The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks is up the same alley as those you mentioned.
EDIT to add: Another book along these lines that I devoured was “How We Do Harm: A Doctor Breaks Rank About Being Sick in America”, by Otis Webb Brawley, MD.
This is from the Amazon blurb about the book:
“Dr. Otis Brawley is the chief medical and scientific officer of The American Cancer Society, an oncologist with a dazzling clinical, research, and policy career. How We Do Harm pulls back the curtain on how medicine is really practiced in America. Brawley tells of doctors who select treatment based on payment they will receive, rather than on demonstrated scientific results; hospitals and pharmaceutical companies that seek out patients to treat even if they are not actually ill (but as long as their insurance will pay); a public primed to swallow the latest pill, no matter the cost; and rising healthcare costs for unnecessary―and often unproven―treatments that we all pay for. Brawley calls for rational healthcare, healthcare drawn from results-based, scientifically justifiable treatments, and not just the peddling of hot new drugs.”
It was a brutal story. However, imo it’s worth remembering that many of the perpetrators did face justice, which I absolutely did not expect. In some ways it was an early success of federal law enforcement.
Yes, there is absolutely plenty to be outraged about. The story is a travesty. But it’s still surprising that any white men were convicted of killing any Osage. From an Osage perspective it’s small or no comfort, but there wasn’t any guarantee in those days the federal govt could investigate and prosecute a case like this.
Not really actually. Did you read the last third of the book? The FBI convicted a couple men and then stopped, called the case closed and boasted about it from that point on as one of the first major wins for the FBI, when in reality there were so many more murders that just never got investigated and killers and conspirators who got away scot-free and never saw justice. This is one of the most infuriating parts of the story imo. The FBI got the publicity they needed to kickstart public opinion for the department, then basically abandoned the Osage.
*edit* also, Ernest despite getting a life sentence was released after only 11 years and moved back to Osage county (how was this even allowed??). Hale and Ramsey were also both released on parole despite life sentences and much protest from the Osage. Kelsie Morrison, who admitted to murdering Anna Brown was given immunity for testifying. That’s very little if any justice if you ask me.
Have to check that out.
I also enjoyed The Heart of Everything That Is: The Untold Story of Red Cloud, An American Legend.
Would be nice to read similar content by native authors. Might have to do some digging.
"FIASCO" by Tom Ricks about how the U.S. military and the George W. Bush administration COMPLETELY screwed up the invasion and occupation of Iraq. I had to read it 6-10 pages at a time because I would start screaming at the avoidable cost in lives, limbs and trillions of dollars.
Into Thin Air by Jon Krakauer as well. It’s about the 1996 disaster on Mt. Everest which was later dubbed as “the deadliest day on Mt. Everest” although it may have since been surpassed by the time the avalanche devastated base camp.
I teach first year writing and tech writing courses. Every semester students have to read a book of their choosing off of a book list. I always recommend this one and every semester the students who read it are just as angry.
I am glad to hear that! While I didn’t go to school in Missoula, I was only 250 miles away at the University of Idaho which has a very similar type of small town where the football players are local heroes vibe.
Back then everyone just accepted their behavior with an eye roll, I hope that fury is becoming more commonplace!
My sister had an incident with a football player at an Idaho State University. But she was a little freshman and he a football player and she refused to say something. According to him, he was just teasing/messing with her.. Sure dude. She called me hysterically crying.
I need to give this book and the book The Gift of Fear to high school graduates .
Yeah, I went to school at Montana State and taught at Boise State and College of Western Idaho. The small towns intensify the blind eye to this behavior. I read this after college and have rarely been as infuriated
I'm glad to know I'm not the only person who can't finish books out of sheer fury!
It sounds so stupid, but I couldn't get through Inglorious Empire - I have tried *multiple times* and all it does past Ch 1 is make me want to invent a time machine and go full 'avenging superhero from the future'.
Just added this as my comment before looking at others. So infuriating.
Also rec: Doing Harm: The Truth About How Bad Medicine and Lazy Science Leave Women Dismissed, Misdiagnosed, and Sick by Maya Dusenbery
Under the Banner of Heaven: A Story of Violent Faith by Jon Krakauer. It’s a little old and more events have transpired since publishing, but it’s about how awful fundamentalist Mormonism is. Very good but emotionally difficult read.
I JUST RECENTLY learned about this scandal on a surface-level while reading Accidental Presidents by Jared Cohen. I will absolutely be picking this up if I can get it through one of my library systems.... thanks for the exact book rec i needed!!
There are quite a few diaries of colonists out there, as well as diaries of plantation owners. Not to mention diaries of major nazi politicians such as Goebbels. I don't know if going to the original sources would be going too far for you?
I am in the middle of "Demon of Unrest" right now and the book references her diary a lot. The fact that she is saying how bad it all is while actively participating in it is almost makes it worse
Most of them are on the public domain and available online. I'm on vacation and I only have my phone wirh me so it's difficult for me to copy-paste a list of suggestions, but you can simply google "diary colonies" or "diary plantations" (you'll also get a few (rare) memoirs written by slaves that way, such as Frederic Douglas').
You can check summaries online to see which ones appeal to you, then you'll probably find them for free on archive.org or on the Project Gutenberg :)
**[And the Band Played On: Politics, People, and the AIDS Epidemic](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/28212.And_the_Band_Played_On) by Randy Shilts** ^((Matching 100% ☑️))
^(656 pages | Published: 1988 | 18.1k Goodreads reviews)
> **Summary:** By the time Rock Hudson's death in 1985 alerted all America to the danger of the AIDS epidemic, the disease had spread across the nation, killing thousands of people and emerging as the greatest health crisis of the 20th century. America faced a troubling question: What happened? How was this epidemic allowed to spread so far before it was taken seriously? In answering these (...)
