The Awful Crimes of Georgia Tann

Educated: A Memoir is Tara Westover’s autobiography. In it, she shows us her transformation from being the daughter of survivalist, fundamentalist, anti-science, anti-medicine, and anti-education parents, to becoming a Cambridge-educated historian. Westover gains the strength to break free from the ideological chains of her youth and discovers the agency to make her own choices about how she sees and experiences the world.

While it is about one individual’s journey, Educated speaks to universal themes of self-liberation, the power of education, the perils of extreme ideology, and the trauma of domestic abuse.

Orange Is the New Black is Piper Kerman’s memoir of her year at a federal women’s prison. Convicted on drug charges, the privileged, well-educated, white, upper-middle-class Piper is sent to prison in Danbury, Connecticut. There, she finds herself part of a community of women whose backgrounds and life experiences seem vastly different from her own. During her sentence, however, Piper comes to recognize the biases of her privilege; find community and family with her fellow inmates; and discover the systemic failures, gross power disparities, and overall injustices of the prison system.

In 1951, a 30-year-old African-American woman named Henrietta Lacks entered Johns Hopkins Hospital to be treated for cervical cancer. In a matter of months she was dead, overcome by her cancer’s malignancy. Her cancer cells, however, would prove immortal—and change medicine forever.

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks tells the story of Henrietta, her family, and her incredible cells. Tracking both the scientific advances owed to “HeLa” cells and the struggles of Henrietta’s descendants, author Rebecca Skloot leads readers through the history of cell research, the ethical implications of scientific study, and the human story of a poor and ailing family whose matriarch contributed to some of 20th-century science’s greatest achievements.

Delve into the shadows of power and secrecy on the Shawn Ryan Show, where Shawn Ryan and investigative journalist Nick Bryant unravel the sinister threads of Jeffrey Epstein's network and the egregious world of child trafficking. In this gripping exchange, the two truth-seekers embark on an unwavering quest to expose the uncomfortable realities that mainstream media often shuns, pointing to external pressures that may shape news coverage. With a focus that transcends individual scandals, Ryan and Bryant’s conversation serves as a beacon of integrity in investigative journalism.

Nick Bryant's relentless pursuit of hidden stories showcases the effort and challenges faced by journalists grappling with society's dark facets. By recounting the harrowing journey from the Finders cult to the Franklin scandal, Bryant's narrative exemplifies the systemic failures and governmental complicity that enable such heinous activities to persist. Offering insights into his personal trials and the broader implications of high-level corruption, this episode of the Shawn Ryan Show is a testament to the enduring struggle for justice and the unwavering power of persistent advocacy.

Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI is about the Osage Reign of Terror—the 1920s organized killings of members of the oil-rich Osage Indians. Powerful and bigoted whites systematically exploited and murdered the Osage people to expropriate their wealth, showing us the horrors that result when racism and greed align. The murders were also a major catalyst for the growth of the FBI, and the triumph of its rational and scientific vision of law enforcement—and a shift away from the era of frontier justice, corrupt and incompetent local sheriffs, and rogue “lawmen.”

Join Ash Kelley and Alaina Urquhart as they venture into the shadowy psyche of Edmund Kemper, the notorious "Coed Killer," in "Morbid: A True Crime Podcast." With chilling precision, the co-hosts recount his brutal crimes and early displays of malcontent, painting a portrait of a disturbed individual shaped by an abusive childhood and societal missteps. By starting the episode with Kemper's own unnerving words, they construct an atmosphere that is both captivating and cautionary, ensuring listeners are acutely aware of the explicit and haunting journey ahead.

As they weave through Kemper's life—from his contemptuous relationship with his overbearing mother to his cunning double life that fooled even law enforcement—Ash and Alaina offer profound insights into the criminal mind. They dissect institutional failures and naivete that allowed Kemper to exploit the system, examine his impact on forensic psychology, and end with reflections on the precarious balance between normalcy and the hidden darkness within. This gripping episode not only lays bare the extremes of human behavior but sets the stage for future explorations of mystery, beginning with a teaser of the perplexing Dyatlov Pass incident.