is the warmness of @EmilyMandel's writing, the lived-in details of each of these characters’ lives… It’s the kind of book that stays with you.” —@TomiObaro https://t.co/tWakW2L6Tq [source]

Holly Brockwell

@nmsonline @katebevan Great book though 🤷‍♀️ [source]

30

Underground: The Tokyo Gas Attack and the Japanese Psyche

Haruki Murakami

4.3

It was a clear spring day, Monday, March 20, 1995, when five members of the religious cult Aum Shinrikyo conducted chemical warfare on the Tokyo subway system using sarin, a poison gas twenty-six times as deadly as cyanide. The unthinkable had happened, a major urban transit system had become the target of a terrorist attack.

In an attempt to discover why, Haruki Murakami, internationally acclaimed

31

Waco: A Survivor's Story

David Thibodeau

4.3

The basis of the celebrated Paramount Network miniseries starring Michael Shannon and Taylor Kitsch--Waco is the critically-acclaimed, first person account of the siege by Branch Davidian survivor, David Thibodeau.

Twenty-five years ago, the FBI staged a deadly raid on the Branch Davidian compound in Waco. Texas. David Thibodeau survived to tell the story.

When he first met the man who called hi

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32

Lost Boy

Brent W. Jeffs, Maia Szalavitz

4.3

In the polygamous Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (FLDS), girls can become valuable property as plural wives, but boys are expendable, even a liability. In this powerful and heartbreaking account, former FLDS member Brent Jeffs reveals both the terror and the love he experienced growing up on his prophet’s compound—and the harsh exile existence that so many boys face onc

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33

Manson: The Life and Times of Charles Manson

Jeff Guinn

4.3

Based on new interviews with previously undiscovered relatives and filled with revelations and unpublished photographs, this is the most authoritative account of the life of Charles Manson.

The most authoritative account ever written of how an ordinary juvenile delinquent named Charles Manson became the notorious murderer whose crimes still shock and horrify us today.

More than forty years ago Cha

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34

Church of Lies

Flora Jessop, Paul T. Brown

4.3

From the Preface: "My name is Flora Jessop. I've been called apostate, vigilante, and crazy bitch, and maybe I am. But some people call me a hero, and I'd like to think they're right too. If I am a hero, maybe it's because every time I can play a part in saving a child or a woman from a life of servitude and degradation, I'm saving a little piece of me, too.

I was one of twenty-eight children born

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35

It Ain't Me, Babe (Hades Hangmen, #1)

Tillie Col

4.3

Sinning never felt so good… A fortuitous encounter. A meeting that should never have happened.

Many years ago, two children from completely different worlds forged a connection, a fateful connection, an unbreakable bond that would change their lives forever…

Salome knows only one way to live—under Prophet David’s rule. In the commune she calls home, Salome knows nothing of life beyond her strict f

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36

Gated (Gated, #1)

Amy Christine Parker

4.3

A fast-paced, nerve-fraying contemporary thriller that questions loyalties and twists truths.

Appearances can be deceiving.

In the Community, life seems perfect. After the 9/11 terrorist attacks, Pioneer invited Lyla’s family to join his group and escape the evil in the world. They were happy to be chosen, happy to move away from New York and start over in such an idyllic gated community. Now sevent

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37

Banished: Surviving My Years in the Westboro Baptist Church

Lauren Drain, Lisa Pulitzer

4.3

You've likely heard of the Westboro Baptist Church. Perhaps you've seen their pickets on the news, the members holding signs with messages that are too offensive to copy here, protesting at events such as the funerals of soldiers, the 9-year old victim of the recent Tucson shooting, and Elizabeth Edwards, all in front of their grieving families. The WBC is fervently anti-gay, anti-Semitic, and ant

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38

Shattered Dreams: My Life as a Polygamist's Wife

Irene Spencer

4.2

IRENE SPENCER grew up in a fundamentalist Mormon family- the thirteenth of thirty-one children- so it was no surprise that she found herself, at sixteen years of age, in a plural marriage, sharing her husband with a half sister.

Enduring abject poverty, living in isolation, and suffering the neglect of a husband with divided loyalties created unbearable conditions. Yet Irene managed to overcome the

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39

Captive: A Mother's Crusade to Save Her Daughter from the Terrifying Cult Nxivm

Catherine Oxenberg and Natasha Stoynoff

4.2

Now updated with a new afterword, Captive is an emotional, ripped-from-the-headlinesexposé that lays bare the secretive cult that shocked the world—for fans of Leah Remini’s Troublemaker and Lawrence Wright’s Going Clear.