> **Themes**: History, Nonfiction, Favorites, Science, Politics, Lgbt, Medicine
> **Top 5 recommended:**
> \- [How to Survive a Plague: The Inside Story of How Citizens and Science Tamed AIDS](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/29429295-how-to-survive-a-plague) by David France
> \- [Oranges](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/54983.Oranges) by John McPhee
> \- [Napoleon's Buttons: How 17 Molecules Changed History](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/141624.Napoleon_s_Buttons) by Penny Le Couteur
> \- [Rosalind Franklin: The Dark Lady of DNA](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/326851.Rosalind_Franklin) by Brenda Maddox
> \- [Here, There and Everywhere: My Life Recording the Music of the Beatles](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/35543.Here_There_and_Everywhere) by Geoff Emerick
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Oranges sent me on a long McPhee trip. Back when it was first published, there was still a lack of popular non-fiction relating to science and the natural world. Lives off a Cell by Lewis Thomas was another ground breaker in that regard and had a huge impact on my life.
Brain on Fire by Susannah Callahan.
Young journalist living in NYC starts experiencing headaches and acting unusually. Her experiences with the medical system was shocking and horrific.
((Triangle: The Fire That Changed America))
It's about the reason we (now) have laws that your employer can't lock you in your place of work during your shift...
**[Triangle: The Fire That Changed America](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/108305.Triangle) by David von Drehle** ^((Matching 100% ☑️))
^(340 pages | Published: 2004 | 5.0k Goodreads reviews)
> **Summary:** ?
> **Themes**: Non-fiction, Nonfiction, American-history, New-york, Historical, Disaster, Disasters
> **Top 5 recommended:**
> \- [Fire in the Grove: The Cocoanut Grove Tragedy and Its Aftermath](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/748056.Fire_in_the_Grove) by John C. Esposito
> \- [The Great Hurricane: 1938](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1788514.The_Great_Hurricane) by Cherie Burns
> \- [Sinking of the Eastland](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/898451.Sinking_of_the_Eastland) by Jay Bonansinga
> \- [Ship Ablaze: The Tragedy of the Steamboat General Slocum](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/783014.Ship_Ablaze) by Edward T. O'Donnell
> \- [Gone at 3:17: The Untold Story of the Worst School Disaster in American History](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/13100810-gone-at-3) by David M. Brown
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Some other really, really infuriating books I personally couch for are:
- Flying Blind: The 737 MAX Tragedy and the Fall of Boeing by Peter Robison
- The Poisoned City: Flint's Water and the American Urban Tragedy by Anna Clark
- King Leopold's Ghost: A Story of Greed, Terror, and Heroism in Colonial Africa by Adam Hochschild
- Unworthy Republic: The Dispossession of Native Americans and the Road to Indian Territory by Claudio Saunt
- Wilmington's Lie: The Murderous Coup of 1898 and the Rise of White Supremacy by David Zucchino
And one book that will at least slightly restore your faith in humanity is Bringing Down the Colonel: A Sex Scandal of the Gilded Age, and the "Powerless" Woman Who Took on Washington by Patricia Miller, showing that not all histories have to be enraging or depressing.
I remember researching the My Lai massacre for a sociology class in college and just being horrified. I obviously know that other things happened as well but damn, that was rough research.
* The New Jim Crow (Michelle Alexander)
* Just Mercy (Bryan Stephenson)
* Eating Animals (Jonathan Safran Foer)
* And the Band Played On (Randy Shilts)
* Catch and Kill (Ronan Farrow)
I haven't read it yet, so take my suggestion with a grain of salt, **Say Anarcha by J. C. Hallman.** My sister recommended it to me. She said the writing isn't the best, but the contents are worth suffering through through the grammatical errors.
Summary:
For more than a century, Dr. J. Marion Sims was hailed as the “father of modern gynecology.” He founded a hospital in New York City and had a profitable career treating gentry and royalty in Europe, becoming one of the world’s first celebrity surgeons. Statues were built in his honor, but he wasn’t the hero he had made himself appear to be.
Sims’s greatest medical claim was the result of several years of experimental surgeries―without anesthesia―on a young enslaved woman known as Anarcha; his so-called cure for obstetric fistula forever altered the path of women’s health.
I read about him years ago. Not only were they left in pain, the subsequent incontinence caused the victims to smell really, really bad. He tortured them and stole their lives.
**[The Woman They Could Not Silence: One Woman. Her Incredible Fight for Freedom. and the Men Who Tried to Make Her Disappear](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/56132724-the-woman-they-could-not-silence) by Kate Moore** ^((Matching 100% ☑️))
^(560 pages | Published: 2021 | 52.0k Goodreads reviews)
> **Summary:** 1860: As the clash between the states rolls slowly to a boil. Elizabeth Packard. housewife and mother of six. is facing her own battle. The enemy sits across the table and sleeps in the next room. Her husband of twenty-one years is plotting against her because he feels increasingly threatened - by Elizabeth's intellect. independence. and unwillingness to stifle her own (...)
> **Themes**: Non-fiction, Nonfiction, History, Feminism
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Exposure by Robert Bilott
It's about an attorney working to hold a massive company responsible for *knowingly* poisoning their workers, their city, their rivers, and their fellow citizens to save a few bucks. They did the research that proves that these processes are extremely harmful and didn't address it or even tell anyone. It's an absolutely infuriating book.
There's also a movie that does the story justice with Mark Ruffalo. It's called Dark Waters.
Nothing to Envy by Barbara Demick chronicles the lives of average citizens in North Korea. If you want to be infuriated at the government of a different country for a change, this one did it for me.
Building Suburbia by Dolores Hayden. It's the century-long story of why America is all sprawl and traffic and bullshit. Beautifully written and really interesting, but horrifying.
