Our collective fascination with cults certainly isn’t new, but it does feel like it’s at some kind of high point. Social media and the age of streaming have a lot to do with that: one viral video is all it takes to spread the word on culty activity far and wide, and streaming platforms are all in a race to bang out documentaries about cults just as quickly. That content almost always performs, driven by a general voraciousness for true crime. And though I feel a way about it given my own complicated feelings around the ethics of true crime, I’d be lying if I said I’m not in the camp of folks who gleefully settle in for a good cult doc watch.
The reasons we’re drawn to media about cults are certainly varied and layered, but I think a lot of us can’t look away because we’re convinced, perhaps naively, that it couldn’t happen to us. Or maybe we suspect it could, but can’t clearly imagine what it would take for us to fall prey to ideologies that, from the safe remove of our living rooms, feel so obviously toxic and exploitative. The books on this list, both fiction and nonfiction, expose and explore the inner workings of cult and cult influence, and how we’re all pr...
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