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The Best Books about CULTS to Add to your TBR!
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items Fascinated by the dark, mysterious world of cults? This list dives into gripping memoirs, investigative deep dives, and chilling true stories that explore the psychology, manipulation, and secrets behind some of history’s most infamous cults. From pe...
Dinner for Vampires by Bethany Joy Lenz is a candid and compelling memoir about life in a real-life vampire cult. Lenz shares her personal experiences with honesty, humor, and insight, offering readers a fascinating look at manipulation, belief, and ...
Dinner for Vampires: Life on a Cult TV Show (While Also in an Actual Cult!)
Catherine's efforts to free her eldest daughter from the grip of NXIVM are well told and moving. Yes, she was the one who brought her daughter in contact with them to begin with, but she takes responsibility for that. Also, cults are very sneaky and ...
Captive: A Mother's Crusade to Save Her Daughter from the Terrifying Cult Nxivm
A shocking and mesmerizing memoir of faith, abuse, courage, and freedom, Breaking Free is an expose of religious extremism and a beacon of hope for anyone trying to overcome personal obstacles.
Breaking Free: How I Escaped Polygamy, the FLDS Cult, and My Father, Warren Jeffs
Hollywood Park is a beautifully written memoir about a young man’s journey growing up in and escaping the Synanon cult. Abandoned by his mother at just six months old, he and his brother spent their early years in a communal orphanage before she recl...
Hollywood Park: A Memoir by Mikel Jollett, Paperback
Sarah Berman is absolutely fearless in Don’t Call It a Cult. Her determination to not only tell the difficult, often disturbing story of NXIVM, but tell it right, shines through in every aspect of this gripping book. I simply could not put it down.
Don't Call it a Cult: The Shocking Story of Keith Raniere and the Women of NXIVM|Paperback
As seen in the HBO docuseries THE VOW: A jaw-dropping insider look into the world of the so-called "Hollywood Sex Cult" NXIVM chronicling the rise of enigmatic cult leader, Keith Raniere, from its "Patient Zero," his former girlfriend and test subjec...
The Program: Inside the Mind of Keith Raniere and the Rise and Fall of NXIVM|Hardcover
Sarah's story to be shocking and sad, but also one of hope. After all that she went through, she came out with her family intact, a vision for her future, and a determination to move forward and help other victims out of NXIVM. Her story is truly one...
Scarred: The True Story of How I Escaped NXIVM, the Cult that Bound My Life|Hardcover
Member of the Family is a disturbing, courageous memoir… Her testimony, at age 17, helped convict Manson. This is a moving, intense insider’s view of the cult of Manson.
Member of the Family: My Story of Charles Manson, Life Inside His Cult, and the Darkness That Ended the Sixties|Paperback
While protecting the privacy of her youngest siblings, Shari details the abuse and neglect she faced at the hands of those who should've protected them. Deeply vulnerable and honest, this memoir will make you think twice about the ethics of family vl...
The House of My Mother: A Daughter's Quest for Freedom|Hardcover
Faith Jones bridges entertainment and empathy by penning a page-turning memoir that is not just a fascinating and heartbreaking look at life inside a cult, but ultimately an empowering story of resilience
Sex Cult Nun: Breaking Away from the Children of God, a Wild, Radical Religious Cult|Paperback
Michelle Dowd grew up in a family-based cult run by her grandfather, and her family lived in the Angeles National Forest, where her mother taught her how to read the landscape and find sustenance. These turned out to be the skills that allowed her to...
Forager: Field Notes for Surviving a Family Cult: a Memoir|Paperback
An in-depth look into the cult Children of God. Graphic, overwhelming, unfiltered, only read if you can stomach it. From one cult into the next (The Children of God into the US Army.) Daniella leads us on an eye opening journey from a third generatio...
Uncultured: A Memoir|Paperback
How does a man go from being a beloved preacher of socialism and racial equality in small town 1950s Indiana, to presiding over a 900-person murder-suicide deep in the jungles of Guyana? Jim Jones is the only person who can truly answer that, and he’...