I am a mother whose child is being abused and exploited. And I am not alone.

In 2011, former Dynasty star Catherine Oxenberg joined her daughter, India, at a leadership seminar fo

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40

Seed

Lisa Heathfield

4.2

Seed loves you. Seed will never let you go.

Fifteen-year-old Pearl has lived her whole life protected within the small community at Seed, where they worship Nature and idolise their leader, Papa S. When some outsiders arrive, everything changes. Pearl experiences feelings that she never knew existed and begins to realise that there is darkness at the heart of Seed. A darkness from which she must es

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41

I Fired God: My Life Inside—and Escape from—the Secret World of the Independent Fundamental Baptist Cult

Jocelyn Zichterman

4.2

A compelling memoir and investigation into the Independent Fundamental Baptist church and its shocking history of religious abuse.

Jocelyn Zichterman was born, raised, married into, and finally, with her family, fled the Independent Fundamental Baptist church. Founded by the fiery preacher Bob Jones, with several hundred thousand, IFB members are told they must not associate with members of other B

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42

His Favorite Wife: Trapped in Polygamy

Susan Ray Schmidt

4.2

His Favorite Wife is the heart-stopping, inspirational narrative of a courageous, fifteen-year-old girl who becomes the sixth wife in a polygamous marriage. Cascading with rich, well-developed characters, this true story will capture your soul and imagination as the author reveals how a group of kind-hearted, sincere people are led to embrace this controversial lifestyle in their pursuit of the hi

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43

Cults in Our Midst: The Continuing Fight Against Their Hidden Menace

Margaret Thaler Singer and Robert Jay Lifton

4.2

Cults today are bigger than ever, with broad ramifications for national and international terrorism. In this newly revised edition of her definitive work on cults, Singer reveals what cults really are and how they work, focusing specifically on the coercive persuasion techniques of charismatic leaders seeking money and power. The book contains fascinating updates on Heaven's Gate, Falun Gong, Aum

44

The Secret History

Donna Tartt

4.2

Under the influence of their charismatic classics professor, a group of clever, eccentric misfits at an elite New England college discover a way of thinking and living that is a world away from the humdrum existence of their contemporaries. But when they go beyond the boundaries of normal morality they slip gradually from obsession to corruption and betrayal, and at last - inexorably - into evil.

Recommended by Dave Child, Jess Brammar, Kelly Ellis, and 1 others.

Dave Child

In my 20s, it would have been The Secret History by Donna Tartt. It's a shame you can only read a book for the first time once, because this doesn't fare so well the second time around, when you already know what happens. I'm not sure I've found another book quite like it since, but then I'm not really sure what sort of book it is. It isn't a murder mystery, except when it is. It isn't a crime thriller, except when it is. It isn't a love story, except ... you get the idea. [source]

Jess Brammar

@StigAbell Love that book [source]

Kelly Ellis

@elanpin @Nicole_Cliffe Like a favorite song, just thinking about this book immediately takes me back to the point in my life when I first read it. I really enjoyed The Goldfinch, as well. [source]

45

The Testaments (The Handmaid's Tale, #2)

Margaret Atwood

4.2

In this brilliant sequel to The Handmaid's Tale, acclaimed author Margaret Atwood answers the questions that have tantalized readers for decades.

When the van door slammed on Offred's future at the end of The Handmaid's Tale, readers had no way of telling what lay ahead for her--freedom, prison or death.

With The Testaments, the wait is over.

Margaret Atwood's sequel picks up the story more than fift

Recommended by Guy Kawasaki, Mary Burkey, and Peter Florence.

