Morbidly Curious Book Club Podcast

Welcome to a special BONUS episode, where I chat with an author about their nonfiction book that is morbidly curious book club adjacent, but it hasn't been a pick. Thus, a bonus episode!Join the book club here: https://www.morbidlycuriousbookclub.com/Murderland is out TODAY in paperback! Go grab a copy!https://www.carolinefraser.net/About Murderland: Caroline Fraser grew up in the shadow of Ted Bundy, the most notorious serial murderer of women in American history, surrounded by his hunting grounds and mountain body dumps, in the brooding landscape of the Pacific Northwest. But in the 1970s and ’80s, Bundy was just one perpetrator amid an uncanny explosion of serial rape and murder across the region. Why so many? Why so weirdly and nightmarishly gruesome? Why the senseless rise and then sudden fall of an epidemic of serial killing? As Murderland indelibly maps the lives and careers of Bundy and his infamous peers in mayhem—the Green River Killer, the I-5 Killer, the Night Stalker, the Hillside Strangler, even Charles Manson—Fraser’s Northwestern death trip begins to uncover a deeper mystery and an overlapping pattern of environmental destruction. At ground zero in Ted Bundy’s Tacoma stood one of the most poisonous lead, copper, and arsenic smelters in the world, but it was hardly unique in the West. As Fraser’s investigation inexorably proceeds, evidence mounts that the plumes of these smelters not only sickened and blighted millions of lives but also warped young minds, including some who grew up to become serial killers. A propulsive nonfiction thriller, Murderland transcends true-crime voyeurism and noir mythology, taking readers on a profound quest into the dark heart of the real American berserk.Caroline Fraser is the author of Prairie Fires: The American Dreams of Laura Ingalls Wilder, which won the Pulitzer Prize as well as the National Book Critics Circle Award, the Heartland Prize, and the Plutarch Award for Best Biography of the Year. She is also the author of God’s Perfect Child: Living and Dying in the Christian Science Church, and her writing has appeared in the New York Review of Books, The New Yorker, The Atlantic, the Los Angeles Times, and the London Review of Books, among other publications. She lives in New Mexico.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Welcome to Season 3 Episode 5!Join the Book Club, Subscribe to our book box, support our small business here: https://www.morbidlycuriousbookclub.com/This episode is available ad-free for our Patreon members, and releases slightly early! Become a Patreon Pal today, and check out other episodes, along with bonus bits not included for the general public... https://patreon.com/TheMorbidlyCuriousBookClub?In May, the Morbidly Curious Book Club read "Expert Witness: The Weight of Our Testimony When Justice Hangs in the Balance" by Ann Wolbert Burgess & Steven Matthew Constantine!From the author of the critically-acclaimed true crime account, A Killer By Design (the inspiration behind Hulu's original docuseries, Mastermind), a groundbreaking look into the crucial role played by expert witnesses in the most high-profile criminal cases, based on Dr. Ann Burgess' personal experiences within the criminal justice system. Written through Burgess' singular lens of compassion and lived experience, Expert Witness pulls back the curtain on some of the biggest cases in the last thirty years--from Bill Cosby to the Menendez brothers to Larry Nassar--to reveal the deeply human stories behind the trials that have captivated a nation. The book explores the role of expert witnesses in high-stakes court cases, offering first-hand accounts and never-before-seen interviews with attorneys, victims, and offenders. Expert Witness places readers inside the mind of the nation's most prominent courtroom expert, following Burgess as she takes on one seismic case after the next. Throughout the narrative, each case deepens the reader's understanding of the art and science of expert testimony, taking readers from the women's movement of the 1970s to the #MeToo movement of today--one of the largest social reckonings in recent history. At its core, Expert Witness is a story of empowerment. It's a story of compassion and the ever-increasing need for individuals to stand up and speak truth to power or to popular opinion. And it's ultimately a story of how revolutionary one voice can be.Dr. Ann Wolbert Burgess, DNSc., APRN, is a leading forensic and psychiatric nurse who worked with the FBI for over two decades. She is currently a professor at the Boston College Connell School of Nursing, and she lives in Boston, MA. Steven Matthew Constantine (cowriter) is the assistant director of marketing and communications at the Boston College Connell School of Nursing. He holds an MFA from the Bennington Writing Seminars and lives in Boston, MA.TW can be found here: https://app.thestorygraph.com/books/d414428c-a932-438a-8960-ae081f5d3cffAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Welcome