Columbine - Softcover

Dave Cullen

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1906964149 ISBN 13: 9781906964146

Publisher: Old Street Publishing, 2009

Synopsis

On 20th April 1999, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold made their bid to leave 'a lasting impression on the world'. They drove to school, planted two huge bombs in the dining area, then positioned themselves outside the main entrance to pick off the fleeing teachers and students. The bombs failed, but the ensuing massacre defined a new brand of school violence - one that has started to cross the Atlantic. In the tradition of Truman Capote's In Cold Blood and almost ten years in the making, Columbine is the definitive account of those terrible events. Cullen lays bare the callous brutality of mastermind Eric Harris, and the timid, suicidal Dylan Klebold, who had been to the prom just three days earlier and wrote obsessively about love in his journal. A close-up study of violence, grief and an all-consuming media frenzy, Columbine is above all a compelling, tragic and utterly human portrait of two young killers.

About this title

Review:

'Stunning... Blunt, brutal and shocking in equal measure, Columbine is a story that peels away the veneer of lazy media stereotyping while surely re-injecting an unhealthy dose of fear into the heart of Middle America.'
Esquire

'Fascinating . . . The detailed account of the siege gave me nightmares. Cullen has done an amazing job of assembling a coherent and often gripping narrative out of truckloads of documents and often conflicting testimony.'
Irish Times

'Dave Cullen's masterful retelling of the 1999 massacre at Columbine High School, Colorado, is the latest addition to the true-crime page-turner genre exemplified by Norman Mailer's The Executioner s Song and Truman Capote's In Cold Blood'
Financial Times

'Dave Cullen's Columbine, a heartbreaking and thoroughly researched investigation into the notorious school shootings, is a must-read.'
Fatima Bhutto for New Statesman

'Gripping and authoritative'
Guardian

'Definitive . . . so vivid you can almost smell the gunpowder and fear . . . has the pacing of an action movie and the complexity of a Shakespearean drama'
Newsweek

'A staggering feat of reporting'
GQ Magazine

'Graphic and emotionally vivid; spectacularly researched and analysed'
Booklist

'Dave Cullen has been on top of the Columbine story from day one'
New York Times

'Comprehensively nightmarish . . . Columbine is a necessary book. . . . The actual events of April 20, 1999, are exactly as appalling as you'd expect, and Cullen doesn't spare us a second of them.'
Time Magazine

'[A] book that hits you like a crime scene photo, a reminder of what journalism at its best is all about'
Los Angeles Times

'This superb work of investigation looks to be a definitive account... the author's investigative reporting techniques are on abundant display, not only in the text but in the forty pages of endnotes and bibliography. Columbine promises to be a classic of in-depth journalism'
Columbia Journalism Review

'Dave Cullen's Columbine is the more ambitious and ultimately compelling take on the tragedy . . . he breaks new ground . . . dispels myths . . . and makes us feel intensely for those who were killed and wounded.'
USA Today

'A definitive history of Columbine'
New York Post

'Astonishingly comprehensive'
Chicago Tribune

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About the Author:

Dave Cullen is a journalist and author. He has contributed to the New York Times, Slate.com and Salon.com, and is considered the foremost authority on the Columbine killers. He has also written extensively on Evangelical Christians, politics, and pop culture

About this edition

• Publisher: Old Street Publishing
• Publication date: 2009
• ISBN 10: 1906964149
• ISBN 13: 9781906964146
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 432