I just bought "In Cold Blood".

I put off reading it for years. Think I'm ready for it now.

The prose is wonderfully clean, and the story is compelling.

I can't say I enjoyed it but I did like reading it. Kind of like "The Executioners Song", it will haunt you.

Chilling story, brilliantly written.

I think Capote was the first to really give every detail of a murder, like a you are there
type journalism, it was like a prequel to CSI, I like to watch the old dragnet with Jack
Webb, they never really showed closeup of the victim, I remember one of a child kidnaping
and rape where they just showed the torn clothes and the kids pictures, the poignant interview of the weeping mother, somehow that has been lost.

It was able to hold my attention as a 14-year-old (won't tell you which year that was ;) ).

A wise English teacher I was fortunate enough to have once told the class the difference between a good book and a great book.

A good book is one you're absorbed in reading, that you can barely put down, and that entertains you. A great book may be one of the most unpleasant things you've ever read and you may have to kick and claw your way through it, but part of that book will always stay with you and be part of how you look at the world.

"In Cold Blood" is both a good book and a great book.

in the Clutter's house at the time of the murders. He also can make you feel some sympathy for Smith and Hickock, in a very perverse way. I won't say any more because the book is too good for anyone to spoil it for you.

...but I've read that book countless times. As soon as I heard about the new film, it somehow snuck off the bookshelf and found its way to my nightstand. It's a great book.

Read it in high school in the '60's, when it first came out; have read it a half-dozen times since then.

By all means, go and see the movie "Capote" if you haven't already, and acquaint yourself with what it cost him to write the book. Essentially, it cost him everything....

April 14 of their hangings. Ick. Hangings are horrid. Why not a firing squad?

Also, Anniversary of: Lincoln's Death, Titanic sinking.

April is the cruelest month. Revolutionary War, Civil War, Columbine...all in April. OH, and....April 18, 1906!

If I remember the book correctly, it took something like 19 minutes for Dick Hickock's heart to stop beating after he dropped through the scaffold; Perry Smith died more-or-less instantly of a broken neck.

Reminds me of the legislative battle that broke out here in Texas when the state was considering going to lethal injection (to replace the electric chair). Some of our knuckle-dragging congressmen opposed lethal injection, considering it too clean and humane a way to dish out capital punishment. The actual effect of the state's adoption of lethal injection was to make capital punishment more acceptable to the public; as everybody knows, it's really popular down here.....

Plus it was in an old yucky place. Hangings are the worst, the very worst. Firing squads are quick and clean.

Never read it but decided to get it after seeing the Capote movie. It's in the to-read pile.

It has a picture from the movie on the current cover but the book covers Truman's whole life. I'm telling you, it is fascinating. It's about the whole social literary scene in New York from the 40s through the 70s. Truman was such an interesting guy and the author of this biography writes so well....pulling you through begging for more.

I'm of an age that I remember seeing Truman on TV...Dick Cavett in particular. It was like reliving my childhood and learning about America during that era. I loved it.