to an archive episode!Check out our new website: morbidlycuriousbookclub.comEarly and ad-free for Patreon members: https://www.patreon.com/cw/TheMorbidlyCuriousBookClubIn 2024, I launched this podcast to delve deeper into our book club's nonfiction selections by engaging directly with the authors, the experts behind these compelling works. However, the book club has been around since 2021...so there are some 'archive' picks that we need to discuss!In September of 2023, we read what would become a staple for the book club: "WHAT THE DEAD KNOW, Learning About Life as a New York City Death Investigator" by Barbara Butcher!When Barbara Butcher was early in her recovery from alcoholism, she found an unexpected lifeline in a job at the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner in NYC. As only the second woman ever hired for the role—and the first to last more than three months—she became a vital force in the world of forensic science and criminal investigations. Over the next two decades, Butcher worked thousands of cases: gruesome homicides, suspicious suicides, heartbreaking scenes involving underage victims, and complex mass casualty investigations. In her unforgettable account, she invites readers into the gritty, high-stakes world of crime-scene investigation, from the autopsy room and morgue to tense moments at active crime scenes. Along the way, she uncovered how confronting death every day gave her a new perspective on life—and ultimately saved her from becoming a statistic herself. In vivid, darkly humorous prose, Butcher recounts how she narrowly avoided a booby-trapped suicide scene, and how, during 9/11, she and her colleagues worked tirelessly to identify victims using scraps of clothing, DNA, and the memories of grieving loved ones. Her honesty, resilience, and sharp wit make this a standout in the genre of first responder memoirs and women in law enforcement.Learn more about Barbara here: https://www.barbarabutcherofficial.com/The Death Investigator trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ilLAP28qN0&time_continue=1&source_ve_path=NzY3NTg&embeds_referring_euri=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.barbarabutcherofficial.com%2F&embeds_referring_origin=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.barbarabutcherofficial.comFind the book here with TW: https://app.thestorygraph.com/books/369dae9c-ddfd-4d4c-872a-9f83acf2aefdAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Resources mentioned below.Welcome to a special BONUS episode, where I chat with an author about their nonfiction book that is morbidly curious book club adjacent, but it hasn't been a pick. Thus, a bonus episode!Join the book club here: https://www.morbidlycuriousbookclub.com/Shoutout to Legacy Lit for my copy of Amy Littlefield's Killers of Roe: My Investigation into the Mysterious Death of Abortion Rights.About the book: They are going to kill people, investigative reporter for The Nation Amy Littlefield knew, when the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade. After a decade covering abortion, she wanted to more deeply understand the motives, means, and opportunities behind the antiabortion movement’s victory. So she set out to investigate the murderers of Roe. Killers of Roe chronicles Littlefield’s journey into the unexplored corners of the most successful social movement of our time. As in every good murder mystery, the killers turn out to be the people you least suspect. Plot twists lurk around every corner as Littlefield meets believers, opportunists, and complicated heroes. Along the way, she encounters surprising characters who shed light on how we got to this moment of authoritarian rule: from the former fetus keeper standing trial in Michigan to the antiabortion militant turned long-shot presidential candidate to the pro-choice superfans at the Reagan Library. Throughout the book, Littlefield draws upon women’s stories and her own experience as a mother to reveal the life-and-death stakes of America’s abortion wars. At once clever and poignant reportage, this abortion whodunit uncovers the deeper story of how we lost Roe—and how we will win back so much more. About Amy: She is the abortion access correspondent at The Nation and a freelance investigative reporter who focuses on the intersection of religion and health care. She is the author of Killers of Roe, a whodunit that investigates the death of abortion rights, due out in March 2026.Resources mentioned:https://www.abortionfinder.org/https://www.ineedana.com/https://www.plancpills.org/abouthttps://mahotline.org/https://abortiondefensenetwork.org/https://reproductivefreedomforall.org/resources/resources-for-accessing-abortion-care/StoryGraph link to book: https://app.thestorygraph.com/books/b39c91da-b2c1-43ad-add3-5d10420432bcAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