The Road to Jonestown: Jim Jones and Peoples Temple|Paperback
"A suspenseful tale of escape that reads like a satisfying thriller.... The most important personal testimony to emerge from the Jonestown tragedy." —Chicago Tribune
Seductive Poison: A Jonestown Survivor's Story of Life and Death in the Peoples Temple|Paperback
If you are wondering why so many people seem to be slipping into alternative and frightening realities, you have to read this brilliant book. It’s compassionate, wise, thoroughly reported—and terrifying. One of the defining books of our time.”—Johann...
The Quiet Damage: QAnon and the Destruction of the American Family|Hardcover
“A fearless, compelling, exhaustive work of muckraking journalism and a masterpiece of storytelling. . . . A ripping yarn about ego, money, abuse, faith, and the corrupting nature of power when wielded by the wrong people. It’s as lurid, pulpy, and p...
Going Clear: Scientology, Hollywood, and the Prison of Belief|Paperback
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.
Troublemaker: Surviving Hollywood and Scientology|Paperback
A compelling, often disturbing account of one woman’s life in Christian fundamentalism.
A Well-Trained Wife: My Escape from Christian Patriarchy|Hardcover
A chilling true story of blind devotion and unfortunate tragedy — this is “Jonestown”. Delving into the complex psychology that led hundreds toward untimely death, this is a gripping and eye-opening read.
Death in the Jungle: Murder, Betrayal, and the Lost Dream of Jonestown|Hardcover
"I expected Emily’s account of her time in an MLM to be eye-opening. I didn’t expect it to shine a light on so many dark aspects of American culture. HEY, HUN blew me away. An incredibly smart, vulnerable, and jaw-dropping expose. As entertaining as ...
Hey, Hun: Sales, Sisterhood, Supremacy, and the Other Lies Behind Multilevel Marketing|Paperback
The shocking truth about some of the most disturbing, criminal cults that have ever existed. Perfect if you want summaries of some of the most interesting cults in the world.
Cults Uncovered: True Stories of Mind Control and Murder|Paperback
The shocking true story of the rise and fall of a woman-led cult—a debut work of narrative nonfiction about extremism, the search for belonging, and America’s turbulent religious history.
The Oracle's Daughter: The Rise and Fall of an American Cult|Hardcover
A gripping story of how a cult operates and how there is hope of escape. It's lessons are not just about Scientology, but any organization that seeks to control peoples' minds and lives. This book is a must read for anyone curious about Scientology!
Beyond Belief: My Secret Life Inside Scientology and My Harrowing Escape|eBook
Powerful, Heart Wrenching, Unforgettable. Three cheers to Rebecca Musser for her courage to leave the human trafficking cult and also for sharing her life story from the eyes of one once intrenched in the FLDS. Each word haunting, yet told with the u...
The Witness Wore Red: The 19th Wife Who Brought Polygamous Cult Leaders to Justice|Paperback
This book shares the unimaginable tale of a young man who was raised in a cult and finally was able to get himself out. Mike Rinder is working hard to help others escape the prison that is Scientology. It is well written and enlightening.
A Billion Years: My Escape From a Life in the Highest Ranks of Scientology|Paperback
The Cult of Trump is an accessible and in-depth analysis of the president, showing that under the right circumstances, even sane, rational, well-adjusted people can be persuaded to believe the most outrageous ideas
The Cult of Trump: A Leading Cult Expert Explains How the President Uses Mind Control
The author of the widely praised Wordslut analyzes the social science of cult influence: how cultish groups from Jonestown and Scientology to SoulCycle and social media gurus use language as the ultimate form of power.
Cultish: The Language of Fanaticism
Finding Baby Holly is the true, inspiring story of a wife and mother who was “missing” for over forty years after her parents’ murders, the persistent detectives who never stopped investigating, and the birth family who never lost hope in finding her...
Finding Baby Holly: Lost to a Cult, Surviving My Parents' Murders, and Saved by Prayer
An extraordinary firsthand account of the creation of a modern cult and the costs paid by its young victims: a group of college roommates
Slonim Woods 9: A Memoir|Hardcover
Still Learning is India Oxenberg’s intimate, first-person account of how she was lured into and, seven years later, escaped from the NXIVM cult, DOS.
Still Learning: A Memoir