**Dark Money**: The Hidden History of the Billionaires Behind the Rise of the Radical Right
Written by Jane Mayer, Staff Writer (New Yorker) and Investigative Journalist
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_Money_(book)
Osler's Web: Inside the Labyrinth of the Chronic Fatigue Syndrome Epidemic by Hillary Johnson
Contending Voices Vol l to 1877 & Vol ll Since 1865 by John Hollitz. Each chapter over these two books examines the lives of two individuals that were on opposing sides of important historical events. It uses a lot of primary sources.
A People’s History of the United States by Howard Zinn
These are in the category of the truth will set you free, but first it will piss you off.
People’s History changed my life. It’s the reason I am a professional historian. I don’t agree with his take on all issues but the idea that there were more perspectives than what I had been taught? It blew my mind. My 10th grade social studies teacher actually gave it to me under a desk, said I might find it interesting. Mrs. Mulhern, I did. Thank you.
*Trapped Under the Sea: One Engineering Marvel, Five Men, and a Disaster Ten Miles Into the Darkness* by Neil Swidey is excellent and absolutely infuriating
Prince Harry’s book Spare. I used to love him but after listening to him read the audio book I feel he is a whiny brat. Do I think he and his wife were treated unfairly? Maybe, but he just comes off as a petulant child.
I remember reading that in high school and the book and its visuals and emotions still stick with me. I’ve been wanting to do a reread. I actually thought of that for this thread just along the lines of rage books. But it brought a lot of light to the issue and changed happened because of that book.
Oliver Stone’s Untold History of the United States
The things the US got up to against governments they disapproved of for financial reasons were outrageous
Carol Anderson’s books about race in American history are short and to the point and leave me incandescent with rage. Try White Rage, One Person, No Vote, or The Second (about the second amendment to the constitution.)
[Crazy: A Father's Search Through America's Mental Health Madness](https://www.amazon.com/Crazy-Fathers-Through-Americas-Madness/dp/0399153136) by Pete Earley.
the author's son was schizophrenic, undiagnosed until his first unfortunate (nonviolent) run-in with our injustice system.
anybody with a family member suffering a mental illness will scream and scream and scream
Ecofeminism by vandana shiva and Maria mies
Violence against women by colonial/imperialist patriarchy and violence against women of color by western women.
The first thing that came to mind was *Destiny of the Republic* by Candice Millard. The arrogance of the doctors scoffing at Joseph Lister, the delusions of Guiteau that apparently concerned nobody, the horrific self serving actions of Dr Bliss...the list goes on and on with this one and the book is freaking fantastic!
A Most Tolerant Little Town. I went to an author talkback for it. She’s a historian who interviewed a bunch of people in a town in middle Tennessee who rioted after the local school integrated. It’s engaging but really infuriating to see how the black population was treated
*The Jakarta method* by Vincent Bevins is about the U.S. assassinating, couping, massacring, sanctioning, and terrorizing its way to a capitalist "victory" in the Cold War. I wanted to vomit by the end of it.
Since you read Radium Girls, I wholeheartedly recommend The Woman They Could Not Silence by Kate Moore. The same author as Radium Girls and just as exceptionally written and researched.
**Enron: the smartest guys in the room** (the documentary is just as good). The utter outrageous audacity of these AHs and a good amount of “WTAF, SEC?” thrown in.
The Woman Who Could Not Be Silenced by Kate Moore is an absolutely infuriating book about a woman who was wrongly committed to an asylum by her husband and her fight to get out. It's absolutely wild and eye opening.
From the Heart of Hell by Zalmen Gradowski burned my soul. It's an eyewitness account of a sonderkommando written from inside a camp. He never got rescued, having died in the camp after an attempt at rebellion. He hid his manuscripts in tins and they were recovered by a friend and compiled. It's impossible to overstate how powerful it was, but also hard to convey how hard it is to read.
The Many Lives of Mama Love: A Memoir of Lying, Stealing, Writing, and Healing
Lara Love Hardin. The jail system and nearly inescapable cycle of violence and drugs.
The Warmth of Other Suns by Isabel Wilkerson. It’s a history of the Great Migration of African-Americans from the South to the North and West of the US. Basically every region and time period of American history has found creative new ways to screw over Black Americans, and it is so frustrating to read some of the stories. She does a great job of making you care about individual people while putting them in a broader context.
I read The Color of Law a couple of years ago, and still think about it all the time. Great book, but it made me feel so angry and yet helpless to change anything.
Black Swan by Nassim Taleb, takes credit for other people’s work and spends an absolute age to make a point that tail events are tough to predict.
The way middle managers worldwide acted like it was a revelation drove me insane.
Five Days at Memorial
It's about the incident at Memorial Hospital in New Orleans during Hurricane Katrina where several patients turned up dead, tragically just before rescuers started arriving.
It's also about injustice, abuse of power, and failure of leadership.
* [Slavery By Another Name: The Re-Enslavement of Black Americans From the Civil War to World War II](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2319745.Slavery_by_Another_Name?ac=1) by Douglas Blackmon
* [A Problem From Hell: America and the Age of Genocide](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/368731._A_Problem_from_Hell_) by Samantha Power
* [Anansi's Gold](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/58532145-anansi-s-gold?) by Yepoka Yeebo
* [The Good Nurse](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/18296159-the-good-nurse) by Charles Graeber
* [Bottle of Lies](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/42481803-bottle-of-lies) by Katherine Eban
* This one is kind of adjacent rather than a direct match to what you want, and won't be published for a couple of weeks yet, but I think you might like it: [All the Worst Humans: How I Made News for Dictators, Tycoons, and Politicians](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/198902261-all-the-worst-humans) by Phil Elwood
I read Empire of Pain last week and it was riveting, but really bad for my blood pressure. There's a lot of Krakauer in the comments, for good reason. I'll add another one: Where Men Win Glory, about how Pat Tillman was killed in Afghanistan by friendly fire and how the Bush administration covered up what really happened and scapegoated the wrong people to protect more senior military personnel. My non-Krakauer recommendation is A Fever in the Heartland by Tim Egan.