Guy Kawasaki

Author & Entrepreneur

I love @MargaretAtwood’s message and appreciate her efforts to prevent the end of the world. Her latest book is The Testaments, sequel to The Handmaid's Tale. 📕 Read it and spread its message to help prevent Making America Gilead again. PODCAST 🎧 https://t.co/9wBq98MWf0 https://t.co/W950dsLLN6 [source]

Mary Burkey

Obviously the book is totally fascinating as a print book. What happened with the audiobook is that because of the Netflix adaptation, a lot of the actors who were in the Netflix program were used for the audiobook production. [source]

Peter Florence

It is a completely standalone, independent novel. If you read The Handmaid’s Tale, it will satisfy some of your need for understanding what happened next. If you haven’t—and incredibly, there are people who haven’t read it—it just gives you an extremely savage and exhilarating look at contemporary life and its most alarming manifestations. [source]

46

The True Believer: Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements

Eric Hoffer

4.2

A stevedore on the San Francisco docks in the 1940s, Eric Hoffer wrote philosophical treatises in his spare time while living in the railroad yards. The True Believer -- the first and most famous of his books -- was made into a bestseller when President Eisenhower cited it during one of the earliest television press conferences.Completely relevant and essential for understanding the world today, T

Recommended by Reid Hoffman, Eric Weinstein, George Raveling, and 1 others.

Eric Weinstein

Managing Director/Thiel Capital

Eric Weinstein recommended this book on Twitter. [source]

George Raveling

This, to me, is one of the true classics of all time. [source]

Jessica Stern

This is a brilliant book. Hoffer points out that zealots can be attracted to zealotry itself. Leaders of revolutionary movements go after people who are so dissatisfied with the status quo, and with themselves, that they are willing to put everything at risk, to create a new, better, purer world. The trick is to provide them with an identity as part of something bigger than themselves. One of the fascinating things Hoffer does is to look at how the Nazi and Communist Parties were recruiting from the same pool. [source]

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47

The Polygamist's Daughter

Anna LeBaron, Leslie Wilson

4.2

"My father had more than fifty children." So begins the haunting memoir of Anna LeBaron, daughter of the notorious polygamist and murderer Ervil LeBaron. With her father wanted by the FBI for killing anyone who tried to leave his cult--a radical branch of Mormonism--Anna and her siblings were constantly on the run with the other sister-wives. Often starving and always desperate, the children lived

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48

Bare-Faced Messiah: The classic exposé of the extraordinary true life of L. Ron Hubbard, founder of Scientology

Russell Miller

4.2

THE CLASSIC ACCOUNT OF THE EXTRAORDINARY TRUE LIFE OF L RON HUBBARD

‘A brilliant exposé of Scientology’s conman king’ John Sweeney

‘Unfolds like an epic and ultimately tragic film’ Tony Ortega

‘Russell Miller did the ground-breaking work on Hubbard and the Church of Scientology that every future biographer relies upon’ Lawrence Wright

Bare-Faced Messiah tells the extraordinary story of L. Ron Hubb

Recommended by Mike Rinder.

Mike Rinder

@emma_mor @LeahRemini It's a brilliant book. It is required reading for anyone who has an interest in #scientology. [source]

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49

1Q84 (1Q84 #1-3)

Haruki Murakami, Jay Rubin, Philip Gabriel

4.2

The year is 1984 and the city is Tokyo.

A young woman named Aomame follows a taxi driver’s enigmatic suggestion and begins to notice puzzling discrepancies in the world around her. She has entered, she realizes, a parallel existence, which she calls 1Q84 —“Q is for ‘question mark.’ A world that bears a question.” Meanwhile, an aspiring writer named Tengo takes on a suspect ghostwriting project. He

Recommended by Adam Savage.

Adam Savage

Seriously, one of my favorite books of all time. [source]

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50

One Door Away from Heaven

Dean Koontz

4.2

Michelina Bellsong is on a mission. She is following a missing family to the edge of America...to a place she never knew existed--a place of terror, wonder, and shattering revelation.

What awaits her there will change her life and the life of everyone she knows--if she can find the key to survival.

At stake are a young girl of extraordinary goodness, a young boy with killers on his trail, and Micky'

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51

fathermothergod: My Journey Out of Christian Science

Lucia Greenhouse

4.2

Lucia Ewing had what looked like an all-American childhood. She lived with her mother, father, sister, and brother in an affluent suburb of Minneapolis. Lucia had no doubt she was loved and cared for. But when it came to accidents and illnesses, Lucia’s parents didn't take their kids to the doctor's office--they prayed, and called a Christian Science practitioner.

fathermothergod is Lucia Greenhou

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52

The Patron Saint of Butterflies

Cecilia Galante

4.2

Agnes and Honey have always been best friends, but they haven't always been so different. Agnes loves being a Believer. She knows the rules at the Mount Blessing religious commune are there to make her a better person. Honey hates Mount Blessing and the control Emmanuel, their leader, has over her life. The only bright spot is the butterfly garden she's helping to build, and the journal of butter

