13 best-selling nonfiction books like Cultish: The Language of Fanaticism by Amanda Montell

If you liked the nonfiction plot in Cultish: The Language of Fanaticism by Amanda Montell , here is a list of 13 books like this:

Similar categories in Mona Awad's Rouge book and Amanda Montell's Cultish: The Language of Fanaticism

• audiobook

"If I had beauty, I decided then, I would never throw it away. I would never give it up."

-Mona Awad, Rouge

"I mean, we all have our dark days. Very dark days, sometimes. When our demons come out to play. No one lives entirely in the light, right?"

-Mona Awad, Rouge

"That I can’t protect you from my terrible places that I still go, can’t help but go because no one protected me, no one saved me, no one ever held out their hand and walked me away. But I’m trying to…"

-Mona Awad, Rouge

Similar categories in Jessica Knoll's Bright Young Women book and Amanda Montell's Cultish: The Language of Fanaticism

• true crime
• audiobook

"The truth is something people will go to great lengths to keep for themselves. It shouldn't feel like a gift when you get it, but it is."

-Jessica Knoll, Bright Young Women

"Time does not heal all wounds. Grief is just like a sink full of dirty dishes or a pile of soiled laundry. Grief is a chore you have to do, and it's a messy one, at that."

-Jessica Knoll, Bright Young Women

"There were men who cracked their knuckles while divulging to me what they would do to the defendant if they got the chance, thinking this was somehow reassuring for me to hear. But all it did was mak…"

-Jessica Knoll, Bright Young Women

"Her lips are moving silently around words I recognize. 'I carry you like my own personal Time Machine, as I put on my lipstick, smile, and head out to the party.' It's a line by one of her favourite …"

-Jessica Knoll, Bright Young Women

Similar categories in Britney Spears's The Woman in Me book and Amanda Montell's Cultish: The Language of Fanaticism

• nonfiction
• audiobook

"I realized how powerful it can be when women defy expectations. I can make my own way in life. I can make my dreams come true."

-Britney Spears, The Woman in Me

"But then, when it came time to end the conservatorship, I realized one thing: You can’t fuck with a woman who knows how to pray. Really pray. All I did was pray."

-Britney Spears, The Woman in Me

"Later, I walked all the way home so I could take in the city, breaking one of my heels along the way. When I got to my apartment, I went to my terrace and just looked up at the stars for hours. At th…"

-Britney Spears, The Woman in Me

"Giving a person no grace in a hard time is just not nice. Especially when you can't take as good as you give. When I started to speak and throw it back at them a little, God knows they were far from …"

-Britney Spears, The Woman in Me

Similar categories in Marisa Meltzer's Glossy: Ambition, Beauty, and the Inside Story of Emily Weiss's Glossier book and Amanda Montell's Cultish: The Language of Fanaticism

• nonfiction
• audiobook

"Glossier is about much more than aesthetic appearance; it has become a way for people to feel connected to bigger beliefs, to feel like their daily choices are having an impact, and that they are put…"

-Marisa Meltzer, Glossy: Ambition, Beauty, and the Inside Story of Emily Weiss's Glossier

Similar categories in R.F. Kuang's Yellowface book and Amanda Montell's Cultish: The Language of Fanaticism

• audiobook

"The truth is fluid, there is always another way to spin the story."

-R.F. Kuang, Yellowface

"They tell authors never to look at Goodreads, but nobody follows that advice—none of us can resist the urge to know how our work is being received."

-R.F. Kuang, Yellowface

"Writing is the closest thing we have to real magic. Writing is creating something out of nothing, is opening doors to other lands. Writing gives you power to shape your own world when the real one hu…"

-R.F. Kuang, Yellowface

Similar categories in Emily Henry's Funny Story book and Amanda Montell's Cultish: The Language of Fanaticism

• audiobook

"No, no, no,"

-Emily Henry, Funny Story

"For a few seconds, I'm nothing but a body seeking more of his."

-Emily Henry, Funny Story

"He loves me. Present tense. And I love him. He knows me, and I see him."

-Emily Henry, Funny Story

"To him, he's the brother who ran away. To her, he's the one who stays, even when he shouldn't."