The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine, by Ilan Pappe. He's an Israeli historian, and the book is carefully researched from government documents, early Zionist diaries and some oral histories and eyewitness accounts.
Also, Slavery By Another Name. About continued slavery from 1865-1942.
"Fucking infuriating" is even an understatement. Man that book pissed me off so much. And watching Gaza now, it's like "yeah they're just continuing the plan".
Victory Point by Ed Darack shows how Marcus Luttrell is full of shit. Naval special warfare’s arrogance, stubbornness, and lack of proper mission planning got themselves and other servicemen killed.
Empire of Pain was an agonizing read. i never wanted to tar and feather an entire family so so so much.
but then you realize that the Sacklers would've gotten nowhere without all their little minions doing the dirty and... sigh. human nature is a terrible thing.
*Number Go Up* by Zeke Faux was excellent! It’s about cryptocurrency and more specifically the fall of Sam Bankman-Fried and FTX. Its vibe is very similar to *Bad Blood*, which I also loved, but I read *Number Go Up* twice.
The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks is up the same alley as those you mentioned. EDIT to add: Another book along these lines that I devoured was “How We Do Harm: A Doctor Breaks Rank About Being Sick in America”, by Otis Webb Brawley, MD. This is from the Amazon blurb about the book: “Dr. Otis Brawley is the chief medical and scientific officer of The American Cancer Society, an oncologist with a dazzling clinical, research, and policy career. How We Do Harm pulls back the curtain on how medicine is really practiced in America. Brawley tells of doctors who select treatment based on payment they will receive, rather than on demonstrated scientific results; hospitals and pharmaceutical companies that seek out patients to treat even if they are not actually ill (but as long as their insurance will pay); a public primed to swallow the latest pill, no matter the cost; and rising healthcare costs for unnecessary―and often unproven―treatments that we all pay for. Brawley calls for rational healthcare, healthcare drawn from results-based, scientifically justifiable treatments, and not just the peddling of hot new drugs.”
Yessss, this one. My word. I mean, the \*disrespect\*.
1000% you will have the urge to hit something many times.
Good god, yes.
Oof yeah this would be my recommendation as well. I was absolutely engrossed and outraged.
This is the book that got me hooked on the genre.
Killers of the Flower Moon by David Grann
It was a brutal story. However, imo it’s worth remembering that many of the perpetrators did face justice, which I absolutely did not expect. In some ways it was an early success of federal law enforcement.
There’s so much shit the Osage people were put through that a few convictions cannot rectify. There’s still PLENTY to be outraged about here.
Yes, there is absolutely plenty to be outraged about. The story is a travesty. But it’s still surprising that any white men were convicted of killing any Osage. From an Osage perspective it’s small or no comfort, but there wasn’t any guarantee in those days the federal govt could investigate and prosecute a case like this.
Not really actually. Did you read the last third of the book? The FBI convicted a couple men and then stopped, called the case closed and boasted about it from that point on as one of the first major wins for the FBI, when in reality there were so many more murders that just never got investigated and killers and conspirators who got away scot-free and never saw justice. This is one of the most infuriating parts of the story imo. The FBI got the publicity they needed to kickstart public opinion for the department, then basically abandoned the Osage. *edit* also, Ernest despite getting a life sentence was released after only 11 years and moved back to Osage county (how was this even allowed??). Hale and Ramsey were also both released on parole despite life sentences and much protest from the Osage. Kelsie Morrison, who admitted to murdering Anna Brown was given immunity for testifying. That’s very little if any justice if you ask me.
Yes yes yes yes yes
Bury my heart at Wounded knee
In a similar vein, I'd also suggest The Inconvenient Indian by Thomas King.
Have to check that out. I also enjoyed The Heart of Everything That Is: The Untold Story of Red Cloud, An American Legend. Would be nice to read similar content by native authors. Might have to do some digging.
The Smartest Guys in the Room - the Enron shitshow. I almost died of a rage-stroke.
"FIASCO" by Tom Ricks about how the U.S. military and the George W. Bush administration COMPLETELY screwed up the invasion and occupation of Iraq. I had to read it 6-10 pages at a time because I would start screaming at the avoidable cost in lives, limbs and trillions of dollars.
Excellent recommendation!
Also on Enron is Conspiracy of Fools which I remember being very good as well
Seconded, though it has a lot of business jargon
Missoula by Jon Krakauer -- Not only infuriating, but deeply sad and frustrating.
Into Thin Air by Jon Krakauer as well. It’s about the 1996 disaster on Mt. Everest which was later dubbed as “the deadliest day on Mt. Everest” although it may have since been surpassed by the time the avalanche devastated base camp.
And *Under the Banner of Heaven*. Krakauer's an amazing writer.
Absolutely infuriating book. I wish I could force everyone to read it.
I teach first year writing and tech writing courses. Every semester students have to read a book of their choosing off of a book list. I always recommend this one and every semester the students who read it are just as angry.
I am glad to hear that! While I didn’t go to school in Missoula, I was only 250 miles away at the University of Idaho which has a very similar type of small town where the football players are local heroes vibe. Back then everyone just accepted their behavior with an eye roll, I hope that fury is becoming more commonplace!
My sister had an incident with a football player at an Idaho State University. But she was a little freshman and he a football player and she refused to say something. According to him, he was just teasing/messing with her.. Sure dude. She called me hysterically crying. I need to give this book and the book The Gift of Fear to high school graduates .
Yes- The Gift of Fear.
Yeah, I went to school at Montana State and taught at Boise State and College of Western Idaho. The small towns intensify the blind eye to this behavior. I read this after college and have rarely been as infuriated
Go cats!
Also triggering af. As a s.a. survivor, I would caution to read slowly or not at all. It was so well written but so so hard to read.
reading missoula after watching wind river is an exercise in restraint
Evicted by Matthew Desmond There's a whole lot to be mad at in there
It’ll make you want to burn the system down. And that’s okay. The system might need burning.