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53

When Men Become Gods: Mormon Polygamist Warren Jeffs, His Cult of Fear, and the Women Who Fought Back

Stephen Singular

4.2

As the leader and self-proclaimed prophet of the Fundamentalist Latter Day Saints, a sect of Mormonism based in isolated southern Utah, Warren Jeffs held sway over thousands of followers for nearly a decade. His rule was utterly tyrannical. In addition to coercing young girls into polygamous marriages with older men, Jeffs reputedly took scores of wives, many of whom were his father's widows. Tele

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54

Heaven's Harlots: My Fifteen Years as a Sacred Prostitute in the Children of God Cult

Miriam Williams

4.2

An explosive first-person account by a young woman who spent fifteen years in a sex cult called the Children of God, which encouraged "sacred prostitution" and taught that "The Lord is our pimp."Miriam Williams was an idealistic child of the sixties who, at seventeen, accepted an invitation from a "Jesus person" to visit a commune in upstate New York. She would soon be prostituting herself for a p

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55

Devoted

Jennifer Mathieu

4.1

Rachel Walker is devoted to God.

She prays every day, attends Calvary Christian Church with her family, helps care for her five younger siblings, dresses modestly, and prepares herself to be a wife and mother who serves the Lord with joy.

But Rachel is curious about the world her family has turned away from, and increasingly finds that neither the church nor her homeschool education has the answers

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56

Leaving the Saints: How I Lost the Mormons and Found My Faith

Martha Beck

4.1

As “Mormon royalty” within the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Martha Beck was raised in a home frequented by the Church’s high elders in an existence framed by the strictest code of conduct. As an adult, she moved to the east coast, outside of her Mormon enclave for the first time in her life. When her son was born with Down syndrome, Martha and her husband left their graduate progra

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57

Gather the Daughters

Jennie Melame

4.1

Never Let Me Go meets The Giver in this haunting debut about a cult on an isolated island, where nothing is as it seems.

Years ago, just before the country was incinerated to wasteland, ten men and their families colonized an island off the coast. They built a radical society of ancestor worship, controlled breeding, and the strict rationing of knowledge and history. Only the Wanderers--chosen male

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58

Cult Insanity: A Memoir of Polygamy, Prophets, and Blood Atonement

Irene Spencer

4.1

Life for Irene Spencer was a series of devastating disappointments and hardships. Irene's first book, Shattered Dreams, is the staggering chronicle of her struggle to provide for her children in abject poverty and feelings of abandonment each time her husband left to be with one of his other wives. Irene was raised to believe polygamy was the way of life necessary for her ticket to heaven.
The har

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59

Souls Unfractured (Hades Hangmen, #3)

Tillie Col

4.1

"For fractured souls are like magnets.
Drawn to collide into an impossible bliss…"

Labeled a ‘Cursed’ woman of Eve from birth, Maddie has endured nothing but pain and repression at the hands of The Order’s most abusive elder, Moses. Now living with her sister in The Hangmen’s secluded compound, finally, Maddie, is free. Free from the suffocating faith she no longer believes in. Free from endless yea

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60

The Book of Mormon: Another Testament of Jesus Christ

Joseph Smith

4.1

The spiritual text that forms the basis of Mormonism, in the last edition edited by its founder, Joseph Smith, Jr.

The Book of Mormon is one of the most influential, as well as controversial, religious documents in American history, and is regarded as sacred scripture by followers around the world, including members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, the fourth-largest religious bo

61

Broken Faith: Inside the Word of Faith Fellowship, One of America's Most Dangerous Cults

Mitch Weiss

4.1

In 1979, Jane Whaley, a fiery preacher with a thick Southern drawl, attracted a small group of followers--twenty-two men and women drawn in by her passion, and promise that through prayer and deliverance, they could turn their lives around.

