Dexter is delicious, by Jeff Lindsay

Poor Dexter. He's trying to forge a new life after the birth of his daughter. A new life of human empathy and emotions, but without "the passenger". But circumstances just aren't making it easy. A new killer is on the loose, his charges don't give him any rest, and his brother has shown up and invited himself back into Dexter's life.
Dexter struggles for a while, but relapses to his former ways. But he has stopped a gang of cannibals, so it's okay. Right?
The sheer weirdness of the characters and the descriptions of what goes through their minds intrigued me, though the story is certainly gruesome in parts.
audio: 11.25 hours
print: 368 pages

"The Science of Evil: On Empathy and the Origins of Cruelty" by Simon Baron-Cohen

After reading a good review of this book in one of our routed journals, I decided to check it out for myself because I am interested in why some people seem to have a great deal of empathy and others do not.  Baron-Cohen and his colleagues investigated a lack of empathy in relation to cruelty by studying the brain, trying to find those pathways, and how they differ in people with different degrees of empathy.  He also looked at environmental and genetic factors that influence the empathy mechanism.

What he found is that all three influence how empathetic we are.  He also discovered that people who lack empathy are not automatically negative to our society.  People who suffer from Asperberger Syndrome and other forms of autism do not have much empathy but, because of the way their brains process information, they can have special talents.  However, there are immoral people whose lack of empathy leads them to commit cruel and even evil acts.  Baron-Cohen explains three different personality disorders in which this is the case:  borderline, psychopathic, and narcissistic.

I would recommend this book to anyone interested in empathy and how the lack of it can lead to destructive behavior.  My favorite parts were about the three personality disorders and how the lack of empathy can be seen in each one.  206 pages including notes.

(The author is an expert on autism and the cousin of comedian Sacha Baron-Cohen.)

"Columbine" by Dave Cullen

The first thing you notice about this book is its cover.  One word in white floating in an overcast sky far above a lonely, modern-looking school.  There is no clue to give the viewer an idea of what happened inside that building nearly 12 years ago, except that one word . . . Columbine.

I remember when the massacre at Columbine High School happened back in 1999.  The mass media was all over the place; unfortunately, they got most of the story wrong.  Writer Dave Cullen was there from the beginning interviewing the survivors, their families, the school staff, the killers' friends, law enforcement, and even journalists covering the story.  All of the myths that grew out of the massacre really were just myths perpetuated by the mass media.  For example, the boys did not target jocks, they did not belong to the Trench Coat Mafia, and they did not ask one of the victims if she believed in God before they killed her.  Cullen tries hard to get the details right with a timeline before the massacre, a large notes section, and even a bibliography naming his sources.  He also has a web site with more information:  http://www.davecullen.com/columbine.htm.  In the end, two very different boys committed mass murder at their school for very different reasons. 

The book jumps back and forth between planning for the massacre, carrying it out, and the repercussions that followed.  The writing is straightforward but captivating.  It's hard to imagine the terror and sorrow that so many people experienced because of these two boys, but a few good things did come out of it.  I would recommend this book to anyone interested in the true story behind this tragedy.  358 pages.