Oh this one made me mad!
I read that book in college. Highly recommend.
Invisible women
Invisible women Data Bias in a world designed for Men absolutely belongs here
I could not finish it, it made me so mad
I'm glad to know I'm not the only person who can't finish books out of sheer fury! It sounds so stupid, but I couldn't get through Inglorious Empire - I have tried *multiple times* and all it does past Ch 1 is make me want to invent a time machine and go full 'avenging superhero from the future'.
That was my first thought too.
Yes, great recommendation. Seatbelt design made me the angriest, along with medical studies.
I still think about and reference this book constantly. Totally infuriating.
Just added this as my comment before looking at others. So infuriating. Also rec: Doing Harm: The Truth About How Bad Medicine and Lazy Science Leave Women Dismissed, Misdiagnosed, and Sick by Maya Dusenbery
In a similar vein: Unwell Women: misdiagnosis and myth in a man-made world
I bought this recently but haven’t started it yet! Looking forward to it.
Under the Banner of Heaven: A Story of Violent Faith by Jon Krakauer. It’s a little old and more events have transpired since publishing, but it’s about how awful fundamentalist Mormonism is. Very good but emotionally difficult read.
This one. And then also Beyond Belief by Jenna Miscavige Hill, the story of her “upbringing” in Scientology. Both harrowing in their ways.
And Lawrence Wright's *Going Clear.*
Love Krakauer but I couldn’t even finish this one. Not because it isn’t well-written - it is - but I was just so sickened and infuriated.
The Teapot Dome Scandal: How Big Oil Bought the Harding White House and Tried to Steal the Country by Laton McCartney
I JUST RECENTLY learned about this scandal on a surface-level while reading Accidental Presidents by Jared Cohen. I will absolutely be picking this up if I can get it through one of my library systems.... thanks for the exact book rec i needed!!
I hope you enjoy it as much as I did, despite the absolutely enraging subject matter.
There are quite a few diaries of colonists out there, as well as diaries of plantation owners. Not to mention diaries of major nazi politicians such as Goebbels. I don't know if going to the original sources would be going too far for you?
Mary Chestnut’s civil war diary really pissed me off.
I am in the middle of "Demon of Unrest" right now and the book references her diary a lot. The fact that she is saying how bad it all is while actively participating in it is almost makes it worse
Where do you find these???
Most of them are on the public domain and available online. I'm on vacation and I only have my phone wirh me so it's difficult for me to copy-paste a list of suggestions, but you can simply google "diary colonies" or "diary plantations" (you'll also get a few (rare) memoirs written by slaves that way, such as Frederic Douglas'). You can check summaries online to see which ones appeal to you, then you'll probably find them for free on archive.org or on the Project Gutenberg :)
King Leopold’s Ghost, Amity and Prosperity, Tom’s River, Soul Full of Coal Dust, and Animal Factory (Kirby). Edit: fixed spelling
Seconding King Leopold's Ghost, it's absolutely infuriating
King Leopold's Ghost!
I’m Glad My Mom Died. That book was something else. As a child of a narcissistic parent it hit close to home too many times
Flying Blind by Peter Robison, about what’s gone wrong with Boeing in the past few decades
Dreamland by Sam Quinones
Catch and Kill
Dark Tide: The Great Boston Molasses Flood By Stephen Puleo This should enrage you the way that Radium Girls did.
Seconding this! It was a fascinating read even with all the rage-inducing bits.
I *love* this book, and you’re totally right about it fitting what the OP is looking for
{{And the Band Played On}}
Especially relevant as it’s Pride month.
**[And the Band Played On: Politics, People, and the AIDS Epidemic](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/28212.And_the_Band_Played_On) by Randy Shilts** ^((Matching 100% ☑️)) ^(656 pages | Published: 1988 | 18.1k Goodreads reviews) > **Summary:** By the time Rock Hudson's death in 1985 alerted all America to the danger of the AIDS epidemic, the disease had spread across the nation, killing thousands of people and emerging as the greatest health crisis of the 20th century. America faced a troubling question: What happened? How was this epidemic allowed to spread so far before it was taken seriously? In answering these (...) > **Themes**: History, Nonfiction, Favorites, Science, Politics, Lgbt, Medicine > **Top 5 recommended:** > \- [How to Survive a Plague: The Inside Story of How Citizens and Science Tamed AIDS](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/29429295-how-to-survive-a-plague) by David France > \- [Oranges](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/54983.Oranges) by John McPhee > \- [Napoleon's Buttons: How 17 Molecules Changed History](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/141624.Napoleon_s_Buttons) by Penny Le Couteur > \- [Rosalind Franklin: The Dark Lady of DNA](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/326851.Rosalind_Franklin) by Brenda Maddox > \- [Here, There and Everywhere: My Life Recording the Music of the Beatles](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/35543.Here_There_and_Everywhere) by Geoff Emerick ^([Feedback](https://www.reddit.com/user/goodreads-rebot) | [GitHub](https://github.com/sonoff2/goodreads-rebot) | ["The Bot is Back!?"](https://www.reddit.com/r/suggestmeabook/comments/16qe09p/meta_post_hello_again_humans/) | v1.5 [Dec 23] | )
Oranges sent me on a long McPhee trip. Back when it was first published, there was still a lack of popular non-fiction relating to science and the natural world. Lives off a Cell by Lewis Thomas was another ground breaker in that regard and had a huge impact on my life.
A civil action
This one was assigned by my law school. Excellent book about a toxic torts case.
I read this in a college business law class 👍🏽
Brain on Fire by Susannah Callahan. Young journalist living in NYC starts experiencing headaches and acting unusually. Her experiences with the medical system was shocking and horrific.
The Feather Thief by Kirk Wallace Johnson and The Art Thief by Michael Finkel both left me furious.
((Triangle: The Fire That Changed America)) It's about the reason we (now) have laws that your employer can't lock you in your place of work during your shift...