-Emily Henry, Funny Story

Similar categories in Maria Bamford's Sure, I'll Join Your Cult: A Memoir of Mental Illness and the Quest to Belong Anywhere book and Amanda Montell's Cultish: The Language of Fanaticism

• nonfiction
• psychology
• audiobook

Similar categories in Matthew Desmond's Poverty, by America book and Amanda Montell's Cultish: The Language of Fanaticism

• nonfiction
• history
• sociology
• audiobook

"To live and strive in modern America is to participate in a series of morally fraught systems. If a family’s entire financial livelihood depends on the value of its home, it’s not hard to understand …"

-Matthew Desmond, Poverty, by America

"The rest of us, on the ·other hand-we members of the protected classes-have grown increasingly· dependent on our welfare programs. In 2020 the federal government spent more than $193 billion on homeo…"

-Matthew Desmond, Poverty, by America

"In her book The Government-Citizen Disconnect, the political scientist Suzanne Mettler reports that 96 percent of American adults have relied on a major government program at some point in their live…"

-Matthew Desmond, Poverty, by America

Similar categories in Melissa Broder's Death Valley book and Amanda Montell's Cultish: The Language of Fanaticism

• audiobook

"My body is the real problem here. If I could be bodiless - or at least, senseless - I’d be better off."

-Melissa Broder, Death Valley

"This is the problem with human relationships: you come to a person with one feeling and they’re having another."

-Melissa Broder, Death Valley

"I am going to die out here. I might. I could. Die. All this time I should have been practising for dying. What was I doing instead? Reading reviews for sweatpants."

-Melissa Broder, Death Valley

"Stop placing so much value on the known, I tell myself. Fake like this is the hero’s journey. It’s good to get lost. Good for the soul. But how lost is the good amount of lost? If I die here, is that…"

-Melissa Broder, Death Valley

Similar categories in Amanda Montell's Cultish: The Language of Fanaticism book and Amanda Montell's Cultish: The Language of Fanaticism

• linguistics
• history
• true crime
• language
• cults
• psychology
• religion
• nonfiction
• sociology
• audiobook

"Without language, there are no "cults"."

-Amanda Montell, Cultish: The Language of Fanaticism

"Some say people who join cults are “lost."

-Amanda Montell, Cultish: The Language of Fanaticism

"With words, we breathe reality into being."

-Amanda Montell, Cultish: The Language of Fanaticism

"The nimble direct sales industry always finds a way to reinvent itself - the capitalist cockroach that just won't stop reincarnating."

-Amanda Montell, Cultish: The Language of Fanaticism

Similar categories in Elliot Page's Pageboy book and Amanda Montell's Cultish: The Language of Fanaticism

• nonfiction
• audiobook

"Her visibility meant the world to me. I think about this as I walk through the world now."

-Elliot Page, Pageboy

"How do people do it? How do they shut off the noise? And I don't mean "happy", they may not be happy, but they seem to be able to exist at least."

-Elliot Page, Pageboy

"In a world where queerness all too often alienates us from blood, I am grateful to Julia, and the family I have chosen. Without them, I wouldn't be here."

-Elliot Page, Pageboy

"I could block myself out, I was a person I didn't know, I'd gaze into what felt like the universe, my eye a planet of its own. I must be somewhere in there, I'd think."

-Elliot Page, Pageboy

Similar categories in Patric Gagne's Sociopath: A Memoir book and Amanda Montell's Cultish: The Language of Fanaticism

• nonfiction
• psychology
• audiobook

"In a universe where everything seemed to be associated with everything else, jazz was in a world all its own. The untethered notes didn't propel me backward in time or force me into imaginations of t…"

-Patric Gagne, Sociopath: A Memoir

"Regardless of whether they realized it, my parents, my friends, my teachers, my lovers—everyone, on some level—was uncomfortable with my limited emotion. Because it meant something sinister. Because,…"

-Patric Gagne, Sociopath: A Memoir

"I loved people. I truly did. But the way I loved was different than most. And, if I was being honest, not all that compatible. I didn’t need to get love in order to give love. I never had. I preferre…"

-Patric Gagne, Sociopath: A Memoir

"The more I paid attention, the more I noticed just how often 'apathy,' 'lack of feeling,' and the word 'sociopath' were associated with evil. Everywhere. From celebrated books like East of Eden and T…"

-Patric Gagne, Sociopath: A Memoir

Similar categories in Jennette McCurdy's I'm Glad My Mom Died book and Amanda Montell's Cultish: The Language of Fanaticism

• nonfiction
• audiobook

"I feel like the world is divided into two types of people: people who know loss and people who don't."

-Jennette McCurdy, I'm Glad My Mom Died

"My grandma frequently refers to me as "bitch". She always throws a little extra salt on the word too, for effect."

-Jennette McCurdy, I'm Glad My Mom Died

"Even if that thing makes you very uncomfortable at times. Even if that thing puts a lot of pressure on you. Even if that thing is very stressful. Sometimes it’s just nice to feel good at something."

