Person
Patrick Radden Keefe's book recommendations
Key facts
- Patrick Radden Keefe has recommended or discussed 9 books on podcasts, as of April 10, 2026.
- Patrick Radden Keefe has talked about books on 2 podcasts, as of April 10, 2026.
- Those books came up in 3 episodes, as of April 10, 2026.
- The 3 books Patrick Radden Keefe has mentioned in the most episodes, not counting Patrick Radden Keefe's own, as of April 10, 2026: In Cold Blood, Out of Sheer Rage and Presumed Innocent.
- The latest episode with a book mention from Patrick Radden Keefe aired on April 10, 2026.
Updated
Across 2 podcasts. Every show Patrick Radden Keefe appears on, in one place — not just one.
Patrick Radden Keefe’s most recommended books
- In Cold Blood by Truman Capote
- Out of Sheer Rage by Geoff Dyer
- Presumed Innocent by Scott Turow
- The Emperor's Children by Claire Messud
- The Last Samurai by Helen Dewitt
- The Secret History by Donna Tartt
- Middlemarch by George Eliot
- The Power Broker by Robert A. Caro
Patrick Radden Keefe is an American writer and investigative journalist. He is the author of six books—Chatter (2005), The Snakehead (2009), Say Nothing (2018), Empire of Pain (2021), Rogues (2022), and London Falling (2026)—and has written extensively for many publications, including The New Yorker, Slate, and The New York Times Magazine. He is a staff writer at The New Yorker. During an appearance on The Book Review, Keefe shared several books that he frequently revisits or holds in high regard. He named Claire Messud's novel The Emperor's Children as a work he reads upon release and returns to every few years as comfort food, and mentioned Geoff Dyer's Out of Sheer Rage as a memorable book gifted to him by a former editor. He also named Truman Capote's In Cold Blood, Scott Turow's Presumed Innocent, Donna Tartt's The Secret History, and Helen DeWitt's The Last Samurai as favorites that he frequently returns to. Additionally, he discussed reading George Eliot's Middlemarch for the first time and recalled reading Robert A. Caro's The Power Broker cover to cover during his college years.
Books recommended by Patrick Radden Keefe
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In Cold Blood
In Cold Blood by Truman Capote is a foundational true-crime masterpiece that details the 1959 murders of the Clutter family in Kansas and the subsequent capture of the killers.
Recommended“In Cold Blood is a book I go back to quite a bit.”
Where to get it
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Say Nothing
Say Nothing by Patrick Radden Keefe is a true story of murder and memory in Northern Ireland that investigates political violence, justice, and the heavy personal cost of what individuals kill and die for.
Discussed“but it does mean that I'll give you just one example but there's a moment when I was doing my research for say nothing where I found this obscure documentary about the history of the car bomb”
Where to get it
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Out of Sheer Rage
Out of Sheer Rage by Geoff Dyer is a biographical and critical study exploring the author's frustrating attempts to write a book about D.
Recommended“And when I was halfway through Eileen gave me out of sheer rage by Geoff Dyer. Which is a great book that I'd recommend to anybody”
Where to get it
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Presumed Innocent
Presumed Innocent by Scott Turow is a legal thriller centering on a prosecutor accused of murdering his colleague.
Recommended“I really love Presumed Innocent, Scott Turow's first novel. Wow. Incredible book.”
Where to get it
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The Emperor's Children
The Emperor's Children by Claire Messud is a sharp social novel that chronicles the lives of three ambitious young cousins navigating career, romance, and intellectual pretension in pre-9/11 New York City.
Recommended“The Emperor's Children by Claire Messud which is a novel I read when it came out and I revisit every few years.”
Where to get it
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The Last Samurai
The Last Samurai by Helen DeWitt is a critically acclaimed and inventive novel that follows a single mother raising a precocious young boy in Tokyo as he becomes obsessed with Akira Kurosawa's film.
Recommended“The Last Samurai by Helen DeWitt. A really good reader.”
Where to get it
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The Secret History
The Secret History by Donna Tartt is a gripping psychological thriller following a tightly knit circle of eccentric classics students at an elite New England college whose intellectual arrogance leads to moral decay and murder.
Recommended“I love uh The Secret History by Donna Tartt. And And funnily my It's one of the best.”
Where to get it
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Middlemarch
Middlemarch by George Eliot is widely celebrated as a masterwork of Victorian literature, chronicling the lives and aspirations of provincial society in the fictional town of Middlemarch.
Discussed“It's Middlemarch, which I'd never read.”
Where to get it
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The Power Broker
The Power Broker by Robert A.
Discussed“I did read The Power Broker cover to cover when I was young when I actually was in college”
Where to get it
Books by Patrick Radden Keefe
Appearances
Other mentions (5: passing, ad reads, own books)
“I mean, to give you an example, there there was a guy named Mark Burnett who I wrote a big profile of in the New Yorker that's in my collection, Rogues.”
“I have this new book that I have, London Falling, is a story of a 19-year-old kid who died in 2019 in mysterious circumstances.”
“My book say nothing is kind of a whodunit. It's about a murder that happens in 1972 and at the end you find out who did it.”
“I mean, I think it's hard because I don't you know, in the case of my book, Say Nothing, where it's about this murder and then at the end I kind of figure out who the murderer was.”
“So, I think about those questions of ambiguity all the time and um I think if you do it in a kind of artful, thoughtful way, readers actually appreciate it. I think what people don't want is for you to take something that's ambiguous and just kind of clean it up around the edges for the sake of narrative coherence.”