Sunday e-mail 17th December
What to expect this week, plus every true-crime lover's Christmas wish list
An extremely merry Christmas to all my readers, from Crime & Psychology! And an especially merry one to every reader who has been kind enough to Pledge a small amount of money to help keep this newsletter going, if and when it goes paid. May you get all the gifts you asked for, and more, you wonderful people.
So far, our regular Wednesday newsletter has dealt with the psychological origins of the European witch-craze in the Early Modern period, and Hans Eysenck’s well-known work on Crime & Personality. Why, Eysenck asked, do some people commit more crime than others? The answer lies in their personality. Neurotic extraverts are particularly at risk.
This week comes the first of two newsletters about the social psychology of groups. We’ll look at conformity: how powerful this psychological force can be, and how awful. I’ve split it across two newsletters, just because there is so much to know, and so much to worry about. The topic is always contemporary, but perhaps more so today than ever before. News headlines are dominated by events that have social psychologists shaking their heads and saying, ‘I told you so…’
Enjoy the newsletter! I hope you find it as interesting as it is disturbing.
Finally, as a special Christmas gift to all Crime & Psychology readers, the first edition of our Dictionary of Crime will be out this week. You can unwrap it on Tuesday. If you like the Dictionary, please remember to share it and subscribe!
With every best wish for an excellent festive season,
Jason
Perhaps, like me, you are not so good at buying gifts. Perhaps you have only just remembered you need to buy any at all. Fear not, Crime & Psychology reader - this week’s bullet points will help! Here are the five most unusual books to help fill the stockings of any true-crime reader. Think of this as our seasonal naughty list:
1. Crime Album Stories by Eugenia Parry, Scalo, 2000. How good a premise is this?: An art historian discovers in a flea market a collection of crime photographs from fin de siècle Paris. She dashes off to publish the photos in a book, each one accompanied by a piece of metafiction to explain what’s happening and why. This is unique and bizarre.
2. Blood Will Out by Walter Kirn, Corsair, 2014. ‘Stunning’ says James Ellroy. ‘Superbly written,’ says Amy Tan. ‘The power, insight, and raw energy of an instant classic,’ says Amy Hempel. I’m not even convinced they’re doing it justice. This is simply one of the strangest true stories I’ve ever encountered. The best bit is where Margot Kidder, who became famous playing Lois Lane in Christopher Reeves’ Superman films, turns up living in a hedge.
3. Shamed by Sarbjit Kaur Athwal, Virgin, 2013. OK, I’m prejudiced, because I was slightly involved in this case – but, at any rate, any story that involves a true and brave fight for justice by the sister-in-law of a woman who was sent to India to be murdered has what it takes to startle just about anyone.
4. Chaos by Tom O’Neill, William Heinemann, 2019. This starts out as one journalist’s attempt to make sense of the Manson Family murders. It quickly becomes far more than that, and far more engrossing than even the journalist imagined. The supporting cast includes the Beach Boys, Doris Day, David Geffen, Roman Polanski, and at least two psychologists who may or may not have been working for the CIA. Finally, the trail leads to - what else? - the Kennedy assassination.
5. Rogues’ Gallery by Inspector Thomas Byrnes, Castle, 1886/1998. A legendary but controversial New York City lawman presents a huge collection of mugshots from the early days of police photography, along with biographies of each of the ne’er-do-wells. Pick this book up on Christmas afternoon, and the next thing you know it’ll be New Year.