But not at the same time...unless you're into that; Godspeed.Welcome to a special BONUS episode, where I chat with an author about their nonfiction book that is morbidly curious book club adjacent, but it hasn't been a pick. Thus, a bonus episode!Join the book club here: https://www.morbidlycuriousbookclub.com/About The Secret History of Bigfoot: From the shrouded forests of the Pacific Northwest to off-the-wall cryptozoological conventions, one man searches high and low for the answer to the question: real or not, why do we want to believe? Bigfoot is an instantly recognizable figure. Through the decades, this elusive primate has been featured in movies and books, on coffee mugs, beer koozies, car polish, and CBD oil. Which begs the question: what is it about Bigfoot that's caught hold of our imaginations? Journalist and self-diagnosed skeptic John O'Connor is fascinated by Sasquatch. Curious to learn more, he embarks on a quest through the North American wilds in search of Bigfoot, its myth and meaning. Alongside an eccentric cast of characters, he explores the zany and secretive world of "cryptozoology," tracking Bigfoot through ancient folklore to Harry and the Hendersons, while examining the forces behind our ever-widening belief in the supernatural. As O'Connor treks through the shrouded forests of the Pacific Northwest, listens to firsthand accounts, and attends Bigfoot conventions, he's left wondering―what happens when the lines between myth and reality blur? Perfect for fans of Bill Bryson and Douglas Preston, and with sharp wit and an adventurous spirit, this heartfelt exploration of a cornerstone of American folklore unpacks why we believe in the things that we do, what that says about us, and how it shapes our world.About his NEW release, A Short, Strange Trip: Tag along with clever guide John O'Connor as he leads us on a gonzo journey through the history of psychedelics, the Amazon rainforest, and into the cosmic dimensions of our own minds. This will be the trip of a lifetime. March 4th, 1971: Deep in the Colombian rainforest, a motley crew of "psychonauts" prepared for what they believed would be the ultimate experiment. Convinced that a mixture of powerful hallucinogenic plants held the key to unlocking human consciousness, they soon found themselves entering hyperspace. The return journey was... complicated. Present day: Acclaimed journalist John O'Connor is fascinated by this forgotten expedition. What really happened in those jungle depths? Armed with decades-old field notes, new interviews, and a healthy dose of curiosity, O'Connor ventures into the same Amazon territory, retracing the psychonauts' steps through the remote Putumayo in search of a legendary hallucinogen called ukuè —and the truth about an "experiment" that's been quietly gathering dust. Working alongside indigenous Uitoto people who bore witness to it all, O'Connor explores how humanity's relationship with psychedelics has shaped everything from ancient religion to modern medicine. But as he journeys deeper into both the rainforest and the cosmic dimensions these substances reveal, one question keeps nagging at him: Were the psychonauts onto something truly profound—or just profoundly stoned? Some stories are worth the trip.About the author, John: He is the author of The Secret History of Bigfoot: Field Notes on a North American Monster, which explores the obsessive world of Bigfoot believers. His articles and essays have appeared in newsstand publications such as The New York Times, GQ, Financial Times Magazine, Men’s Journal, and The Boston Globe, as well as the literary journals Open City, Post Road, Quarterly West, The Believer, Oxford American, and Creative Nonfiction’s True Story series. His work can also be found in various anthologies, including The Best American Food Writing 2018 and The Best Creative Nonfiction Vol. 1. Born and raised in Kalamazoo, Michigan (the original home of Gibson guitars), he has taught nonfiction writing in the BFA program at Pratt Institute and now teaches journalism at Boston College. He lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts, with his wife, children, and rabbit.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Welcome to Season 3 Episode 3! Our March book for the Morbidly Curious Book Club is WHACK JOB: A History of Axe Murder by Rachel McCarthy James!Join the Book Club, Subscribe to our book box, support our small business here: https://www.morbidlycuriousbookclub.com/This episode is available ad-free for our Patreon members, and releases slightly early! Become a Patreon Pal today, and check out other episodes, along with bonus bits not included for the general public... https://patreon.com/TheMorbidlyCuriousBookClub?utm_medium=unknown&utm_source=join_link&utm_campaign=creatorshare_creator&utm_content=copyLink"A brilliant and bloody examination of the axe's foundational role in human history, from prehistoric violence, to war and executions, splashed across newspaper headlines and popular culture. For as long as the axe has been in our hands, we have used it to kill. Much like the wheel, the