Sandy Hook

Carnegie Medal Nonfiction Longlist 2023 The Washington Post Best Non-Fiction Books of 2022 Publishers Weekly Best Books 2022 Kirkus Best Non-Fiction Books of 2022 Slate Best Books 2022 Chicago Tribune Best Books 2022 Los Angeles Times Best Books 2022 Based on hundreds of hours of research, interviews, and access to exclusive sources and materials, Sandy Hook is Elizabeth Williamson’s landmark investigation of the aftermath of a school shooting, the work of Sandy Hook parents who fought to defend themselves, and the truth of their children’s fate against the frenzied distortions of online deniers and conspiracy theorists. On December 14, 2012, a gunman killed twenty first-graders and six educators at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut. Ten years later, Sandy Hook has become a foundational story of how false conspiracy narratives and malicious misinformation have gained traction in society. One of the nation’s most devastating mass shootings, Sandy Hook was used to create destructive and painful myths. Driven by ideology or profit, or for no sound reason at all, some people insisted it never occurred, or was staged by the federal government as a pretext for seizing Americans’ firearms. They tormented the victims’ relatives online, accosted them on the street and at memorial events, accusing them of faking their loved ones’ murders. Some family members have been stalked and forced into hiding. A gun was fired into the home of one parent. Present at the creation of this terrible crusade was Alex Jones’s Infowars, a far-right outlet that aired noxious Sandy Hook theories to millions and raised money for the conspiracy theorists’ quest to “prove” the shooting didn’t happen. Enabled by Facebook, YouTube, and other social media companies’ failure to curb harmful content, the conspiracists’ questions grew into suspicion, suspicion grew into demands for more proof, and unanswered demands turned into rage. This pattern of denial and attack would come to characterize some Americans’ response to almost every major event, from mass shootings to the coronavirus pandemic to the 2020 presidential election, in which President Trump’s false claims of a rigged result prompted the January 6, 2021, assault on a bastion of democracy, the U.S. Capitol. The Sandy Hook families, led by the father of the youngest victim, refused to accept this. Sandy Hook is the story of their battle to preserve their loved ones’ legacies even in the face of threats to their own lives. Through exhaustive reporting, narrative storytelling, and intimate portraits, Sandy Hook is the definitive book on one of the most shocking cultural ruptures of the internet era.

"In the vein of Dave Cullen's Columbine, the first comprehensive account of the Sandy Hook tragedy--with exclusive new reporting that chronicles the horrific events of December 14, 2012, including new insight into the dark mind of gunman Adam Lanza. Twenty-six people dead; twenty of them schoolchildren between the ages of six and seven. The world mourned the devastating shooting at Sandy Hook elementary school in Newtown, Connecticut in December 2012. Now, here is the startling, comprehensive look at this tragedy, and into the mind of the unstable killer, Adam Lanza. Drawing on hundreds of interviews and a decade's worth of emails from Lanza's mother to close friends that chronicled his slow slide into mental illness, Newtown pieces together the perfect storm that led to this unspeakable act of violence that shattered so many lives. Newtown explores the two central theories that have permeated the media since the attack: some claim Lanza suffered from severe mental illness, while others insist that, far from being a random act of insanity, this was a meticulously thought out, premeditated attack at least two years in the making by a violent video-gamer so obsessed with "glory kills" and researching mass murderers that he was willing to go to any length to attain the top score. Lanza's dark descent from a young boy with adjustment disorders to a calculating killer is interwoven with the Newtown massacre as it unfolded at the time, told from the points of view of eye witnesses, survivors, parents of victims, first responders, and Adam's relatives. A definitive account of a tragedy that shook a nation, Newtown features exclusive material including initial misinformation reported by the media and commentary on how this catastrophic event became a lightning rod for political agendas, much like Columbine did more than a decade ago"--

First published in The New Yorker, “Solomon tells the story of Peter Lanza, the father of Adam Lanza, the Sandy Hook Elementary shooter. Read it—it’s moving, brave and just profoundly human and sad....There aren’t any answers. And that’s what makes this all so impossible, and Solomon’s journalism so essential” (Salon.com). “Both parents loved Adam. Neither parent imagined or wanted their child’s horrific end. This is why what Peter Lanza did by sharing his story with Andrew Solomon is so important. Lanza’s story fills important gaps in our understanding of how a beloved child became a killer—and reminds us as a society that we have an obligation to help families and children before they find themselves on irreversible paths of violence” (Time).

