Books like Unspeakable Acts, Ordinary People by John Conroy

Jeannette Walls' memoir chronicles her turbulent childhood in a dysfunctional, itinerant family, detailing poverty, alcoholism, and homelessness across the United States as she seeks stability and personal growth.

Jared Diamond analyses why great civilizations collapse, linking environmental misuse, climate change, population pressures, and trade instability as common causes, and offering lessons from societies that survived.

A memoir of a woman who overcomes a strict survivalist Mormon upbringing in rural Idaho to pursue higher education, ultimately earning a PhD in history at Cambridge.

Augusten Burroughs recounts his turbulent adolescence spent in a decaying Victorian home run by a psychiatrist, where ordinary rites of childhood give way to a surreal blend of family eccentricity, escape from school, and the early years of a future author.

James McBride’s memoir chronicles his upbringing among twelve siblings in Brooklyn’s Red Hook, revealing his mother’s hidden Jewish heritage and their shared journey of race, identity, and faith.

Edge of the Knife is the first study to investigate police violence and accountability in the United States, Latin America, and the Caribbean. Paul Chevigny, author of the classic Police Power, examines the use of torture, deadly force, and less drastic forms of violence in six major urban centers in the Americas. Chevigny searches for the sources of official violence - and for ways of controlling it. He compares military and community models of policing. He explores the connection between police violence and official corruption. Finally, Chevigny examines the effectiveness of criminal and civil courts, civic administrations, civilian review boards, internal controls, external auditors, and pressure from international human rights organizations in deterring police violence. Ultimately, he argues that the way in which criminal matters are patrolled and investigated is reproduced in the city's social order. When citizens have little confidence in their government and do not participate in it or look to it for protection, they turn to violent self-help. When their sense of powerlessness combines with an increased fear of crime they are more willing to lend their public support to extra-legal violence by the police. Conversely, persistent government action against crime, including accountability for police violence, discourages vigilantism as well as official violence.

Japanese‑American family deported to a Utah internment camp during World War II, narrated through four family members as they confront eviction and life in isolation.

Includes material on "genocide survivors, witnesses to their own parents' murders, children raised in closets and cages, and victims of family violence ... explains what happens to the brain when a child is exposed to extreme stress, and he reveals how today's innovative treatments are helping ease children's pain, allowing to become healthy adults.

Elaine Scarry examines the inexpressible nature of physical pain, exploring how it erodes language and identity, and how states weaponize suffering through torturous warfare. Her analysis draws on literature, law, art, and military theory.

Teenage Wasteland provides memorable portraits of "rock and roll kids" and analyses of their interests in heavy metal music and Satanism. A powerful indictment of the often manipulative media coverage of youth crises and so-called alternative programs designed to help "troubled" teens, Teenage Wasteland draws new conclusions and presents solid reasons to admire the resilience of suburbia's dead end kids.