It’s time once more for the annual Federalist notable-books-of-the-year column. Federalist writers, as well as those in the publication’s large and growing orbit, take stock of the books we read this year. Unlike other annual lists, this is not necessarily a list of books that came out this year, just the ones that Federalist writers happened to read in 2023 and found worthy of recommending.
Madeline Osburn
My most eccentric college professor, Dr. Weathers, brought a grocery store birthday cake with the words, “Make it witchy,” piped in red icing to class one afternoon. I believe it was on or around Halloween. It was a New Journalism class in the English department, and the assigned reading that day was Joan Didion’s essay, “The White Album.” This was my first introduction to the Charles Manson murders, and while a good one, I now realize it was only scratching the surface after reading Chaos: Charles Manson, the CIA, and the Secret History of the Sixties by Tom O’Neill this year.
Chaos is a shocking story that alleges everything previously known to the public about Charles Manson and the Tate murders is wrong. It is also arguably a work of New Journalism in the way O’Neill brings readers along on his journey chasing paper trails and knocking on doors as he uncovers never-before-reported details about Manson and “The Family.” It’s a book with something for everyone: music, psychedelics, true crime, and secrets hidden at the highest levels of the American government. If anything, Dr. Weathers would