In the years since, Whaley's following has expanded to include thousands of congregants across three continents. In the eyes of her followers, she's a prophet--

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62

Cartwheels in a Sari: A Memoir of Growing Up Cult

Jayanti Tamm

4.1

In her memoir, Jayanti Tamm offers an unforgettable glimpse into the hidden world of growing up cult in mainstream America. Through Jayanti's fascinating story, the first book to chronicle Sri Chinmoy, she unmasks a leader who convinces thousands of disciples to follow him, scores of nations to dedicate monuments to him, and throngs of celebrities (Sting, Pope John Paul II, Nelson Mandela) to exto

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63

Stories from Jonestown

Leigh Fondakowski

4.1

The saga of Jonestown didn’t end on the day in November 1978 when more than nine hundred Americans died in a mass murder-suicide in the Guyanese jungle. While only a handful of people present at the agricultural project survived that day in Jonestown, more than eighty members of Peoples Temple, led by Jim Jones, were elsewhere in Guyana on that day, and thousands more members of the movement still

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64

The Incendiaries

R. O. Kwon

4.1

A powerful, darkly glittering novel of violence, love, faith, and loss, as a young woman at an elite American university is drawn into acts of domestic terrorism by a cult tied to North Korea.

Phoebe Lin and Will Kendall meet their first month at prestigious Edwards University. Phoebe is a glamorous girl who doesn't tell anyone she blames herself for her mother's recent death. Will is a misfit sch

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65

The 19th Wife

David Ebershoff

4.1

Faith, I tell them, is a mystery, elusive to many, and never easy to explain.

Sweeping and lyrical, spellbinding and unforgettable, David Ebershoff’s The 19th Wife combines epic historical fiction with a modern murder mystery to create a brilliant novel of literary suspense. It is 1875, and Ann Eliza Young has recently separated from her powerful husband, Brigham Young, prophet and leader of the

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66

Heart Recaptured (Hades Hangmen, #2)

Tillie Col

4.1

Even salvation can be delivered through the love of the damned…

Beauty can be a curse.

Faith can be a cage.

Only love can set you free.

A few long weeks after being reluctantly ripped from the comforting embrace of her sacred prophet’s religious commune—the only life she has ever known—a terrified Delilah is thrust into a world enveloped by evil and swimming in sin.

Steadfastly devout in her faith, an

67

Stranger in a Strange Land

Robert A. Heinlein

4.1

NAME: Valentine Michael Smith
ANCESTRY: Human
ORIGIN: Mars

Valentine Michael Smith is a human being raised on Mars, newly returned to Earth. Among his people for the first time, he struggles to understand the social mores and prejudices of human nature that are so alien to him, while teaching them his own fundamental beliefs in grokking, watersharing, and love.

Recommended by Michael Arrington, Timothy Ferriss, and Gunhee Park.

Michael Arrington

Founder/TechCrunch

Valentine Michael Smith is a human raised by Martians on Mars, orphaned when the crew of a human expedition to the planet died. He comes back to Earth as an adult when a subsequent expedition finds him. He is initially weak because of the high gravity of Earth, but recovers. He’s superhuman and psychic, and teaches these skills to others. Just about everyone in power on Earth wants him and his followers dead. In addition to being an absolutely great book, Heinlein also coined the term grok for the first time in the novel. He also invented the notion of the waterbed in the novel. [source]

Timothy Ferriss

Author & Entrepreneur

Ever feel like you don’t quite fit in? Don’t want to follow society’s silly rules? Then you can probably relate to human-born and Martian-raised Valentine Michael Smith. In this controversial 1960’s cult classic, Heinlein questions long held assumptions on religion, government, and sexuality (free Martian love for all!). It’s also where the term “grok” originated. [source]

Gunhee Park

I just finished up Stranger in a Strange Land, and am also reading Churchill, A Life and The Perennial Seller. I can’t really pinpoint what I expect to gain from any books I read, but am hoping to gain perspective and some valuable lesson that I can take away from each book. What that is exactly is different for every book. [source]

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68

Pilgrim's Wilderness: A True Story of Faith and Madness on the Alaska Frontier

Tom Kizzia

4.1

Into the Wild meets Helter Skelter in this riveting true story of a modern-day homesteading family in the deepest reaches of the Alaskan wilderness – and of the chilling secrets of its maniacal, spellbinding patriarch.

When Papa Pilgrim appeared in the Alaska frontier outpost of McCarthy with his wife and fifteen children in tow, his new neighbors had little idea of the trouble to come. The Pilgrim

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69

The Liar's Daughter

Megan Cooley Peterson

4.1

Piper was raised in a cult.
She just doesn't know it.

Seventeen-year-old Piper knows that Father is a Prophet. Infallible. The chosen one.

She would do anything for Father. That's why she takes care of all her little sisters. That's why she runs end-of-the-world drills. That's why she never asks questions. Because Father knows best.

