Overbooked Book Lists

Domestic Violence Booklist

Page Modified: June 19, 2009

Fiction and Nonfiiction related to all aspects of the weather.

Fiction

• The Woman Who Walked Into Doors
  Author: Doyle, Roddy
  Publisher: Viking $ 22.95 ISBN: 0670867756 Date: 1996
  Booklist Kirkus PW
  Doyle's 1993 Booker Prize-winning Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha was hailed as "a small, resonant masterpiece . . . heartbreakingly right" (Entertainment Weekly). His latest book, his richest work yet, will astonish readers with its heartrending story of a woman struggling to reclaim her dignity after marriage to an abusive husband and a worsening drinking problem.
  Updated 10.11.05
• Bellows Falls
  Author: Mayor, Archer
  Publisher: Mysterious List Price: $ 22 ISBN: 08902966378 Date: 1997
  PW
  NYTBR Notable
  Vermont homicide detective Joe Gunther takes on a disturbing case of spousal abuse, police corruption and murder in his latest outing. Asked to conduct a minor Internal Affairs investigation in Bellows Falls, Gunther has to work quickly to separate fact from fiction - but nothing he's heard will prepare him for what he's about to see.
  Suggested Reading: Cops
• Whispers
  Author: Plain, Belva
  Publisher: Delacorte $ 22.95 ISBN: 0385299281 Date: 1993
  Kirkus
  Plain tells an engrossing tale of a contemporary family and the realities that lie below the surface of their perfect lives. A woman is unable to admit to anyone, much to herself, that her idyllic life is based on a lie. She struggles to free herself from a cycle of violence, contrition, and more violence--and finally emerges in triumph.
  Updated 10.11.05
• Harm Done: Inspector Wexford
  Author: Rendell, Ruth
  Publisher: Crown List Price: $ 24 ISBN: 060960547x Date: 1999
  PW
  Inspector Wexford is plunged into the ubiquitous, secretive realm of domestic violence, where meting out justice is a complex and often delicate business. He knows that these hidden family dramas of humiliation and violence may spill their bounds - and death will claim another victim.
  
• Crows Over a Wheatfield
  Author: Sharp, Paula
  Publisher: Hyperion $ 22.95 ISBN: 0786861177 Date: 2005
  PW
  Timely, provocative, and fine-tuned emotionally--written with an insider's knowledge of the legal system--this new novel by the author of The Woman Who Was Not All There tells a tautly dramatic, emotionally overwhelming story about how domestic violence destroys families.
  Updated 10.11.05

For Teens

• What Jamie Saw
  Author: Coman, Carolyn
  Publisher: Front Street $ 15.95 ISBN: 1886910022 Date: 1995
  Booklist Kirkus PW SLJ
  Newbery Honor Book | National Book Award Finalist
  Having fled to a family friend's hillside trailer after his mother's boyfriend tried to throw his baby sister against a wall, nine-year-old Jamie finds himself living an existence full of uncertainty and fear.
  Grades: 7+
  Updated 10.11.05

Nonfiction

• Next Time She'll Be Dead: Battering and How to Stop It
  Author: Jones, Ann
  Publisher: Beacon $ 22 ISBN: 0807067709 Date: 2005
  PW
  Citing numerous recent cases, Jones shows that judges, police, journalists, ane even many feminists still hold women themselves responsible for appeasing men and absorbing their violence. An eye-opening book for everyone.
  Updated 10.11.05
• The Stalking of Kristin: A Father Investigates the Murder of his Daughter
  Author: Lardner, George
  Publisher: Atlantic $ 23 ISBN: 0871136139 Date: 1995
  PW
  Based on Lardner's Pulitzer Prize-winning article in the Washington Post, this book tells a poignant and wrenching story of senseless murder--and provides readers with a pointed discussion of the tragic flaws in the justice system and its failure to take domestic violence seriously.
  Updated 10.11.05
• Not to People Like Us: Hidden Abuse in Upscale Marriages
  Author: Weitzman, Susan
  Publisher: Basic $ 15 ISBN: 0465097045 Date: 2005
  LJ
  Updated 10.11.05