Summary

I spent ten years covering Columbine, and found a startlingly different story than we had been told. It wasn't about the jocks, Goths or the TrenchCoat Mafia. And they didn't go bowling that morning. Eric Harris was monstrous, Dylan Klebold was a revelation.

I was driven by two questions: why did they do it, and how did this town respond? Thousands faced the unthinkable; most overcame it. How? I was amazed by their stories, and their resilience.

Latest Updates

— Skyping with schools: Harker High integrates Columinbe and a skype chat into curriculum. (Read their summary.)--August 2010

— New Videos page for classes & book clubs--August 2010

— Students Page & Columbine Discussion Board--May/June 2010

— Instructor Guide--April 2010

— Expanded paperback edition (see below)--March 2010

Awards

Columbine won the Edgar Award, Barnes & Noble's Discover Award and the Goodreads Choice Award. It was a finalist for the LA Times Book Award, the American Library Association's Alex Award for young adults, the Audie Award, and the MPIBA Regional Book Award.

Columbine appeared on two dozen Best of 2009 lists, including the NY Times, LA Times and Publishers Weekly. It was declared Top Education Book of 2009 by the American School Board Journal.

Thanks for the outpouring of support for my first book. You can't imagine how it has helped. I am pouring all that energy into my next book. Click for details/links on awards and reviews.

Paperback — New Material

— A new 12-page afterword: "Forgiveness." Vignettes on three victims in very different places eleven years later, and the central role "forgiveness" played in their recovery. Includes startling new revelations about Erics' parents.

— Book Club Questions (also at Oprah.com).

— Scanned pages from the journals of Eric Harris & Dylan Klebold.

— Diagram of Columbine High School and the area of attack.

— Purchase. Other editions: Large-print (new), Kindle, Nook, and audibook on CD, cassette, or audible.com. Autographed.

Instructor Guide & Schools Tour

I've been stunned by the interest from college and high school students. Thanks for embracing Columbine and sharing it with your friends. To support students and the profs/teachers adding Columbine to their courses, we have:

— Developed a multi-curricula Instructor Guide. We just posted it, with special sections for Literature and Writing. Additional modules are under development for Psychology, Social Stuidies and more.

— Extended my college / high school tour. School tour pix.

To book an event or Skype session, email Bethany Belle at bethany@bethanybelle.com

3-Minute Intro Video (Book Trailer)

This tight little Columbine video by a filmmaker from the South Park team captures the book effectively in three minutes. You will meet Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold and get a sense of what drove them to perpetrate the Columbine shooting, and what they wrought.

This is the easiest way to gauge whether Columbine is right for you. And if you know someone conflicted about whether to read Columbine, you might suggest they watch.

I created several videos about the Columbine shootings and book on my youtube channel. I will keep adding more.

Description (Book Jacket)

On April 20, 1999, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold left an indelible stamp on the American psyche. Their goal was simple: to blow up their school, Oklahoma City-style, and to leave "a lasting impression on the world." Their bombs failed, but the ensuing shooting defined a new era of school violence—irrevocably branding every subsequent shooting "another Columbine."

When we think of Columbine, we think of the Trench Coat Mafia; we think of Cassie Bernall, the girl we thought professed her faith before she was shot; and we think of the boy pulling himself out of a school window-the whole world was watching him. Now, in a riveting piece of journalism nearly ten years in the making, comes the story none of us knew. In this revelatory book, Dave Cullen has delivered a profile of teenage killers that goes to the heart of psychopathology. He lays bare the callous brutality of mastermind Eric Harris and the quavering, suicidal Dylan Klebold, who went to the Columbine prom three days earlier and obsessed about love in his journal.

The result is an astonishing account of two good students with lots of friends, who were secretly stockpiling a basement cache of weapons, recording their raging hatred, and manipulating every adult who got in their way. Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold left signs everywhere, described by Cullen with a keen investigative eye and psychological acumen. Drawing on hundreds of interviews, thousands of pages of police files, FBI psychologists, and the boys' tapes and journals, he gives the first complete account of the tragic Columbine shooting.