-Jennette McCurdy, I'm Glad My Mom Died

"She wanted this. And I wanted her to have it. I wanted her to be happy. But now that I have it, I realize that she’s happy and I’m not. Her happiness came at the cost of mine. I feel robbed and explo…"

-Jennette McCurdy, I'm Glad My Mom Died

Similar categories in Julia Fox's Down the Drain book and Amanda Montell's Cultish: The Language of Fanaticism

• nonfiction
• audiobook

"I want to love him but I often find myself wishing he could just be an asshole all the time. This way I wouldn't have all these inner battles with myself. I learn to navigate my way through shattered…"

-Julia Fox, Down the Drain

Similar categories in Emily Lynn Paulson's Hey, Hun: Sales, Sisterhood, Supremacy, and the Other Lies Behind Multilevel Marketing book and Amanda Montell's Cultish: The Language of Fanaticism

• audiobook
• nonfiction
• cults
• sociology

Similar categories in Carmen Maria Machado's In the Dream House book and Amanda Montell's Cultish: The Language of Fanaticism

• nonfiction
• audiobook

"But this story? This one's mine."

-Carmen Maria Machado, In the Dream House

"I thought you died, but writing this, I'm not sure you did."

-Carmen Maria Machado, In the Dream House

"Your heart launches itself against your rib cage like an animal."

-Carmen Maria Machado, In the Dream House

"You tried to tell your story to people who didn't know how to listen."

-Carmen Maria Machado, In the Dream House

Similar categories in Kate Kennedy's One in a Millennial: On Friendship, Feelings, Fangirls, and Fitting In book and Amanda Montell's Cultish: The Language of Fanaticism

• nonfiction
• history
• audiobook

"Why would I ever let someone who drafts make-believe football teams make me believe I should be embarrassed by my interests?"

-Kate Kennedy, One in a Millennial: On Friendship, Feelings, Fangirls, and Fitting In

"Pregnancy loss...is an open wound with the most vulnerable scab, forced to constantly replenish its surface-level protection as it's picked at daily, not by you, but inadvertently by other people's j…"

-Kate Kennedy, One in a Millennial: On Friendship, Feelings, Fangirls, and Fitting In

"I'm a weird contradiction of someone who pursues and values traditions but tries to reject the parts that are oppressive, unfair or unnecessary, because we can adapt things to who we are, not to who …"

-Kate Kennedy, One in a Millennial: On Friendship, Feelings, Fangirls, and Fitting In

"That's the thing about girlhood. You and your friends have to take yourselves seriously, because no one else will. We had to keep our emotional behavior to diary pages and fangirl in private, perform…"

-Kate Kennedy, One in a Millennial: On Friendship, Feelings, Fangirls, and Fitting In

Similar categories in Mikki Kendall's Hood Feminism: Notes from the Women That a Movement Forgot book and Amanda Montell's Cultish: The Language of Fanaticism

• nonfiction
• audiobook

"Poverty is an apocalypse in slow motion, inexorable and generational."

-Mikki Kendall, Hood Feminism: Notes from the Women That a Movement Forgot

"I tell you this story because sometimes the story of your life is the story of a lot of lives."

-Mikki Kendall, Hood Feminism: Notes from the Women That a Movement Forgot

"Mainstream, white-centered feminism hasn't just failed women of color, it has failed white women."

-Mikki Kendall, Hood Feminism: Notes from the Women That a Movement Forgot

"Ignoring the treatment of the most marginalized women doesn't set a standard that can protect any woman."

-Mikki Kendall, Hood Feminism: Notes from the Women That a Movement Forgot

Similar categories in Jen Beagin's Big Swiss book and Amanda Montell's Cultish: The Language of Fanaticism

• audiobook

"¿Habla más de un idioma?"

-Jen Beagin, Big Swiss

"You bullied other bullies,"

-Jen Beagin, Big Swiss

"she’d always been less of a shit-talker and more of a shit-thinker"

-Jen Beagin, Big Swiss

"At least I know where the hell I am and what’s happening. Which way is north?"

-Jen Beagin, Big Swiss

Similar categories in Sarah Rose Etter's Ripe book and Amanda Montell's Cultish: The Language of Fanaticism

• audiobook

"The open office floor plan is a form of strangulation."

-Sarah Rose Etter, Ripe

"Maybe there must always be two of us—our real selves and the ones we create to survive in the world as it is."

-Sarah Rose Etter, Ripe

"When you're young, every part of life seems big and monumental. Once older you can see it for what it is: smaller pieces of a larger game you have no choice but to play."

-Sarah Rose Etter, Ripe

"If the brain is elastic and memory is faulty, maybe all of these stories are wrong. Maybe it happened a different way altogether. Maybe I was happy and I just forget that now."

-Sarah Rose Etter, Ripe

Similar categories in Sierra Greer's Annie Bot book and Amanda Montell's Cultish: The Language of Fanaticism

• audiobook