Columbine Paperback – Illustrated, March 3, 2010

As Sandy at You've Gotta Read This remarked in her outstanding review of this book, "There are a handful of events in our lives that we use to mark time. When JFK was shot, when Lennon was shot, 9/11...and Columbine. We will forever remember where we were and what we were doing the moment we heard the news." When I heard about the events at Columbine, I was out-of-town at a work meeting. I clearly remember one of my co-workers rushing up to me saying "There's been this horrible shooting at a high school in Colorado. It's all over the news!" Later that night of April 20, 1999, we all huddled around the TV watching the footage and proclaiming our disbelief over and over again. In the end, 13 people were killed and dozens were seriously injured. Countless others bore psychological scarring that affects their lives to this day. And the killers? Well, they shot themselves in the school library--the scene of the greatest carnage--leaving the rest of the world to piece together the reasons for why they did what they did.Of course, school shootings happened before Columbine and they happened after Columbine, but Columbine seems to stand out as THE school shooting because of the sheer amount of news coverage that it garnered and the myths that grew up around it. For most school shootings, the event was over and done before any news cameras showed up--leaving us with only the tearful survivors to tell us what happened. With Columbine, the media coverage was immediate and ongoing. We saw the students fleeing the school. We witnessed the dead bodies laying outside of the school entrance. We bit our nails anxiously as Patrick Ireland dangled from the library window. The reason Columbine was different was because we--the viewing public--became personal witnesses as the tragedy unfolded in real-time.As the Columbine story gathered steam in the passing weeks, a variety of myths grew up around the shooting. "The gunmen were bullied by jocks and were targeting jocks to get revenge." "The gunmen were influenced by the music of Marilyn Manson." "A group called the Trench Coat Mafia orchestrated the event." Other myths would take longer to develop but would prove just as durable, particularly the story of Cassie Bernall, who was allegedly shot in the library for acknowledging her belief in God to the gunmen. Eventually and inevitably, the news media moved on to other stories, and we were left with few definitive answers.In the 10 years following the Columbine shooting, Dave Cullen sifted through a mountain of information--conducting hundreds of interviews, reading thousands of pages of police files, consulting with FBI psychologists, and viewing the tapes and diaries left behind by Harris and Klebold--in order to write a definitive account of what happened that day at Columbine--including what led up to the shooting, what went wrong during the initial response, and the aftermath of the shooting in the community and those permanently scarred either by the loss of loved ones or injury. He also attempts to answer one of the biggest questions that lingers over the specter of the Columbine shooting: Why?Cullen meticulously documents his sources for each section of the book. When I read the book on my Kindle, the text stopped at 80%. The remaining 20% contained Cullen's documentation of where he got his information for each assertion made in his book. With this type of rigid reporting and documentation, I felt confident when I was reading Columbine that I was reading an account that was as accurate and true as it could possibly be.Yet although the book is meticulously researched, it reads like a novel. The writing is clear and precise but gripping. As you read, you're drawn in to the story. When Harris and Klebold are roaming the hallways in the aftermath of the first wave of shooting, you feel like you are walking alongside them. When frightened parents gather in the first hours after the shooting--frantically trying to locate their children--you feel their anxiety and stress. The book was emotionally powerful and affecting. When reading it, I dreamt more than once of being in the school with Harris and Klebold coming down the hallway. It was an uncomfortable read, and one that continues to haunt me. Unlike murder mysteries where you know the twisted psyche of a killer is simply the product of the darker corners of an author's imagination, Columbine tells a true story. The events of Columbine happened not so long ago in a place that is probably quite similar to where you live. Columbine haunts us because it reminds us that something like this could happen in our community, to our sons and daughters, in our schools.Cullen moves back and forth in time throughout the book--describing the myriad of information left behind by Harris and Klebold. As Cullen develops their story, it starts to become clear why Harris and Klebold did what they did. These were not boys who impulsively decided to shoot up their school one day. The Columbine shooting was a meticulously planned campaign of death and destruction that was painstakingly planned and documented by Harris. It turns out that Eric Harris was the mastermind and impetus behind the entire event; Klebold was a reluctant participant who only fully committed himself at the final hour. Harris fully intended to explain what he had in mind and why he did it--leaving behind a huge assortment of material for his audience after the fact.When reading Columbine, one of the biggest shocks to me was that Harris never intended Columbine to be a school shooting. In fact, Columbine was really a bombing that went south. If things had gone according to plan, Columbine would have resulted in hundreds dead and the total destruction of the school. When I read the scope of his plans and just how much worse Columbine could have been, my jaw dropped to the floor.Although this isn't an easy book to read, I think that anyone who followed the Columbine story at any level should read this book to finally get an accurate accounting of the whos, whats, whys, wheres and hows of what happened at Columbine High School on that day in April. If you still think that Harris and Klebold were victims of bullying by jocks or that rock music somehow played a part in this tragedy, if you blame the shooting on the parents of Harris and Klebold for raising bad kids, if you wonder what happened in the community of Littleton in the years after the shooting when the cameras went away, you owe it to yourself and the victims of this tragedy to read this book.