In the tradition of Helter Skelter and In Cold Blood, Columbine is destined to be a classic. A close-up portrait of violence, a community rendered helpless, and police blunders and cover-ups, it is a compelling and utterly human portrait of two killers—an unforgettable cautionary tale for our time.

Critics on Columbine

Click for longer excerpts, and many more.

"What's amazing is how much of Cullen's book still comes as a surprise. . . . [Cullen's] nuanced dissection of the differences between Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold is first-rate."
– NY Times Book Review

"The pacing of an action movie and the complexity of a Shakespearean drama . . . The language is so vivid you can almost smell the gunpowder and the fear.
– Newsweek

"Graphic and emotionally vivid; spectacularly researched and analyzed."
– Booklist (starred review)

"You may want to leave the horror behind you–that may be why you haven't yet picked up Columbine, journalist Dave Cullen's spectacularly gripping account of the Colorado school shooting. But Cullen's chilling narrative is too vital to miss, as are his myth-busting revelations. . . . Read this book for its unflinching honesty."
– O: The Oprah Magazine

"Beautifully written but deeply haunting."
– NY Observer

"Accomplishes an astonishing number of things in compelling, articulate prose . . . Most remarkable is Cullen's ability to present an onslaught of facts while recreating such anguish and fear. Columbine is a valuable historic resource, but it roils the heart, too."
– Miami Herald

"Makes us feel intensely for those who were killed and wounded."
– USA Today

"Cullen makes it work because he insists on framing the killers in human terms . . . That's tricky ground for a writer to navigate, to ask, if not for understanding, for compassion for two boys regarded as monsters."
– LA Times

"It opens with a proclamation of love and concludes with an image of redemption, and what unfolds in the pages between them is extraordinary."
– Charlotte Observer

"I'm happy to report that [Cullen] hit it out of the ballpark."
– Denver Post

"An astonishingly comprehensive look at the incident and the decade of struggle."
– Chicago Tribune

"Read Columbine for the stunning reportage. Admire the heroism of students and teachers."
– Huffington Post

"I defy anyone who is a parent of a teenager, especially a teenage boy, to read Dave Cullen's Columbine with any kind of dispassion or objectivity. . . . It is also a great piece of journalism, the likes of which we rarely see anymore."
– Daily Beast

"This superb work of investigation looks to be a definitive account."
– Columbia Journalism Review

More: Click for many more, with much longer passages and links to the full Columbine reviews.

Editor: Why I Publisher Columbine

Dear Reader:

I was drawn to Dave Cullen’s work by a New York Times column by David Brooks, who praised Cullen’s freelance writing on the Columbine shooting. Cullen had been on the scene at Columbine High School from day one and had distinguished himself as the most authoritative writer on the subject. I asked him to write a short book on the massacre.

That was about ten years ago. Since then, this gifted and relentless writer has lived with this story every day, going to extraordinary lengths to understand this tragedy from every relevant perspective: through the eyes of the families, school officials, investigators, community leaders, and most amazingly, the killers themselves, who left behind such extensive personal testimony and evidence about their plans that the author has been able to do something truly remarkable–document the descent of two teenage boys from a typical adolescent life into madness and murder.

What is shocking about Columbine is just how ordinary these two boys seemed. Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold loved their parents, did their homework, worked at the local pizzeria, and–contrary to widely reported accounts–were well-liked by their peers. With precision and perspective that will haunt and amaze you, Dave Cullen has crafted an indelible portrait of American youth that is at once familiar and horrifying. Better than any author I have ever read, he describes the psychological journey through which young men become killers.

This is not an easy story to confront, but I have no doubt that Columbine will be regarded as a classic of literary nonfiction and the definitive work on the community that suffered one of the most violent tragedies of our time.

Sincerely,

Jonathan Karp
Editor-in-Chief and Publisher
Twelve Books (Grand Central Publishing / Hachette Book Group)

Other Recent Updates

— Re-launched book trailer

— Columbine won the Edgar Award