Until the day he doesn't. Until the day the government raids the

70

Cults, Conspiracies, and Secret Societies: The Straight Scoop on Freemasons, The Illuminati, Skull and Bones, Black Helicopters, The New World Order, and many, many more

Arthur Goldwag

4.1

Did you know?

• Freemasonry's first American lodge included a young Benjamin Franklin among its members.

• The Knights Templar began as impoverished warrior monks then evolved into bankers.

• Groom Lake, Dreamland, Homey Airport, Paradise Ranch, The Farm, Watertown Strip, Red Square, “The Box,” are all names for Area 51.

An indispensable guide, Cults, Conspiracies, and Secret Societies connects the

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71

Kraken

China Mieville

4.1

With this outrageous new novel, China Miéville has written one of the strangest, funniest, and flat-out scariest books you will read this—or any other—year. The London that comes to life in Kraken is a weird metropolis awash in secret currents of myth and magic, where criminals, police, cultists, and wizards are locked in a war to bring about—or prevent—the End of All Things.

In the Darwin Centre a

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72

Scarred: The True Story of How I Escaped NXIVM, the Cult that Bound My Life (True Crime Memoir, Cult Books)

Sarah Edmondson

4.1

The shocking and subversive memoir of a 12-year-NXIVM-member-turned-whistleblower, and her inspiring true story of abuse, escape, and redemption.

"Master, would you brand me? It would be an honor."Scarred follows actress Sarah Edmondson's account of her recruitment into the NXIVM cult, founded by Keith Raniere. It narrates in detail the 12 years she spent within the organization, during which she e

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73

The Cult at the End of the World: The Terrifying Story of the Aum Doomsday Cult, from the Subways of Tokyo to the Nuclear Arsenals of Russia

David E. Kaplan, Andrew Marshall

4.1

The brave new age of postmillennium terror is awakening and its harbinger is Aum Supreme Truth: a Japan-based global web of wired, technically expert New Age zealots armed with biologial weapons, driven by an apocalyptic vision of unprecedented destruction. With compelling immediacy, this book tells the terrifying story the cult reponsible for the Tokyo subway nerve gas attack, offering a revealin

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74

My Life with the Liars

Caela Carter

4.1

Perfect for fans of Kathryn Erskine’s Mockingbird and Holly Goldberg Sloan’s Counting by 7s, this is a stunningly unique and poignant story of one girl’s strength and courage as she decides who she is and what she will believe in.

Behind the white-washed walls of the Arizona compound, life was simple. Follow the rules, "live in the light," and all would be well. Zylynn was excited to turn thirteen

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75

Geek Love

Katherine Dunn

4.1

Geek Love is the story of the Binewskis, a carny family whose mater- and paterfamilias set out—with the help of amphetamine, arsenic, and radioisotopes—to breed their own exhibit of human oddities. There’s Arturo the Aquaboy, who has flippers for limbs and a megalomaniac ambition worthy of Genghis Khan . . . Iphy and Elly, the lissome Siamese twins . . . albino hunchback Oly, and the outwardly nor

Recommended by Alina Varlanuta.

Alina Varlanuta

I don’t have a favourite book. But I do have favourite characters: … Binewskis family exhibited by Katherine Dunn. [source]

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76

Into the Light (The Light, #1)

Aleatha Romig

4.1

Sara Adams awakes blind, unable to remember the most basic details of her life, but her darkness seems a blessing when she discovers the terrors of The Light.

Stella Montgomery investigates the news on the mean streets of Detroit, where she’s noticed a disturbing trend: young women are vanishing. When her best friend disappears, Stella investigates—despite warnings from her police detective boyfrie

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77

The Line Between (The Line Between #1)

Tosca Lee

4.1

An extinct disease re-emerges from the melting Alaskan permafrost to cause madness in its victims. For recent apocalyptic cult escapee Wynter Roth, it’s the end she’d always been told was coming.

When Wynter Roth is turned out of New Earth, a self-contained doomsday cult on the American prairie, she emerges into a world poised on the brink of madness as a mysterious outbreak of rapid early onset de

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78

Unfollow: A Journey from Hatred to Hope

Megan Phelps-Rope

4.1

As featured on the BBC documentary, 'The Most Hated Family in America' it was an upbringing in many ways normal. A loving home, shared with squabbling siblings, overseen by devoted parents. Yet in other ways it was the precise opposite: a revolving door of TV camera crews and documentary makers, a world of extreme discipline, of siblings vanishing in the night.