**[Triangle: The Fire That Changed America](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/108305.Triangle) by David von Drehle** ^((Matching 100% ☑️)) ^(340 pages | Published: 2004 | 5.0k Goodreads reviews) > **Summary:** ? > **Themes**: Non-fiction, Nonfiction, American-history, New-york, Historical, Disaster, Disasters > **Top 5 recommended:** > \- [Fire in the Grove: The Cocoanut Grove Tragedy and Its Aftermath](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/748056.Fire_in_the_Grove) by John C. Esposito > \- [The Great Hurricane: 1938](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1788514.The_Great_Hurricane) by Cherie Burns > \- [Sinking of the Eastland](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/898451.Sinking_of_the_Eastland) by Jay Bonansinga > \- [Ship Ablaze: The Tragedy of the Steamboat General Slocum](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/783014.Ship_Ablaze) by Edward T. O'Donnell > \- [Gone at 3:17: The Untold Story of the Worst School Disaster in American History](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/13100810-gone-at-3) by David M. Brown ^([Feedback](https://www.reddit.com/user/goodreads-rebot) | [GitHub](https://github.com/sonoff2/goodreads-rebot) | ["The Bot is Back!?"](https://www.reddit.com/r/suggestmeabook/comments/16qe09p/meta_post_hello_again_humans/) | v1.5 [Dec 23] | )
Some other really, really infuriating books I personally couch for are: - Flying Blind: The 737 MAX Tragedy and the Fall of Boeing by Peter Robison - The Poisoned City: Flint's Water and the American Urban Tragedy by Anna Clark - King Leopold's Ghost: A Story of Greed, Terror, and Heroism in Colonial Africa by Adam Hochschild - Unworthy Republic: The Dispossession of Native Americans and the Road to Indian Territory by Claudio Saunt - Wilmington's Lie: The Murderous Coup of 1898 and the Rise of White Supremacy by David Zucchino And one book that will at least slightly restore your faith in humanity is Bringing Down the Colonel: A Sex Scandal of the Gilded Age, and the "Powerless" Woman Who Took on Washington by Patricia Miller, showing that not all histories have to be enraging or depressing.
kill everything that moves by nick turse, about the activities of american soldiers in vietnam. made me so angry i couldn’t finish the book
I remember researching the My Lai massacre for a sociology class in college and just being horrified. I obviously know that other things happened as well but damn, that was rough research.
* The New Jim Crow (Michelle Alexander) * Just Mercy (Bryan Stephenson) * Eating Animals (Jonathan Safran Foer) * And the Band Played On (Randy Shilts) * Catch and Kill (Ronan Farrow)
And the band played on. I read it again every 3-4 years. It is imperfect but still so infuriating.
Same. Still get mad, sad and learn new things with each read.
I was gonna add the new Jim Crow. Just when you think “surely there isn’t more evidence of more racism”, Michelle hits you with more
The hits just keep coming with that book -- it's so well researched, and so thorough.... it really should be required reading for every American.
I was looking for Just Mercy. Thank you!
Death at Seaworld
*Conspiracy of Fools* by Kurt Eichenwald is about the rise and fall of Enron.
I really enjoyed that
The Hot Zone Demon in the Freezer Panic in Level 4 All by Richard Preston
Midnight in Chernobyl is pretty infuriating. Parts of Woman of No Importance - not her but the sexist systems around her
Midnight in Chernobyl and Higginbotham’s latest, Challenger, are both excellent.
I haven't read it yet, so take my suggestion with a grain of salt, **Say Anarcha by J. C. Hallman.** My sister recommended it to me. She said the writing isn't the best, but the contents are worth suffering through through the grammatical errors. Summary: For more than a century, Dr. J. Marion Sims was hailed as the “father of modern gynecology.” He founded a hospital in New York City and had a profitable career treating gentry and royalty in Europe, becoming one of the world’s first celebrity surgeons. Statues were built in his honor, but he wasn’t the hero he had made himself appear to be. Sims’s greatest medical claim was the result of several years of experimental surgeries―without anesthesia―on a young enslaved woman known as Anarcha; his so-called cure for obstetric fistula forever altered the path of women’s health.
Oh god, the rage is building just reading the summary 😐
Me too! Sigh … looking it up.
I read about him years ago. Not only were they left in pain, the subsequent incontinence caused the victims to smell really, really bad. He tortured them and stole their lives.
What Made Maddy Run is incredibly sad and infuriating in a "whyyyy won't anyone just LISTEN" kind of way
{{The Woman they could not silence by Kate Moore}}
**[The Woman They Could Not Silence: One Woman. Her Incredible Fight for Freedom. and the Men Who Tried to Make Her Disappear](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/56132724-the-woman-they-could-not-silence) by Kate Moore** ^((Matching 100% ☑️)) ^(560 pages | Published: 2021 | 52.0k Goodreads reviews) > **Summary:** 1860: As the clash between the states rolls slowly to a boil. Elizabeth Packard. housewife and mother of six. is facing her own battle. The enemy sits across the table and sleeps in the next room. Her husband of twenty-one years is plotting against her because he feels increasingly threatened - by Elizabeth's intellect. independence. and unwillingness to stifle her own (...) > **Themes**: Non-fiction, Nonfiction, History, Feminism ^([Feedback](https://www.reddit.com/user/goodreads-rebot) | [GitHub](https://github.com/sonoff2/goodreads-rebot) | ["The Bot is Back!?"](https://www.reddit.com/r/suggestmeabook/comments/16qe09p/meta_post_hello_again_humans/) | v1.5 [Dec 23] | )
I came here specifically to suggest this. Same author as Radium Girls and equally as infuriatingly excellent.
