Chaos


Book Description

A journalist's twenty-year fascination with the Manson murders leads to "gobsmacking" (The Ringer) new revelations about the FBI's involvement in this "kaleidoscopic" (The New York Times) reassessment of an infamous case in American history. Over two grim nights in Los Angeles, the young followers of Charles Manson murdered seven people, including the actress Sharon Tate, then eight months pregnant. With no mercy and seemingly no motive, the Manson Family followed their leader's every order -- their crimes lit a flame of paranoia across the nation, spelling the end of the sixties. Manson became one of history's most infamous criminals, his name forever attached to an era when charlatans mixed with prodigies, free love was as possible as brainwashing, and utopia -- or dystopia -- was just an acid trip away. Twenty years ago, when journalist Tom O'Neill was reporting a magazine piece about the murders, he worried there was nothing new to say. Then he unearthed shocking evidence of a cover-up behind the "official" story, including police carelessness, legal misconduct, and potential surveillance by intelligence agents. When a tense interview with Vincent Bugliosi -- prosecutor of the Manson Family and author of Helter Skelter -- turned a friendly source into a nemesis, O'Neill knew he was onto something. But every discovery brought more questions: Who were Manson's real friends in Hollywood, and how far would they go to hide their ties? Why didn't law enforcement, including Manson's own parole officer, act on their many chances to stop him? And how did Manson -- an illiterate ex-con -- turn a group of peaceful hippies into remorseless killers? O'Neill's quest for the truth led him from reclusive celebrities to seasoned spies, from San Francisco's summer of love to the shadowy sites of the CIA's mind-control experiments, on a trail rife with shady cover-ups and suspicious coincidences. The product of two decades of reporting, hundreds of new interviews, and dozens of never-before-seen documents from the LAPD, the FBI, and the CIA, Chaos mounts an argument that could be, according to Los Angeles Deputy District Attorney Steven Kay, strong enough to overturn the verdicts on the Manson murders. This is a book that overturns our understanding of a pivotal time in American history.




The Myth of Helter Skelter


Book Description

This book presents a counter-point to the book Helter Skelter. Susan Atkins, a member of the group involved in the Charles Manson murders of 1969, attempts to demystify the crimes and show them for what they really were.




Manson


Book Description

The New York Times bestselling, authoritative account of the life of Charles Manson, filled with surprising new information and previously unpublished photographs: “A riveting, almost Dickensian narrative…four stars” (People). More than forty years ago Charles Manson and his mostly female commune killed nine people, among them the pregnant actress Sharon Tate. It was the culmination of a criminal career that author Jeff Guinn traces back to Manson’s childhood. Guinn interviewed Manson’s sister and cousin, neither of whom had ever previously cooperated with an author. Childhood friends, cellmates, and even some members of the Manson family have provided new information about Manson’s life. Guinn has made discoveries about the night of the Tate murders, answering unresolved questions, such as why one person near the scene of the crime was spared. Manson puts the killer in the context of the turbulent late sixties, an era of race riots and street protests when authority in all its forms was under siege. Guinn shows us how Manson created and refined his message to fit the times, persuading confused young women (and a few men) that he had the solutions to their problems. At the same time he used them to pursue his long-standing musical ambitions. His frustrated ambitions, combined with his bizarre race-war obsession, would have lethal consequences. Guinn’s book is a “tour de force of a biography…Manson stands as a definitive work: important for students of criminology, human behavior, popular culture, music, psychopathology, and sociopathology…and compulsively readable” (Ann Rule, The New York Times Book Review).




Manson in His Own Words


Book Description

“Gives us a portrait close to the truth” of the man responsible for the Tate-LaBianca murders that changed Hollywood and ended the sixties (The New York Times Book Review). This astonishing book lays bare the life and the mind of a man whose acts have left us horrified. His story provides an enormous amount of new information about his life and how it led to the Tate-LaBianca murders and reminds us of the complexity of the human condition. Born in the middle of the Depression to an unmarried fifteen-year-old, Manson lived through a bewildering succession of changing homes and substitute parents, until his mother finally asked the state authorities to assume his care when he was twelve. Regimented and often brutalized in juvenile homes, Manson became immersed in a life of petty theft, pimping, jail terms, and court appearances that culminated in seven years of prison. Released in 1967, he suddenly found himself in the world of hippies and flower children, a world that not only accepted him, but even glorified his anti-establishment values. It was a combination that led, for reasons only Charles Manson can fully explain, to tragedy. Manson’s story, distilled from seven years of interviews and examinations of his correspondence, provides sobering insight into the making of a criminal mind, and a fascinating picture of the last years of the sixties. “A glimpse of part of the American experience that is rarely described from the inside . . . It compels both interest and horror.”—The Washington Post “Provides a fascinating glimpse into the mind of a truly dangerous human being.”—Los Angeles Herald Examiner




Helter Skelter


Book Description

Brought up on a seaside fairground, Vanessa knows all about what a rollercoaster ride life can be. Tragedy forces her to flee but when she discovers that her husband, a property developer, is cheating on her she returns. But the fair has gone, the land, bought by her husband, is now covered by luxury flats. Going back can be painful but this is just the start of the Helter Skelter for Vanessa. While she feels her life is spiralling ever downwards, there are the strong arms of a passion from her past to catch her at the end.




Hippie Cult Leader


Book Description

The Untold Story of the Manson Family Murders from Manson's Final Interviews "I didn't have anything to do with killing those people. They knew I didn't have anything to do with it. They didn't want to hear it..." For 50 years the legendary Manson Family murders have fascinated and mortified that such brutal acts of cold-blooded murder could have taken place and with women playing a key role in those murders. Manson was an enigmatic drifter who drew a group of people into his web of deceit and evil that eventually led to the brutal Tate, and then LaBianca murders. The prosecution would go on to spin what was considered the de-facto theory behind the murder spree and the world bought into the "Helter Skelter" racial war conspiracy. Now for the first time, documentary film producer and author James Buddy Day takes readers through a more rational and believable set of reasons for the murders. James Buddy Day was the last person and author to have interviewed Charles Manson. The reader will be intrigued on Manson's perspective on how the prosecution convicted him for murder when he was forty miles away when both the acts were committed. The book will appeal to readers searching for facts and truths about the most iconic mass murder in the 20th century. You will get to know Manson through the pages of this book. Descriptions and interviews are very graphic, and the material may not be suitable for all readers.




Interior


Book Description




Life Begins at 49


Book Description

As he saw his 50th birthday approaching, Chris Brady realised things had to change. When his children wouldn't leave home, he and his wife did. This is the story of the huge gamble they took, uprooting themselves from the security of a job and home on the idyllic Waiheke Island (population 7000) in New Zealand's Hauraki Gulf, and moving half way around the world to London (population, 12 million). There Chris explored the UK and Europe with the passion and enthusiasm of a twenty-year old. As an historian, he delighted in finding everything from pre-historic ruins to twentieth century icons, most notably the Abbey Rd crossing! And just to prove that old gits can do anything, after three years away, Chris and his wife came home in style. The book details their camping trip through the UK, their trip around Europe, and finally, their epic journey on the Trans-Siberian railway.




The Interior


Book Description

Issues for Jan 12, 1888-Jan. 1889 include monthly "Magazine supplement".