Dave Cullen's Blog: Conclusive Evidence of Dave Cullen's Existence--The GoodReads Edition

Slate just set about creating a canon of major nonfiction books, by naming The 50 Best Nonfiction Books of the Last 25 Years. Staggered to see Columbine there, with a lovely write-up.*It's currently their cover story, and an awesome list. I have read quite a few, and loved nearly all of those, including Lost City of Z, A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again, We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed With Our Families,** and . . . I better stop listing, or this post will be huge. Most of the others have been on my should-read or maybe-read list, and just got a huge bump.(I went right out and ordered Age Of Wonder--not sure what took me so long.)It's amazing company, and I'm kind of awed to be among them. (I've also met quite a few of these writers the past several years, and been really impressed. It's hard to write a madly interesting book without being at least somewhat interesting. haha.)I believe this is the first century-level list Columbine has made. I'm kind of giddy. Thanks Slate.(Update: After posting, I went back and looked for any century-related nonfiction list, and discovered Book Riot did one last year: 50 best from the last 100 years. I was shocked to see Columbine made it as well. How did I miss that? Oh. It went up while I was madly rewriting Parkland last fall.)* I'm not sure where they got the factoid that I was "on the scene himself within 15 hours of the crime." It was about one hour.** That last one is also one of my all-time favorite titles.

Thanks to everyone who voted Parkland into the semi-finals of the Goodreads Choice Award for Best Nonfiction of 2019.The downside: I ask for you to vote again. I appreciate the votes, shares, tweets, etc. Thanks.This round ends tonight at midnight pacific time.I learned you can vote 3 times: once per round, per category. Please use them all. Thanks!https://www.goodreads.com/choiceaward...

So, good news and bad news, since I've been insanely busy book touring and haven't attended to my blog.The good news: Parkland: Birth of a Movement, was longlisted last month for a really prestigious award: the American Library Association's Andrew Carnegie Medal for best nonfiction book of 2019.How cool was that? The year-end awards are just beginning, and gratifying to see Parklandin the mix. Even more cool: I was nominated alongside Toni Morrison! Unfortunately, they released the short list this week (3 finalists each in fiction and nonfiction), and neither Toni nor I were on it.They come, they go.Meanwhile, Parkland was just nominated for the Goodreads Choice Award for Best Nonfiction, and you can vote! Please do.There are 3 rounds of voting, and the first is open now. (Columbineactually won this award 10 years ago, with the help of readers like you.)

Parkland: Birth of a Movement was nominated as Best Nonfiction Book of 2019 in the Goodreads Choice Awards.Please help by voting in the first round!And posting on social media, or asking friends, etc.Teachers who have used the book, please consider asking your students.This is a huge thing for books. Goodreads has 90 million users--all book lovers.The voting starts with 15 nominees per category, and 3 rounds of voting. Round 1 runs now through Sunday (Nov 10).You don't have to join, and it should literally take seconds.) Thanks. Just follow the link.I actually won it for Columbine(the 2nd year they had it), and it helped the book reach a wider audience. That's when they only had 3 million members (which seemed huge at the time).

Motherless Brooklyn is now one of my four favorite books written in my adult lifetime--joining Jesus' Son, Visit from the Goon Squad, and A Manual for Cleaning Women. The writing is extraordinary, and something I aspire to. It's all so vivid, and the details capture little insights about this world and our world every other sentence. Just amazing. Also, the story was thoroughly captivating--quite the page-turner. The characters were really wonderful, too. I have to admit that when he introduced the narrator with Tourette, why first reaction was, "Well that's really interesting, BUT--that's going to get old, really fast." Felt like it might be a gimmick that would wear through quickly. Nope. Fascinating to see the world through his eyes, to live his experience for awhile--and to see so many connections to how other elements of life can be like that. That's one of the things so mesmerizing about Lethem as a writer--he's not just a great writer, he's a great thinker. He's taking a concept like Tourette and finding all these other aspects of life with elements like that, giving me a new perspective on them, connections between the most unlikely things, that have always been right there. I had been hearing about this book for years, and not sure why I put it off. I guess I got the impression it was some hipster thing about Brooklyn. Nothing of the sort. When I approached the end, I started asking for recommendations on social media, and began amassing a pile of Lethem books to read. I feel so lucky to have discovered another master writer still working. I dove right into Chronic City, and loving that, too.