Why would anyone want to read a 400-page book on the Columbine High School massacre?Several friends have asked me, "Why are you reading that?" and I don't know. I cannot answer this question for myself, but I will say that I thoroughly enjoyed reading about this difficult subject. As for most, the events of April 20, 1999 are still vivid in my memory. I was student teaching then, and I came home after work to watch the newsreels. I was beginning a career in a place where something like that could happen. Over the years, I can't say that I paid much attention to the facts and theories surrounding the tragedy beyond an article or two around the anniversary dates. After reading Columbine, I see how much I didn't know about it, or, the facts that I did think I knew were wrong.The journalist Dave Cullen sifts through 10 years of police records, evidence, testimonies, court cases, and interviews to offer readers a complete picture of what occurred on that Tuesday morning at 11:17 a.m. It was more terrifying than I originally thought.This book alternates between chapters showing the planning of Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold before the massacre and chapters showing the effects after it. This provides a unique perspective and narrative flow of this story. The pages are filled with intimate portraits of the victims, teachers, and other members of the community. He spends more time on some over others--Dave Sanders (the teacher) and Patrick Ireland (the boy in the window, as he came to be known) get far more ink than others, and rightfully so. Both stories are powerful ones.The supposed "martyrdom" of Cassie Bernall was the topic of this book that I heard about last year when it was first published. Cassie was the girl that some Christians made a posthumous superstar during a supposed exchange with Eric Harris. "Do you believe in God?" Eric asked. "Yes," Cassie replied. "Why?" he said before shooting her. This resulted in a whirlwind of media proclaiming Cassie a martyr. The problem is, as Dave Cullen shows, is that it wasn't her who said it. Rather, it was another girl under the table who was shot but lived.As one would expect, most of the book is focused on Eric and Dylan. He includes a full picture of what occurs in the final year leading up to the day they dubbed Judgment Day or NBK (an allusion to Oliver Stone's uber-violent Natural Born Killers). Leaving behind journals, other writings, and videos help others see their twisted minds as they seek god-like power to wipe out mankind. We read about the real plan intended for April 20, one that would have resulted in far more deaths than 13. This was supposed to be a school bombing, not just a school shooting.I remember in the days following April 20, many were defending violent video games and movies as they were targeted as the cause. This book does something similar. I know that the "cause" of the attacks is that Eric was psychopathic. The other elements must have fueled that need for violence. They both had a love for the violent video game "Doom," and Eric wrote that he wishes that he could be in a real-world Doom game. They loved violent movies. They wrote violent stories. Eric listened to music with violent lyrics. Again, I know that the cause is a suffering mind, but you are a fool if you ignore the influence of these other factors.Much in the book is about reactions to the parents of Eric and Dylan. They are not to blame, as it was Eric and Dylan who did the murders. I agree wholeheartedly. However, I find it troubling that the boys had a small arsenal of guns, ammunition, and bombs in the basement of their house and no one knew.This book was a depressing read, knowing that there are boys like this in the world today, perhaps even in my school. Following the life of Eric and Dylan with the dramatic irony of how it ends made this a heavy and difficult story to read. It's the story of unimaginable violence, but it's also the story of healing. I'm not sure why I chose to read this, but I'm glad I did. I'd recommend this book to you, but I'm not sure why you should read it either.

The way it is written is very precise and interesting.facts have been thoroughly researched.would totally recommend to anyone who wants to know about the real columbine and be made to realise what a bunch of cringe lords the shooters were

I thought I knew a fair bit about the tragedy at Columbine but this book showed me how much of what I thought I knew was just media spin or longstanding myth.This is an incredibly accessible read, painstakingly researched but written in a conversational style, often in the real words of the victims and perpetrators.There are some parts which are very difficult and emotional to read - your heart aches for the families thrown into this horrific situation. However, the author always finds and highlights the moments of hope and the strength of the individuals who were thrust into this ordeal.I highly recommend this book whether you have any prior knowledge of the Columbine tragedy - or think you do - or not. It's an important story, thoroughly and compellingly told.

Sobre a Amazon: O produto foi entregue bem rápido. Super bem lacrado e com a nota fiscal imbutida. Foi possível rastrear a entrega em tempo real. Excelente serviço!Sobre o livro: É uma obra que está no idioma original (inglês) que realmente surpreende a cada página, mesmo sendo sobre um assunto que já foi falado tantas vezes. Super recomendo aos que querem saber mais e ter uma visão melhor sobre o ocorrido sob o ponto de vista deste autor

One of the toughest books I've ever read. The detailed facts account, victims and families portraits, makes it a really interesting book for those ones interested in active shooting and school shooting events.

1999 hat sich eine bis dato noch nie da gewesene Tragödie in Colorado abgespielt,2 Schüler der Columbine High stürmen bewaffnet die Schule und töten Schüler&Lehrer.Eric und Dylan galten im Bekanntenkreis als eher unbeliebte Schüler,die in den populären Cliquen keinen Platz fanden,aber sehr wohl einen eigenen Freundeskreis hatten.Zeit vertrieben sich die Burschen mit Rammstein,Schusswaffen und Videotapes.Eigentlich führten die beiden ein relativ normales Teenagerleben und weder Freunde noch deren Familie konnten diese Tat fassen,kurz gesagt es hätte keiner gewagt zu denken das die zwei zu so etwas überhaupt fähig wären.WIE und WARUM es doch passiert ist versucht der Autor hier zu beschreiben,gestützt auf Zeugen,Freunde und Familie versucht er diese Tat zu erklären.Ob er dabei Erfolg hat entscheidet jeder für sich selbst,ich finde dieses Buch jedenfalls informativ und auch recht einfach geschrieben.