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Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil - Community Reviews back

by John Berendt
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Lillelara
Lillelara rated it 5 years ago
Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil is advertised as a true crime classic and while a big part of the book is about the Jim Williams murder trial, I didn´t get the impression that the main focus of this book lies on the murder trial or the actual mystery surrounding the murder. This book is mo...
The better to see you, my dear
The better to see you, my dear rated it 6 years ago
When I was around two thirds in, I started idly concocting a review in my brain, about how the almost surreal elements and characters was what gave this narrative such a verisimilitude. Cue me over the 80% mark, just going to search for a detail, and finding out this is nonfiction. Sure, there are a...
Portable Magic
Portable Magic rated it 8 years ago
Nonfiction books, even those covering a specific event in a specific setting, tend to be a little dull in their dry factualness. Nonfiction true crime has a tendency toward moralizing. Berendt’s story of a young man killed by his lover/employer in an isolated Georgia town avoids both. He carries the...
VictoriaNickers
VictoriaNickers rated it 9 years ago
One of the best "true crime" book I have ever read. Every inch of the story is fascinating. It reads like a novel. I had to keep reminding myself that it was, in fact, a true crime book. From the very first chapter I felt drawn in. I immediately wanted to go to Savannah and see it for myself. So oft...
Murder by Death
Murder by Death rated it 9 years ago
As much as I loved this book - and I did - I am relieved to finally be finished with it. I loved every word of it, but I swear it was magically adding pages at the back as I was reading it. Having seen the movie years ago, I was surprised at how much of this book had little or nothing to do with ...
deannahello
deannahello rated it 10 years ago
Full disclosure I'd heard about this book, but knew nothing about the actual trial, or the the movie. I maybe have passed through Savannah once or twice. I'm not really sure, but definitely never spent any time there. So I genuinely didn't know the out come of the trial till I finished the book. My ...
Momster Bookworm
Momster Bookworm rated it 10 years ago
[Non-fiction] In this book, the reader is taken on a personal architectural and anthropological tour of Savannah, Georgia, just around the time of a murder and subsequent trial, which spanned the 1980s. The residents lived in their respective and mutual bubbles of eccentricity, which infused with So...
Bettie's Books
Bettie's Books rated it 11 years ago
bookshelves: one-penny-wonder, true-grime, published-1994, spring-2011, nonfiction, north-americas, amusing, paper-read Recommended to ☯Bettie☯ by: Brazilliant Laura Read from May 13 to 14, 2011, read count: 2 ** spoiler alert ** There is an inserted map, i.e. non attached, and given that this i...
Tami
Tami rated it 11 years ago
And regarding true crime literary novels, it doesn't hold a candle to Truman Capote's "In cold blood" - the atmosphere, the story line, the whole experience, the eerieness of the crime and the dramaturgy of the criminal prosecution. It had a good flow and some fascinating side characters. BUT: the...
SandyQ
SandyQ rated it 11 years ago
It seems that a lot of people are frustrated by the fact that this book is really about Savannah - not really a true crime book at all. But I don't really think this was ever intended to be a "true crime" book (even if GR crowd sourcing says so.) Yes, there's a crime, but it seemed to me that the p...
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