Megan Phelps-Roper was raised in the

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79

In the Days of Rain: A Daughter, a Father, a Cult

Rebecca Stott

4.1

A father-daughter story that tells of the the author's experience growing up in the Exclusive Brethren, a fundamentalist, separatist Christian cult, from the author of the national bestseller Ghostwalk.

Rebecca Stott was born a fourth-generation Brethren and she grew up in England, in the Brighton branch of the Exclusive Brethren cult in the early 1960s. Her family dated back to the group's origins

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80

The Book of Essie

Meghan MacLean Weir

4.1

ALEX AWARD WINNER
FINALIST FOR THE 2018 NEW ENGLAND BOOK AWARD

"Both timelessly beautiful and unbelievably timely." --Chris Bohjalian, New York Times bestselling author of Midwives and The Flight Attendant

Esther Ann Hicks--Essie--is the youngest child on Six for Hicks, a reality television phenomenon. She's grown up in the spotlight, idolized and despised for her family's fire-and-brimstone brand

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81

The Kings of Clonmel (Ranger's Apprentice, #8)

John Flanagan

4.0

When a cult springs up in neighboring Clonmel, promising to quell the recent attacks by lawless marauders, people flock from all over to offer gold in exchange for protection. But Halt is all too familiar with this particular group, and he knows they have a less than charitable agenda. Secrets will be unveiled and battles fought to the death as Will and Horace help Halt in ridding the land of a da

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82

Leaving Fishers

Margaret Peterson Haddix, Ken Kaminesky

4.0

Dorry is unbearably lonely at her new high school until she meets Angela and her circle of friends. She soon discovers they all belong to a religious group, the Fishers of Men. At first, as Dorry becomes involved with the Fishers, she is eager to fit in and flattered by her new friends' attention.

But the Fishers make harsh demands of their members, and Dorry must make greater and greater sacrifice

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83

Becoming Calder

Mia Sheridan

4.0

There is a place in modern day America with no electricity, no plumbing, and no modern conveniences. In this place, there is no room for dreams, no space for self-expression, and no tolerance for ambition.

In this place, there is a boy with the body of a god and the heart of a warrior. He is strong and faithful and serves his family honorably. But he dares to dream of more.

In this place, there is a

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84

Deep Redemption (Hades Hangmen, #4)

Tillie Col

4.0

ONLY THROUGH BLOOD CAN THE DEEPEST REDEMPTION BE FOUND…

He was born to ascend.
He was destined to lead.
He was never meant to fail.

Prophet Cain lies broken and defeated on the floor of his cell. A cell he has been thrown into by the one person who was supposed to stand by his side until the end. His flesh and blood, his only companion. His beloved twin brother.

Cain has sacrificed everything for his p

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85

I'm Perfect, You're Doomed: Tales from a Jehovah's Witness Upbringing

Kyria Abrahams

4.0

Raised as a Jehovah’s Witness, Kyria Abrahams’s childhood was haunted by the knowledge that her neighbors and schoolmates were doomed to die in an imminent fiery catastrophe; that Smurfs were evil; that just about anything you could buy at a yard sale was infested by demons; and that Ouija boards™, even if they were manufactured by Parker Brothers™, were portals to hell.

When Kyria turned eighteen,

86

Chaos: Charles Manson, the CIA, and the Secret History of the Sixties

Tom O'Neill

4.0

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87

Within These Walls

Ania Ahlborn

4.0

From indie horror author and bestselling sensation Ania Ahlborn, this brand-new supernatural thriller questions: how far would you go for success, and what would you be capable of if the promise of forever was real?

With his marriage on the rocks and his life in shambles, washed up crime writer Lucas Graham is desperate for a comeback. So when he’s promised exclusive access to notorious cult leader

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88

The Year of the Flood

Margaret Atwood

4.0

The times and species have been changing at a rapid rate, and the social compact is wearing as thin as environmental stability. Adam One, the kindly leader of the God's Gardeners--a religion devoted to the melding of science and religion, as well as the preservation of all plant and animal life--has long predicted a natural disaster that will alter Earth as we know it. Now it has occurred, obliter

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89

Unorthodox: The Scandalous Rejection of My Hasidic Roots

Deborah Feldman

4.0

The instant New York Times bestselling memoir of a young Jewish woman’s escape from a religious sect, in the tradition of Ayaan Hirsi Ali’s Infidel and Carolyn Jessop’s Escape, featuring a new epilogue by the author.