I'm going to keep updating this post as a clearinghouse for many of the best interviews, excerpts, media appearances and reviews. Also: Parkland book tour dates/info.Excerpt:Buzzfeed News: 'Now You Have A Seven-Hour Rehearsal Where You Have To Sing and Cry.'Reviews:Washington Post: 'Why Parkland, a year later, is a story of hope.'The Atlantic: Dave Cullen's New Book on the Parkland Shooting Is Surprisingly IlluminatingChicago Tribune: Parkland changed everythingPrint Interviews:New York Magazine:Author Dave Cullen on Finding Hope in Parkland, 20 Years After ColumbineColumbine Journalism Review: (coming)(More coming)Radio / Podcasts:BBC Radio 4: "Parkland: One Year On" (30-minute radio documentary, with me as "presenter")NPR's 1A: A Year After Parkland (1 hour)NPR's Weekend Edition (6 minutes)Slate: Has Anything Changed Since Parkland?Publishers Weekly: Dave Cullen on Writing 'Parkland'Essays (by me):The Guardian: From Columbine to Parkland: How we got the story wrong on mass shootings (cover story of the book section, Review)TV:PBS/CNNi: Amanpour & Company (partial)MSNBC: Deadline Whitehouse with Nicolle Wallace: comingCNN: New Day: coming

The Washington Post somehow burrowed into my head, rooted around for all the things I was trying to accomplish in Parkland: Birth of a Movement, and published it as a review this weekend.And the writer, Jill Filipovic, did it in such gorgeous, eloquent prose, I was stunned. Her opening sentence:Here is a sentence you would not expect in a review of a book on one of the country’s most notorious school shootings: “Parkland” by Dave Cullen is one of the most uplifting books you will read all year. I wonder if I'd be skeptical about that, if I hadn't spent most of the year with the Parkland kids, and witnessed how uplifting and hopeful it was.This was my other favorite line: "You know this story, but you don’t."That's exactly why I decided I had to do more than cover this for Vanity Fair, it had to be a book. There was so much more to the story than I ever saw or heard in the media. I wanted to take you backstage to the birth of a movement. This was a story I had to share.I loved the ending of the review, too:Cullen’s tale, though, makes you hopeful for what might come next. Optimism about the future: It’s a strange feeling.“Parkland” is a story touched by trauma, but it is not a story of trauma. It is a story born of violence, but it is not a story of violence. Instead, it is something both braver and more precise: It is the story of a carefully planned rebellion.

The Washington Post somehow burrowed into my head, rooted around for all the things I was trying to accomplish in Parkland: Birth of a Movement, and published it as a review this weekend.And the writer, Jill Filipovic, did it in such gorgeous, eloquent prose, I was stunned. Her opening sentence:Here is a sentence you would not expect in a review of a book on one of the country’s most notorious school shootings: “Parkland” by Dave Cullen is one of the most uplifting books you will read all year. I wonder if I'd be skeptical about that, if I hadn't spent most of the year with the Parkland kids, and witnessed how uplifting and hopeful it was.This was my other favorite line: "You know this story, but you don’t."That's exactly why I decided I had to do more than cover this for Vanity Fair, it had to be a book. There was so much more to the story than I ever saw or heard in the media. I wanted to take you backstage to the birth of a movement. This was a story I had to share.I loved the ending of the review, too:Cullen’s tale, though, makes you hopeful for what might come next. Optimism about the future: It’s a strange feeling.“Parkland” is a story touched by trauma, but it is not a story of trauma. It is a story born of violence, but it is not a story of violence. Instead, it is something both braver and more precise: It is the story of a carefully planned rebellion.

OK, first look at Parkland: Birth of a Movement.We chose Buzzfeed news the first exclusive Parkland excerpt and it's their lead story this weekend.Please share the link! Thank you.The book comes out Tuesday. I'm eager to hear what everyone thinks.Update: another post coming on all these, but links quickly:NPR Weekend EditionThe Guardian (cover story of the book section, Review)BBC Radio 4, "Parkland: One Year On" (with me as "presenter")

What a relief that the reviews are coming in positive.Booklist just gave Parkland a starred review*, opening:Cullen, the author of the groundbreaking Columbine(2009), brings his eloquence, expertise, combination of deep research and concision, and unbiased perspective to yet another mass school shooting, revealing its deepest layers and resonance.I like the conclusion even better:This moving, defining, and important account of an essential and vital youth movement dedicated to change and saving lives belongs in every public and school library.I'm so glad they said high school libraries. Kids really embraced Columbine, and I hope they find Parkland just as stimulating. And that's why this addendum below the review is my favorite part (all emphasis theirs):This title has been recommended for young adult readers:YA/General Interest: YAs will be inspired by Cullen’s portraits of the Parkland high school student activists. —Jennifer Johnson* Booklist is the review journal for the American Library Association (ALA). For those unfamiliar with book industry jargon, Booklist permits you to use the star badge on starred reviews, and defines them this way: "A star beside the title indicates a work judged to be outstanding in its genre."