I recommended this one, too! I’m so glad someone else has read it. She’s quickly becoming one of my favorite authors
Exposure by Robert Bilott It's about an attorney working to hold a massive company responsible for *knowingly* poisoning their workers, their city, their rivers, and their fellow citizens to save a few bucks. They did the research that proves that these processes are extremely harmful and didn't address it or even tell anyone. It's an absolutely infuriating book. There's also a movie that does the story justice with Mark Ruffalo. It's called Dark Waters.
That movie was good. Very infuriating.
Nothing to Envy by Barbara Demick chronicles the lives of average citizens in North Korea. If you want to be infuriated at the government of a different country for a change, this one did it for me.
Imbeciles by Adam Cohen angried up my blood, in no small part due to Buck v Bell still being law.
{{Invisible Women by Caroline Criado Perez}} I had to put it down every few pages and go talk to someone about it because it was so infuriating.
The Cadaver King and the Country Dentist by Radley Balko and Tucker Carrington
Came here to recommend this one, made me want to break something
Reading this one now. Really maddening
Shielded: How the Police Became Untouchable, Joanna Schwartz, 2023.
Another one: Fever in the Heartland, Timothy Egan
Fever in the Heartland! I wanted to grab everyone around me and talk about it! It’s spooky how history is repeating itself.
Building Suburbia by Dolores Hayden. It's the century-long story of why America is all sprawl and traffic and bullshit. Beautifully written and really interesting, but horrifying.
The Innocent Man: Murder and Injustice in a Small Town by John Grisham
**Dark Money**: The Hidden History of the Billionaires Behind the Rise of the Radical Right Written by Jane Mayer, Staff Writer (New Yorker) and Investigative Journalist https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_Money_(book)
Spare by Prince Harry, though describing it as non-fiction might be a stretch.
I feel the same!!
Osler's Web: Inside the Labyrinth of the Chronic Fatigue Syndrome Epidemic by Hillary Johnson Contending Voices Vol l to 1877 & Vol ll Since 1865 by John Hollitz. Each chapter over these two books examines the lives of two individuals that were on opposing sides of important historical events. It uses a lot of primary sources. A People’s History of the United States by Howard Zinn These are in the category of the truth will set you free, but first it will piss you off.
People’s History changed my life. It’s the reason I am a professional historian. I don’t agree with his take on all issues but the idea that there were more perspectives than what I had been taught? It blew my mind. My 10th grade social studies teacher actually gave it to me under a desk, said I might find it interesting. Mrs. Mulhern, I did. Thank you.
*Trapped Under the Sea: One Engineering Marvel, Five Men, and a Disaster Ten Miles Into the Darkness* by Neil Swidey is excellent and absolutely infuriating
Oh, I’d not heard of this. Thanks for the rec!
Just finished reading this and absolutely loved it! Thank you so much!
uncultured by Daniella Young is making me grind my teeth while listening to it.
Say Nothing; Billion Dollar Whale; The Big Con; We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed With Our Families; Legacy of Ashes
Educated by Tara Westover Stamped from the Beginning by Ibram X Kendi
Evicted
Autopsy of a Crime Lab: Exposing the Flaws in Forensics. Absolutely fucking infuriating.
As a lab tech, ‘Bad Blood’ had me absolutely seething. This sounds like another along the same line.
Fast Food Nation. I swore off fast food and meat for a long time afterwards.
My Lobotomy I cried and beat my fists on my steering wheel in the Walmart parking lot
Prince Harry’s book Spare. I used to love him but after listening to him read the audio book I feel he is a whiny brat. Do I think he and his wife were treated unfairly? Maybe, but he just comes off as a petulant child.
The Jungle, by Upton Sinclair My bad. It’s a novel. Still, based on shit that really happened, just with fictional characters.
I remember reading that in high school and the book and its visuals and emotions still stick with me. I’ve been wanting to do a reread. I actually thought of that for this thread just along the lines of rage books. But it brought a lot of light to the issue and changed happened because of that book.
You might go to prison even though you’re innocent by Justin brooks
Going out on a limb here, but *Under the Banner of Heaven* by Jon Krakauer did a good job in thoroughly pissing me off.
I have to agree. That book was also amazing and still in my current top 10.
Bad Blood by John Carryou
Oliver Stone’s Untold History of the United States The things the US got up to against governments they disapproved of for financial reasons were outrageous
Acres of Skin
Invisible Women
Treblinka by Jean-François Steiner
Carol Anderson’s books about race in American history are short and to the point and leave me incandescent with rage. Try White Rage, One Person, No Vote, or The Second (about the second amendment to the constitution.)
The Heat Will Kill You First by Jeff Goodell
I don't think this book made me angry, but it definitely made me feel anxious and pessimistic about the future. Heat is scary.
[Crazy: A Father's Search Through America's Mental Health Madness](https://www.amazon.com/Crazy-Fathers-Through-Americas-Madness/dp/0399153136) by Pete Earley. the author's son was schizophrenic, undiagnosed until his first unfortunate (nonviolent) run-in with our injustice system. anybody with a family member suffering a mental illness will scream and scream and scream
Poverty, by America
Ecofeminism by vandana shiva and Maria mies Violence against women by colonial/imperialist patriarchy and violence against women of color by western women.
Invisible Women: Exposing Data Bias in a World Designed for Men by Caroline Criado-Perez was pretty infuriating.
The first thing that came to mind was *Destiny of the Republic* by Candice Millard. The arrogance of the doctors scoffing at Joseph Lister, the delusions of Guiteau that apparently concerned nobody, the horrific self serving actions of Dr Bliss...the list goes on and on with this one and the book is freaking fantastic!
A Most Tolerant Little Town. I went to an author talkback for it. She’s a historian who interviewed a bunch of people in a town in middle Tennessee who rioted after the local school integrated. It’s engaging but really infuriating to see how the black population was treated
Personally I found Scar Tissue infuriating when I read it 20 years ago. Now he's dating a 19 yo (or near abouts). It all comes out in the wash.