This groundbreaking volume features expert contributions from across the globe by both management scholars and business leaders. Divided into three main parts _ Extreme Expedition Leaders, Extreme Work Teams and Extreme Individual Leaders _ the book ex

Most parents would never consider dispensing deadly addictive street drugs to their children but if a trusted physician writes a prescription for an FDA-approved schedule 2 medication for their two-year old based on some questionable mental health screening, those unwary parents do not question or object. Despite side effect warnings, regularly revealed during TV ads, parents frequently fail to take those warnings seriously, perhaps presuming that the side effects are happenstance or rarely occur. Over the decades, because organized psychiatry, represented by the American Psychiatric Association (APA), convened numerous consensus panels that designed hundreds of non-biologically-based disorders for its Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) especially suitable for the pill-for-every-ill pharmaceutical industry that conceivably already had many profitable solutions for the disorders, in the pre-production process. The consequences have been disastrous with no discernable end in sight some people taking prescription drugs or withdrawing from them have perpetrated school, mall and public shootings. That is in addition to thousands of suicides that the public never hears about, unless the victim is a well-known public figure like Robin Williams. Just the military-related suicide rate is 8,000 per year untold numbers of these are the result of the psych drug cocktails doled out by psychiatrists working for the VA. The government is big pharmas largest customer. In addition to the homicides and suicides, irreversible brain damage results from drug remedies to temporary problems that might have been easily resolved through compassionate interaction and talk therapy. Despite the claims that drugs were not a factor in the Sandy Hook mass murders, certain circumstances provide a different picture. Adam Lanza, always a unique individual, changed from being a geeky, weird kid to being a mass murderer, not of people his own age, but of beautiful, vulnerable children feeling secure in their classrooms in a sleepy bedroom community in Connecticut.

-Harvard Law School, Professor Lloyd Weinreb, Criminal Law Specialist, 2016: “An elite investigation which shall be crucial” -Kensington Publishing, President Steven Zacharius, 2022: “Congratulations on this project. This is a story that shattered us, and despite this, very little has changed to stop it from reoccurring” -Dr. Marc Feldman, Munchuasen-By-Proxy Specialist, 2016: “You have done an amazing job in putting together all this information about Adam Lanza” -Rowman & Littlefield, Executive Editor Suzanne Staszak-Silva, 2019: “A fascinating treatment of a terrible case” -Dunow, Carlson & Lerner Literary Agency, President Betsy Lerner, 2018: "An exhaustive account" -Kensington Publishing, Chief Editor Michaela Hamilton, 2022: “Your book is impressive” -Inkwell Literary Agency, Founder Michael Carlisle, 2018: “Your magnum opus” -University Of California Press, Editor Maura Roessner, 2018: “It's fascinating, timely, and difficult material”

Built by William Sandlass during the Golden Age of the Jersey Shore, the Highland Beach excursion resort was an iconic landmark for more than seven decades. The resort put Sandy Hook on the map, as hordes of tourists were brought by trains, ferries and automobiles to soak up the sun and enjoy the plentiful amusements. At the once magical playground enjoyed by so many, the families dined and relaxed at Sandlass' Surf House and Basket Pavilion in the 1890s. Teenagers rocked away the night in the resort's Bamboo Room in the 1950s. Meet the characters who shaped the land and had the vision for a storied resort wiped away by time, technology and politics. Author Susan Sandlass Gardiner charts the rise and fall of Sandy Hook's historic resort paradise.