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Will Storr's Top Book Recommendations

Want to know what books Will Storr recommends on their reading list? We've researched interviews, social media posts, podcasts, and articles to build a comprehensive list of Will Storr's favorite book recommendations of all time.

1
From the bestselling author of The Psychopath Test: A Journey Through the Madness Industry and So You’ve Been Publicly Shamed.

A wide variety of extremist groups -- Islamic fundamentalists, neo-Nazis -- share the oddly similar belief that a tiny shadowy elite rule the world from a secret room. In Them, journalist Jon Ronson has joined the extremists to track down the fabled secret room.

As a journalist and a Jew, Ronson was often considered one of "Them" but he had no idea if their meetings actually took place. Was he just not invited? Them...
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Recommended by Will Storr, and 1 others.

Will StorrThe most hilarious piece of journalism that I’d come across and it was gripping too. (Source)

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2
In 1989, the Berlin Wall fell; shortly afterwards the two Germanies reunited, and East Germany ceased to exist. In a country where the headquarters of the secret police can become a museum literally overnight, and one in 50 East Germans were informing on their countrymen and women, there are a thousand stories just waiting to get out. Anna Funder tells extraordinary tales from the underbelly of the former East Germany - she meets Miriam, who as a 16-year-old might have started World War III, visits the man who painted the line which became the Berlin Wall and gets drunk with the legendary... more
Recommended by Will Storr, Hester Vaizey, and 2 others.

Will StorrWhat Stasiland does really well, is it shows that these aren’t just arguments. That these people believed these views to the roots of their souls. (Source)

Hester VaizeyA collection of stories about people whose lives have been affected by the Stasi. (Source)

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3

The Shadow of the Sun

In 1957, Ryszard Kapuscinski arrived in Africa to witness the beginning of the end of colonial rule as the first African correspondent of Poland's state newspaper. From the early days of independence in Ghana to the ongoing ethnic genocide in Rwanda, Kapuscinski has crisscrossed vast distances pursuing the swift, and often violent, events that followed liberation. Kapuscinski hitchhikes with caravans, wanders the Sahara with nomads, and lives in the poverty-stricken slums of Nigeria. He wrestles a king cobra to the death and suffers through a bout of malaria. What emerges is an extraordinary... more
Recommended by Will Storr, and 1 others.

Will StorrOnce you discover Kapuściński, it’s a love affair for life. He’s such a beautiful writer. (Source)

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4

The People of the Abyss

In 1902, Jack London purchased some secondhand clothes and, posing as a stranded American sailor, set out to discover how the London poor lived. His research makes shocking reading. Moving through the slums as one of the poor; eating, drinking, and socializing with the underclass; lining up to get into a flophouse, London was scandalized and brutalized by the experience of living rough in Britain’s capital. His clear-eyed reflections on the iniquities of class are a shaming testament to the persistence of social inequality in modern times.

This collection chronicles the fiction and...
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Recommended by Will Storr, and 1 others.

Will StorrA really extraordinary book. It precedes George Orwell’s Down and Out in Paris and London by decades. (Source)

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5

Bad Wisdom

Drummond and Manning undertake an epic journey to the North Pole to sacrifice an icon of Elvis Presley. Two very different accounts emerge as the pilgrims venture into the frozen wastes at the top of the world. less
Recommended by Will Storr, and 1 others.

Will StorrA really interesting journey that works on lots of different levels. It’s funny, it’s very thoughtful, it’s chaotic. (Source)

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