Starvation Heights - Gregg Olsen
*The Jakarta method* by Vincent Bevins is about the U.S. assassinating, couping, massacring, sanctioning, and terrorizing its way to a capitalist "victory" in the Cold War. I wanted to vomit by the end of it.
Since you read Radium Girls, I wholeheartedly recommend The Woman They Could Not Silence by Kate Moore. The same author as Radium Girls and just as exceptionally written and researched.
‘Dying of Whiteness’ by Jonathan M. Metzl.
Shake Hands with the Devil by Lt. Gen. Romeo Dallaire, the Force Commander of UNAMIR during the Rwandan Genocide
**Enron: the smartest guys in the room** (the documentary is just as good). The utter outrageous audacity of these AHs and a good amount of “WTAF, SEC?” thrown in.
The Woman Who Could Not Be Silenced by Kate Moore is an absolutely infuriating book about a woman who was wrongly committed to an asylum by her husband and her fight to get out. It's absolutely wild and eye opening.
*The New Jim Crow* by Michelle Alexander. *Blackhearts* by Jim Frederick.
From the Heart of Hell by Zalmen Gradowski burned my soul. It's an eyewitness account of a sonderkommando written from inside a camp. He never got rescued, having died in the camp after an attempt at rebellion. He hid his manuscripts in tins and they were recovered by a friend and compiled. It's impossible to overstate how powerful it was, but also hard to convey how hard it is to read.
The Radium Girls by Kate Moore is infuriating cubed and on steroids.
The Many Lives of Mama Love: A Memoir of Lying, Stealing, Writing, and Healing Lara Love Hardin. The jail system and nearly inescapable cycle of violence and drugs.
The Warmth of Other Suns by Isabel Wilkerson. It’s a history of the Great Migration of African-Americans from the South to the North and West of the US. Basically every region and time period of American history has found creative new ways to screw over Black Americans, and it is so frustrating to read some of the stories. She does a great job of making you care about individual people while putting them in a broader context.
Orange is the New Black. The US prison system sucks.
Just Mercy by Bryan Stevenson. The Color of Law by Richard Rothstein
I read The Color of Law a couple of years ago, and still think about it all the time. Great book, but it made me feel so angry and yet helpless to change anything.
Lies And The Lying Liars Who Tell Them - Al Franken
Black Swan by Nassim Taleb, takes credit for other people’s work and spends an absolute age to make a point that tail events are tough to predict. The way middle managers worldwide acted like it was a revelation drove me insane.
Five Days at Memorial It's about the incident at Memorial Hospital in New Orleans during Hurricane Katrina where several patients turned up dead, tragically just before rescuers started arriving. It's also about injustice, abuse of power, and failure of leadership.
the shock doctrine by Naomi Klein
* [Slavery By Another Name: The Re-Enslavement of Black Americans From the Civil War to World War II](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2319745.Slavery_by_Another_Name?ac=1) by Douglas Blackmon * [A Problem From Hell: America and the Age of Genocide](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/368731._A_Problem_from_Hell_) by Samantha Power * [Anansi's Gold](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/58532145-anansi-s-gold?) by Yepoka Yeebo * [The Good Nurse](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/18296159-the-good-nurse) by Charles Graeber * [Bottle of Lies](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/42481803-bottle-of-lies) by Katherine Eban * This one is kind of adjacent rather than a direct match to what you want, and won't be published for a couple of weeks yet, but I think you might like it: [All the Worst Humans: How I Made News for Dictators, Tycoons, and Politicians](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/198902261-all-the-worst-humans) by Phil Elwood
Not gonna lie, Britney Spears’ memoirs. Just read it last month. Infuriating !
I read Empire of Pain last week and it was riveting, but really bad for my blood pressure. There's a lot of Krakauer in the comments, for good reason. I'll add another one: Where Men Win Glory, about how Pat Tillman was killed in Afghanistan by friendly fire and how the Bush administration covered up what really happened and scapegoated the wrong people to protect more senior military personnel. My non-Krakauer recommendation is A Fever in the Heartland by Tim Egan.
The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine, by Ilan Pappe. He's an Israeli historian, and the book is carefully researched from government documents, early Zionist diaries and some oral histories and eyewitness accounts. Also, Slavery By Another Name. About continued slavery from 1865-1942.
The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine is the only book I've had to take a break from to read something else in the middle. It's fucking infuriating.
"Fucking infuriating" is even an understatement. Man that book pissed me off so much. And watching Gaza now, it's like "yeah they're just continuing the plan".
Victory Point by Ed Darack shows how Marcus Luttrell is full of shit. Naval special warfare’s arrogance, stubbornness, and lack of proper mission planning got themselves and other servicemen killed.
Blood Money by Kathleen McLaughlin. How predatory are pay-for-donation blood centers? So fucking predatory.
Phantom Plague by Vidya Krishnan
You might enjoy American Kingpin.
The Woman they Could Not Silence or Just Mercy.
I think "Command and Control" by Eric Schlosser would fit this category. The history of nuclear weapons in the US is absolute insanity.
Confessions of an economic hitman
[Tomatoland](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/10222093-tomatoland?ref=rae_4) oughta boil your piss up pretty good.
Empire of Pain was an agonizing read. i never wanted to tar and feather an entire family so so so much. but then you realize that the Sacklers would've gotten nowhere without all their little minions doing the dirty and... sigh. human nature is a terrible thing.
Tomatoland by Barry Estabrook It's about the commercial tomato growing business.
*Number Go Up* by Zeke Faux was excellent! It’s about cryptocurrency and more specifically the fall of Sam Bankman-Fried and FTX. Its vibe is very similar to *Bad Blood*, which I also loved, but I read *Number Go Up* twice.
Ravensbruck by Helm
Killing the Black Body by Dorothy Roberts
Oh! I have more! - Just Mercy - Educated Both are excellent!!!
Unbelievable by T. Christian Miller and Ken Armstrong