As a member of the strictly religious Satmar sect of Hasidic Judaism, Deborah Feldman grew up under a code of relentlessly enforced customs governing everything from what she could wea

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90

Jesus Land: A Memoir

Julia Scheeres

4.0

For Julia Scheeres and her adopted brother David, "Jesus Land" stretched from their parents' fundamentalist home, past the hostilities of high school, and deep into a Christian reform school in the Dominican Republic. For these two teenagers - brother and sister, black and white - the 1980s were a trial by fire.

In this memoir, Scheeres takes us from the familiar Midwest, a land of cottonwood trees

91

The House of My Mother: A Daughter's Quest for Freedom

Shari Franke and Simon & Schuster Audio

4.0

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92

Little Heaven

Nick Cutter

4.0

An all-new epic tale of terror and redemption set in the hinterlands of midcentury New Mexico from the acclaimed author of The Troop—which Stephen King raved “scared the hell out of me and I couldn’t put it down...old-school horror at its best.”

From electrifying horror author Nick Cutter comes a haunting new novel, reminiscent of Cormac McCarthy's Blood Meridian and Stephen King’s It, in which a t

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93

Mr. Splitfoot

Samantha Hunt

4.0

A contemporary gothic from an author in the company of Kelly Link and Aimee Bender, Mr. Splitfoot tracks two women in two times as they march toward a mysterious reckoning.

Ruth and Nat are orphans, packed into a house full of abandoned children run by a religious fanatic. To entertain their siblings, they channel the dead. Decades later, Ruth’s niece, Cora, finds herself accidentally pregnant. Aft

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94

Cults Inside Out: How People Get In and Can Get Out

Rick Alan Ross

4.0

You've seen them in movies and on TV, but cults are more prevalent than you think-and they're armed with strategies that can brainwash and persuade even the most unlikely of candidates.

But how do individuals get involved with cults in the first place, and what steps can be taken to "deprogram" and heal those who have been drawn into these damaging groups?

These questions and more are addressed in C

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95

Brave

Svetlana Chmakov

4.0

Rose McGowan was born in one cult and came of age in another, more visible cult: Hollywood.

In a strange world where she was continually on display, stardom soon became a personal nightmare of constant exposure and sexualization. Rose escaped into the world of her mind, something she had done as a child, and into high-profile relationships. Every detail of her personal life became public, and the r

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96

Vivian Apple at the End of the World (Vivian Apple, #1)

Katie Coyle

4.0

Seventeen-year-old Vivian Apple never believed in the evangelical Church of America, unlike her recently devout parents. But when Vivian returns home the night after the supposed "Rapture," all that’s left of her parents are two holes in the roof. Suddenly, she doesn't know who or what to believe. With her best friend Harp and a mysterious ally, Peter, Vivian embarks on a desperate cross-country r

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97

Last Days

Adam Nevill

4.0

Last Days (winner of the British Fantasy Award for Best Horror Novel of the Year) by Adam Nevill is a Blair Witch style novel in which a documentary film-maker undertakes the investigation of a dangerous cult—with creepy consequences

When guerrilla documentary maker, Kyle Freeman, is asked to shoot a film on the notorious cult known as the Temple of the Last Days, it appears his prayers have been a

98

The Kingdom of the Cults Handbook: Quick Reference Guide to Alternative Belief Systems

Martin

4.0

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99

Damnable Grace (Hades Hangmen, #5)

Tillie Col

4.0

EVEN THE BROKEN, THROUGH LOVE, CAN FIND GRACE...

Secrets never stay hidden.

The burden of guilt never lifts from the heart.

Born and raised in The Order of David, Sister Phebe knows nothing but cult life. Head of the Sacred Sisters of New Zion, Phebe was groomed from childhood for one purpose: to seduce. Prized as a harlot, as a New Zion whore, Phebe is taken from the doomed cult by Meister, the noto

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100

The Unbreakable Miss Lovely: How the Church of Scientology tried to destroy Paulette Cooper

Tony Ortega

4.0

the story of the life of author Paulette Cooper, the most famous victim of the Church of Scientology’s notorious and ruthless ‘Fair Game’ retaliation schemes.

Ortega, the former editor-in-chief of The Village Voice, spent two years working with Cooper, interviewing her and reviewing her personal papers, as well as interviewing dozens of people, many of whom have never spoken publicly before, in ord