boat, and the telephone, the axe is a transformative piece of technology ― one that has been with us since prehistory. And just as early humans used the axe to chop down trees, hunt for food, and whittle tools, they also used it to murder. Over time, this particular use has endured: as the axe evolved over centuries to fit the needs of new agricultural, architectural, and social development, so have our lethal uses for it. Whack Job is the story of the axe, first as a convenient danger and then an anachronism, as told through the murders it has been employed in throughout history: from the first axe murder nearly half a million years ago, to the brutal harnessing of the axe in warfare, and from its use in King Henry VIII's favourite method of execution, to Lizzie Borden and the birth of modern pop culture. Whack Job sheds brilliant light on this familiar implement, this most human of weapons. This is a critical examination of violence, an exploration of how technology shapes human conflict, the cruel and sacred rituals of execution and battle, and the ways humanity fits even the most savage impulses into narratives of the past and present."Rachel McCarthy James was born in Kansas in 1986. She is the daughter of baseball’s Bill James and artist Susan McCarthy. At Hollins University in Roanoke, Virginia, she studied political science and creative writing. Her first book, The Man from the Train (coauthored with her father) chronicled the serial killer behind the Villisca axe murders. Published in 2017, The Man from the Train was nominated for an Edgar award for best fact crime, and won the Kansas Notable Book award. Rachel lives in Lawrence, KS with her husband Jason, their dog Milly, and three cats – Burger, Frankie, and Lola. Enjoy the episode!Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Welcome to a special BONUS episode, where I chat with an author about their nonfiction book that is morbidly curious book club adjacent, but it hasn't been a pick. Thus, a bonus episode! Early + ad-free for the Patreon members.Join the book club here: https://www.morbidlycuriousbookclub.com/About the book: On December 22, 1984, in a graffiti-covered New York City subway car, passengers looked on in horror as a white loner named Bernhard Goetz shot four Black teens, Darrell Cabey, Barry Allen, Troy Canty, and James Ramseur, at point-blank range. He then disappeared into a dark tunnel. After an intense manhunt, and his eventual surrender in New Hampshire, the man the tabloid media had dubbed the “Death Wish Vigilante” would become a celebrity and a hero to countless ordinary Americans who had been frustrated with the economic fallout of the Reagan 80s. Overnight, Goetz’s young victims would become villains. Out of this dramatic moment would emerge an angry nation, in which Rupert Murdoch’s New York Post and later Fox News Network stoked the fear and the fury of a stunning number of Americans. Drawing from never-before-seen archival materials, legal files, and more, Heather Ann Thompson narrates the Bernie Goetz Subway shootings and their decades-long reverberations, while deftly recovering the lives of the boys whom too many decided didn’t matter. Fear and Fury is the remarkable account and a searing indictment of a crucial turning point in American history.About the author, Heather Ann Thompson is a historian and the author of Blood in the Water: The Attica Prison Uprising of 1971 and Its Legacy, which won the Pulitzer Prize and the Bancroft Prize. She is also the author of Whose Detroit?: Politics, Labor, and Race in a Modern American City. Thompson has written about the criminal justice system for myriad publications, including The New York Times, The Washington Post, Time, Rolling Stone, The Atlantic, and The New Yorker. She has served on the National Academy of Sciences blue ribbon panel that studied the causes and consequences of mass incarceration in the United States, co-runs the Carceral State Project at the University of Michigan, and has been the recipient of numerous honors including a Guggenheim Fellowship, a Whiting Creative Nonfiction Grant, and a Racial Justice Fellowship from the Carr-Ryan Center for Human Rights at Harvard University. Thompson has also served as a historical consultant for film and television, including on the Oscar-nominated feature documentary Attica.Buy the book today: https://bookshop.org/lists/morbidly-curious-non-fiction-recommendationsAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Welcome to Season 3 Episode 2!Join the Book Club, Subscribe to our book box, support our small business here: https://www.morbidlycuriousbookclub.com/Early and ad-free for Patreon members! https://www.patreon.com/cw/TheMorbidlyCuriousBookClubWith a bite, the creature transforms its prey into another raving monster. It's a scenario that underlies our darkest tales of supernatural horror, but its power derives from a very real virus, a deadly scourge known to humankind from our earliest days. In this lively and engrossing investigation, journalist Bill Wasik and veterinarian Monica Murphy chart four thousand years of the history, science, and cultural mythology of rabies. From Greek myths to zombie flicks, from the laboratory heroics of Louis Pasteur to the contemporary search for a lifesaving treatment, Rabid is a fresh and often wildly entertaining look at one of humankind's oldest and most fearsome foes.Bill Wasik is the editorial director of The New York Times Magazine and Monica Murphy is a veterinarian and writer.