Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil in Crazy Challenge Connection

Jan 19, 2017 Book Concierge rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: library, concierge, southern-lit, audio, book-club, true-crime, georgia, movie

Audiobook read by Jeff Woodman.

Berendt was a free-lance journalist when curiosity took him to Savannah and he began to write about the particularly insular culture of that Southern city. Then a murder happened, and his story really took off.

I read this sometime in the mid to late 1990s. My F2F book club discussed it in June 1997, and I know I had read it before then. Of course, that pre-dated my keeping track of my reads on Goodreads (or even in my handwritten book journal), and I have no notes ...more

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Aug 31, 2011 Tien rated it really liked it

Shelves: usa

As to its authenticity in regards to Savannah and the Savannahians (?), I'm not too clue-y but seeing that it was so well-received, it's probably close and therefore, the intriguing factor of the book. How did a community become so "isolated" and "immune" to changes in the world & of the time? We are, of course, looking at it from an outsider's point of view (being narrated by a New Yorker) who it appears would experience Savannah in the full and thefore, was interacting with all sorts of groups ...more

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Mar 02, 2020 Jessica rated it it was amazing

Shelves: favourite-of-all-time, z-read-in-2020

I knew this book had a buzz for a lot of years, but somehow it didn't appeal to me - that was a mistake! I was about to go to Savannah, so I figured I had to read it, and I'm glad I did. I had it categorized as a true crime book, but it's more than that. It's a beautiful description of Savannah's society - both "high" and a bit lower, some amazing and larger than life characters, issues of the city from racism and homophobia to who gets the credit for restoring the historical core, and of course ...more

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Aug 16, 2011 Kim rated it liked it

Shelves: mystery, housing, read-again, southern-us, history, 1000books, classics, ga, non-fiction, true-crime

I first read this probably 20 years ago, or more. I think I enjoyed it more this time, although there seems to be a lot of time spent on setting the scene.

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