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  • General Recommendations
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Gnarly Non-Fiction

Stories so wild you won't believe they're true.

User from Oshawa Public Libraries

10 items

  • The Stranger in the Woods

    the Extraordinary Story of the Last True Hermit

    Finkel, Michael
    Alone...in the woods...for 27 years. Stripped down to essential survival, The Stranger in the Woods takes a look at what being alone really means and what it looks like to rejoin society after many years of solitude.
    Book, 2017New York : Alfred A. Knopf, 2017. — 974.122043092 KNI-F
  • The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks is the story of how one woman's genes have unknowingly changed the landscape of scientific discovery, including the development of the polio vaccine and the secrets revealed about cancer cells. Explores themes of…
    Book, 2009New York : Crown Publishers, 2009, c2010. — BIOG 616.02774092 LAC-S
  • A salacious true crime story that reads like fiction, centred on murder. Also available in eBook.
    Book, 1994New York : Random House, c1994. — 975.8724 BER
  • The Feather Thief

    Beauty, Obsession, and the Natural History Heist of the Century

    Johnson, Kirk W.
    A daring heist involving bird feathers (who would have thought?) and one man's obsession that leads him on a worldwide trip to learn the truth about who the thief is, where the birds have gone, and most importantly, why? Also available in large…
    Book, 2018New York : Viking, [2018] — 364.1628598 JOH
  • Bad Blood

    Secrets and Lies in a Silicon Valley Startup

    Carreyrou, John,
    A medical technological advancement too good to be true. Bad Blood follows the rise and fall of one of the most fraudulent Silicon Valley startups to date.
    Book, 2018New York, NY : Alfred A. Knopf, 2018. — 338.7681761 CAR
  • Chaos

    Charles Manson, the CIA, and the Secret History of the Sixties

    O'Neill, Tom (Journalist),
    The Manson murders, a cover-up, police misconduct, and covert surveillance. Need we say more?
    Book, 2020New York : Back Bay Books/Little, Brown and Company, 2020. — 364.1523 ONE
  • Endurance

    Shackleton's Incredible Voyage

    Lansing, Alfred
    Endurance is the harrowing tale of a 1914 expedition to Antarctica gone wrong and the year of survival that followed the crew members of the Endurance.
    Audiobook CD, 2001North Kingstown, RI : BBC Audiobooks America, p2001. — TB 919.8904 LAN
  • A Woman of No Importance

    the Untold Story of the American Spy Who Helped Win WWII

    Purnell, Sonia
    The first woman to be deployed to France during WWII, Virginia Hall was an espionage and war hero who helped to dismantle Hitler's reign of terror while being public enemy #1.
    Book, 2019[New York, New York] : Viking, [2019] — BIOG 940.548641 GOI-P
  • The Disappearing Spoon

    and Other True Tales of Madness, Love, and the History of the World From the Periodic Table of the Elements

    Kean, Sam
    A collection of weird but true stories directly linked to the elements in the periodic table.
    Book, 2010New York : Little, Brown and Co., c2010. — 546 KEA
  • Ghosts of Iron Mountain

    the Hoax of the Century, Its Enduring Impact, and What It Reveals About America Today

    Tinline, Phil
    Ghosts of Iron Mountain is the story of how one fabricated hoax about the government and war spiralled out of control, becoming the crux of many government conspiracy theories to come.
    Book, 2025New York : Scribner, 2025. — 001.980973 TIN