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Welcome to an archive episode!Check out our new website: morbidlycuriousbookclub.comEarly and ad-free for Patreon members: https://www.patreon.com/cw/TheMorbidlyCuriousBookClubIn 2024, I launched this podcast to delve deeper into our book club's nonfiction selections by engaging directly with the authors, the experts behind these compelling works. However, the book club has been around since 2021...so there are some 'archive' picks that we need to discuss!In January of 2022, we read CULTISH: The Language of Fanaticism by Amanda Montell a,nd it has become a staple in the MCBC, our Bible...if you will.About the book: What makes “cults” so intriguing and frightening? What makes them powerful? The reason why so many of us binge Manson documentaries by the dozen and fall down rabbit holes researching suburban moms gone QAnon is because we’re looking for a satisfying explanation for what causes people to join—and more importantly, stay in—extreme groups. We secretly want to know: could it happen to me? Amanda Montell’s argument is that, on some level, it already has . . .Our culture tends to provide pretty flimsy answers to questions of cult influence, mostly having to do with vague talk of “brainwashing.” But the true answer has nothing to do with freaky mind-control wizardry or Kool-Aid. In Cultish, Montell argues that the key to manufacturing intense ideology, community, and us/them attitudes all comes down to language. In both positive ways and shadowy ones, cultish language is something we hear—and are influenced by—every single day. Through juicy storytelling and cutting original research, Montell exposes the verbal elements that make a wide spectrum of communities “cultish,” revealing how they affect followers of groups as notorious as Heaven’s Gate, but also how they pervade our modern start-ups, Peloton leaderboards, and Instagram feeds. Incisive and darkly funny, this enrapturing take on the curious social science of power and belief will make you hear the fanatical language of “cultish” everywhere.About Amanda: Her nonfiction books include Wordslut and the New York Times bestsellers Cultish and The Age of Magical Overthinking. Translated into over fifteen languages, Amanda’s books have been praised by publications including The Atlantic, The Economist, and NPR and spotlit as monthly selections by Barnes & Noble and the Dylan Mulvaney Book Club. Amanda’s podcasts Sounds Like A Cult and Magical Overthinkers have been downloaded over 40 million times and praised by The New York Times, Vulture, and Esquire. Sounds Like A Cult won the 2023 iHeart Radio Award for Best Emerging Podcast.Amanda’s writing has been published in The New York Times, The Guardian, and Harper’s Bazaar, among others. Speaking about her work, Amanda has appeared in documentaries including Netflix’s “How to Become A Cult Leader” and HBO’s “Breath of Fire.” She holds a degree in linguistics from NYU and lives in Southern California, where she is at work on her debut novel, Where to Put Your Tongue (Simon & Schuster, 2028).Find Amanda on Instagram @amanda_montell.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Season 2 finale!Join the Morbidly Curious Book Club Today: https://www.morbidlycuriousbookclub.com/Early and ad-free for Patreon members! https://www.patreon.com/cw/TheMorbidlyCuriousBookClubOur December 2025 pick was “THE UNCLAIMED: Abandonment and Hope in the City of Angels" by Pamela Prickett and Stefan Timmermans!For centuries, people who died destitute or alone were buried in potters’ fields—a Dickensian end that even the most hard-pressed families tried to avoid. Today, more and more relatives are abandoning their dead, leaving it to local governments to dispose of the bodies. Up to 150,000 Americans now go unclaimed each year. Who are they? Why are they being forgotten? And what is the meaning of life if your death doesn’t matter to others? In this extraordinary work of narrative nonfiction, eight years in the making, sociologists Pamela Prickett and Stefan Timmermans uncover a hidden social world. They follow four individuals in Los Angeles, tracing the twisting, poignant paths that put each at risk of going unclaimed, and introducing us to the scene investigators, notification officers, and crematorium workers who care for them when no one else will. The Unclaimed lays bare the difficult truth that anyone can be abandoned. It forces us to confront a variety of social ills, from the fracturing of families and the loneliness of cities to the toll of rising inequality. But it is also filled with unexpected moments of tenderness. In Boyle Heights, a Mexican American neighborhood not far from the glitter of Hollywood, hundreds of strangers come together each year to mourn the deaths of people they never knew. These ceremonies, springing up across the country, reaffirm our shared humanity and help mend our frayed social fabric. Beautifully crafted and profoundly empathetic, The Unclaimed urges us to expand our circle of caring—in death and in life.Their website: https://www.theunclaimedbook.com/Happy New Year, friends! Here's to 2026! Cheers!Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Join the Morbidly Curious Book Club Today: https://www.morbidlycuriousbookclub.com/Welcome to a special BONUS episode, where I chat with an author about their nonfiction book that is morbidly curious book club adjacent, but it hasn't been a pick. Thus, a bonus episode!Here is my conversation with Ilise S. Carter on her book, "WHEN WE SPOKE TO THE DEAD: How Ghosts Gave American Women Their Voice."About the book: Ghosts spoke. Women listened. Everything changed. It began with whispers in a dimly lit room. In the 1840s, the Fox Sisters—and the legions of mediums they inspired—ignited the Spiritualist movement that swept through Victorian parlors and presidential campaigns alike. Contacting the dead wasn't merely a parlor trick: It was a political statement, a declaration of self that still echoes. Séances attracted suffragists and scientists, skeptics and charlatans, giving women a voice in a society that often refused to hear them. But as Spiritualism surged, it also blurred the lines between faith, fraud, feminism, and financial opportunity, drawing figures as varied as Harry Houdini, Victoria Woodhull, and even modern self-help gurus into its ever-expanding orbit. From wartime séances to the rise of televangelists, from Victorian ghosts to goop-approved wellness rituals, When We Spoke to the Dead unearths the forgotten roots of today's obsession with manifestation, mysticism, and the power of belief. Exploring America's deep-seated hunger for the unseen—whether through politics, personal empowerment, or grief—this book traces how the supernatural, once condemned as heresy, became the ultimate commodity. Step inside the séance room. The spirits have been waiting.About the author: Ilise S. Carter is freelance writer, consulting copywriter to the beauty industry, and sideshow performer based in New York City. She has written for Allure, New York Times, Racked, Wall Street Journal, and others, with a focus on pop culture. In addition, she’s spent over a decade as a consulting copywriter for beauty brands such as Shiseido, bliss, Laura Mercier, Avon, L’Oréal, and Madame CJ Walker, specializing in brand voice and identity. As her stage persona, The Lady Aye, she has worked as professional sideshow performer (sword swallower, fire eater, blockhead, and pain-proof girl) and MC with acts ranging from Rob Zombie to Cirque du Soleil, and has appeared on TV’s Gossip Girl, Odditties, The President Show, Mysteries at the Museum and Dickinson. Carter holds a BA in American Studies from Barnard College at Columbia University and a Certificate in Film Production from NYU.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Join the Morbidly Curious Book Club Today: https://www.morbidlycuriousbookclub.com/Early and ad-free for Patreon members! https://www.patreon.com/cw/TheMorbidlyCuriousBookClubOur October 2025 pick was “Ghostland: An American History in Haunted Places" by Colin Dickey, our 2nd repeat author!"From the author of The Unidentified, an intellectual feast for fans of offbeat history that takes readers on a road trip through some of the country’s most infamously haunted places—and deep into the dark side of our history. Colin Dickey is on the trail of America’s ghosts. Crammed into old houses and hotels, abandoned prisons and empty hospitals, the spirits that linger continue to capture our collective imagination, but why? His own fascination piqued by a house hunt in Los Angeles that revealed derelict foreclosures and 'zombie homes,' Dickey embarks on a journey across the continental United States to decode and unpack the American history repressed in our most famous haunted places. Some have established reputations as 'the most haunted mansion in America,' or 'the most haunted prison'; others, like the haunted Indian burial grounds in West Virginia, evoke memories from the past our collective nation tries to forget. With boundless curiosity, Dickey conjures the dead by focusing on questions of the living—how do we, the living, deal with stories about ghosts, and how do we inhabit and move through spaces that have been deemed, for whatever reason, haunted? Paying attention not only to the true facts behind a ghost story, but also to the ways in which changes to those facts are made—and why those changes are made—Dickey paints a version