Books
Grimm's GrimmestThe original, unadulterated versions of the stories collected by Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm are simply amazing. Originally aimed at adults, not children, the stories include murder, incest, torture, and cannibalism.
Just like Family Circus.
It's fascinating to have a look at these stories in their original form. They were an integral part of peasant culture in Germany, and their general bawdiness coupled with the extreme violence is kind of a Clockword Orange version of The Canterbury Tales.
Takedown: The Fall of the Last Mafia Empire (Rick Cowan and Douglas Century)
This book is interesting not for the quality of writing, which is not particularly high, but for the story it tells: the infiltration of the mob-controlled garbage business in New York City by an undercover detective. For fifty years, trash disposal in the city was controlled by organized crime, and the story of how that evolved, and how the business was run, makes for excellent reading.
The undercover operation lasted for years and resulted in the arrest and subsequent conviction of many of the most important figures in organized crime in 1995. The number of close calls, the lucky breaks, the sheer scope of the story--it's all remarkable.
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