of American history left out of the textbooks, one of things left undone, crimes left unsolved. Spellbinding, scary, and wickedly insightful, Ghostland discovers the past we’re most afraid to speak of aloud in the bright light of day is the same past that tends to linger in the ghost stories we whisper in the dark."About the author! Colin Dickey grew up in San Jose, California, a few miles from the Winchester Mystery House, the most haunted house in America. As a writer, speaker, and academic, he has made a career out of collecting unusual objects and hidden histories all over the country. He's a regular contributor to the LA Review of Books and Lapham's Quarterly, and is the co-editor (with Joanna Ebenstein) of The Morbid Anatomy Anthology. He is also a member of the Order of the Good Death, a collective of artists, writers, and death industry professionals interested in improving the Western world's relationship with mortality. With a PhD in comparative literature from the University of Southern California, he is an associate professor of creative writing at National University.Articles: https://newrepublic.com/authors/colin-dickeyWebsite: https://colindickey.com/Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Join the Morbidly Curious Book Club Today: https://www.morbidlycuriousbookclub.com/Our September 2025 pick was “In the Mouth of the Wolf: A Murder, a Cover-Up, and the True Cost of Silencing the Press" by Katherine Corcoran.Early and ad-free for Patreon members! Join the Patreon today to get exclusive goodies, including the Morbidly Curious Fiction Edition book club: https://patreon.com/TheMorbidlyCuriousBookClub?utm_medium=unknown&utm_source=join_link&utm_campaign=creatorshare_creator&utm_content=copyLink“Regina dove in, focusing on the marginalized people who made the news at the time only in positive stories about government handouts that said nothing about the conditions in which the people lived. She interviewed the indigenous, the peasants, and the union workers, all of whom had never had a voice in the traditional press. Regina's reporting was legendary among her colleagues – so much so, that when I first heard of it, I was sure it must be an exaggeration, an assassinated journalist being lionized by her peers. In death, people become at least a small bit mythological. And the quality of journalism in the provinces was marginal at best, the standards by which they reported even more questionable.”Former AP Mexico bureau chief Katherine Corcoran's pulsating investigation into the murder of a legendary woman journalist on the verge of exposing government corruption in Mexico. Regina Martínez was no stranger to retaliation. A journalist out of Mexico's Gulf Coast state of Veracruz, Regina's stories for the magazine Proceso laid out the corruption and abuse underlying Mexican politics. She was barred from press conferences, and copies of Proceso often disappeared before they made the newsstands. In 2012, shortly after Proceso published an article on corruption and two Veracruz politicians, and the magazine went missing once again, she was bludgeoned to death in her bathroom. The message was clear: No journalist in Mexico was safe. Katherine Corcoran, then leading the Associated Press coverage of Mexico, admired Regina Martínez's work. Troubled by the news of her death, Corcoran journeyed to Veracruz to find out what had happened. Regina hadn't even written the controversial article. But did she have something else that someone didn't want published? Once there, Katherine bonded with four of Regina's grief-stricken mentees, each desperate to prove who was to blame for the death of their friend. Together they battled cover-ups, narco-officials, red tape, and threats to sift through the mess of lies-and discover what got Regina killed. A gripping look at reporters who dare to step on the deadly “third rail,” where the state and organized crime have become indistinguishable, In the Mouth of the Wolf confronts how silencing the free press threatens basic protections and rule of law across the globe.A little about our author, Katherine Corcoran: She is a former Associated Press bureau chief for Mexico and Central America and a former codirector of Cronkite Noticias, the bilingual reporting program at Arizona State University's Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication. She has been an Alicia Patterson fellow, the Hewlett Fellow for Public Policy at the Kellogg Institute at the University of Notre Dame, and a Logan Nonfiction Program fellow. At the AP, she led an award-winning team that broke major stories about cartel and state violence and abuse of authority in Mexico and Central America. Her columns about Mexican politics and press freedom have appeared in the Washington Post, the Houston Chronicle, and on Univision Online, among other publications. She is currently codirector of MasterLAB, an investigative editor training program in Mexico City.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy