List of books about the OJ case

How many books? LOTS, with even more on the way. We aim to be as complete as possible. So far, we have the following: 67 published books devoted entirely to the OJ case, 8 more forthcoming, and five "Affiliated OJ books", a new category! The grand total is 80 books!!. Please send new additions to farley@nevada.edu Many thanks to M. L. Rantala, who identified 14 books, including her own. In addition, 18 books on this list came from the October 7, 1995 issue of Publisher's Weekly. However, this list is more complete than the Publisher's Weekly list, which had a mere 36 books, all published. Thanks to Patricia Urocher for 3 books! Thanks also to Kathy Kellermann for her help.

This list last updated Feb. 17, 1997.


Published books

  1. A Problem of Evidence: How the Prosecution Freed O.J. Simpson by Joseph Bosco, of Penthouse magazine.
  2. Murder in Brentwood, A book by Mark Fuhrman is now out, published by Regnery Press, a very conservative press.
  3. His Name is Ron by the Family of Ron Goldman, with William and Marilyn Hoffer. They received a $450,000 advance.
  4. Evidence Dismissed , a new book by Tom Lange and Philip Vannater, LAPD detectives, which came out just in time for the verdict in the civil trial.
  5. O. J. Unmasked: The Trial, the Truth, and the Media , by M. L. Rantala (Catfeet Press, Chicago) Published in March 1996. "A valuable and scholarly book on the Simpson case" - Vincent Bugliosi, prosecutor of Charles Manson. This is one of the very few books that concentrates on the evidence. To order, call 1-800-435-6850. This book has its OWN trivia test (with answers). There is almost no overlap between the 60 questions in this book with the questions in this trivia test.. In a review in the November 1996 issue of Esquire, writer Gerald Posner rated the Rantala book as the third best of all the OJ books. The top two were by Jeffrey Toobin and Vincent Bugliosi. This excellent book has its own home page!
  6. Journey to Justics Johnnie L. Cochran, Jr., with Tim Rutten (One World, 1996). The gossip was that Cochran received an advance even bigger than Marcia Clark's $4.2M. I found it being discounted at the grocery store, so I guess it didn't sell too well. A quick glance while I was on the way to the milk cartons revealed that it has lots of stuff in it besides the O. J. case.
  7. Killing Time by Donald Freed and Raymond P. Briggs, Jr. The authors have been accused (http://www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/1472/content.html see 'Indite Mark Fuhrman' ) of plagiarizing the material.
  8. The Prosecution Responds by Hank Goldberg, sidekick to Marcia Clark and Christopher Darden.
  9. American Tragedy: The Uncensored Story of the Simpson Defense by Lawrence Schiller and James Willwerth.
  10. The Run of His Life , a new book by Jeffrey Toobin, of the New Yorker.
  11. Legacy of Deception by Stephen Singular
  12. Blood Oath by Steven Worth and Carl Jaspers. (I wonder if the latter author is related to the existentialist philosophyer Karl Jaspers?...)
  13. If O. J. Didn't... by Christopher Springer
  14. Outrage: The Five Reasons Why O. J. Simpson Got Away With Murder by Vincent Bugliosi (Norton). Bugliosi blames the prosecution for incompetence, thinks it was a winnable case. Bugliosi scoffs at the Dream Team, pointing out that Shapiro had never taken a criminal case to trial, F. Lee Bailey was on a downward slide since losing the Patty Hearst case, and Cochran's reputation was as a civil lawyer, not a criminal lawyer. Bugliosi was the prosecutor in the Charles Manson case.
  15. The Search for Justice Robert Shapiro, O. J. attorney.
  16. Post Mortem Lawrence Schiller, the co-author, with O. J., of I Want to Tell You.
  17. Postmortem: The O. J. Simpson Case Jeffrey Abramson, Ed. (paperback, Basic Books).
  18. Trial of the Century: People of the State of California vs. Orenthan James Simpson Frank Shmalleger, (paperback, Prentice Hall).
  19. Find O. J.: The Juice is Loose: The Last Laugh by Jeff Vaughn, Peter Wood (Editor) (paperback, Fantasma Books).
  20. In Pursuit of Justice: The People vs. Orenthal James Simpson by Los Angeles Times Staff (paperback, published by Los Angeles Times.
  21. Lessons from the Trial: The People vs. O. J. Simpson by Gerald F. Uelmen (hardcover, Andrews and McMeel)
  22. The Simpson Trial in Black and White by Tom Elias, Dennis Schatzman (General Pub group).
  23. Football's Great Running Back, O. J. Simpson by Ann Morse. Published by Creative Education in March 1976 (!!!!). Definitely the oldest O. J. book.
  24. Madam Foreman: A Rush to Judgment? Armanda C ooley, Carrie Bess, and Marsha Rubin-Jackson, with a forum including Willie Cravin, Tracy Hampton, Jeanette Harris, Tracy Kennedy, and Michael Knox, as told to Tom Byrnes, with Mike Walker. Beverly Hills, CA, Dove Books, 1995.
  25. A Case of Double Murder: People vs. O. J. Simpson Milton Safran.
  26. In Contempt by Christopher Darden, with Jess Walter (Regan Books, an imprint of HarperCollins, 1996). Excerpted in the March 25, 1996 issue of Newsweek. Darden will have to make ends meet on his reported payment of "only" $1.3M. You wonder how much Clark and Darden would have received if they had obtained a conviction!
  27. Reasonable Doubts: The O. J. Simpson Case and the Criminal Justice System by Alan Dershowitz, headline-hunting attorney. (Simon and Schuster) The paperback edition, published in 1997, has the slightly changed subtitle, "the criminal justice system and the O. J. Simpson Case". The 1996 hardback had the OJ case listed first.
  28. Beyond O. J.: Race, Sex, and Class Lessons for America by Earl Ofari Hutchison, Ph. D. (Middle Passage Press, January 1996). by the author of The Assassination of the Black Male Image . Dr. Hutchison offers a scathing indictment of racial manipulation, gender hysteria, class hypocrisy, sports idolotry, and celebrity mania in the O. J. case and in America. To order, call 1-800-959-9323. Yup! It's all true. The author really knows the score. I read the book, and it's good. I heard him interviewed on the radio about the Million Man March, and he was impressive. Many years ago, as "Earl Ofari", he wrote The Myth of Black Capitalism
  29. Shattered by Faye Resnick (author of Nicole Brown Simpson: Chronicle of a Life Interrupted). Dove Books, 1996,
  30. The Trial of OJ: How to Watch the Trial and Understand What's Really Going On, by Charles B. Rosenberg (former consultant to LA Law). (Publishing Partners, Los Angeles, 1994). (I never heard of the publishing firm, either).
  31. Mistrial of the Century, by Tracy Kennedy, dismissed juror. and Alan Abrahamson (Dove Books, 1995).
  32. Nicole Brown Simpson: The Private Diary of Life Interrupted, by Faye D. Resnick "with Mike Walker". Resnick was in drug rehabilitation at the time of the murders.
  33. OJ's Legal Pad, by Henry Beard and John Boswell. Illustrations by Ron Barrett. (Villard books, 1995). A spoof. Henry Beard was with the National Lampoon.
  34. Life After Johnnie Cochran: Why I Left the Sweetest-Talking, most successful black lawyer in LA, by Barbara Cochran Berry, with Joanne Parrent (Basic Books, 1995). Book reveals that Tiffany Cochran and Arnelle Simpson were debutantes together at a cotillion in 1987.
  35. Kato Kaelin: The Whole Truth, by Marc Eliot. (Harper Paperbacks, 1995). Comes on two audio cassettes instead of text, just in case you can't read.
  36. Fatal Attraction: Nicole and OJ's Deadly Passion by Tony Frost (Star Books, 1995).
  37. OD'd on OJ: Fresh Squeezed Pump from the World's Greatest Cartoonists , edited by Jerry Robinson and Jens Robinson (Universe, 1995).
  38. O. J. on Trial: The Early Years by Harry Shearer (Progress Productions, 1995). This is a CD-ROM os Shearer's radio program.
  39. The Private Diary of an OJ Juror: Behind the Scenes of the Trial of the Century. by Michael Knox with Mike Wallace (Dove Books, 1995).
  40. OJ: 101 Theories, Conspiracies, and Alibis, Guilty or Innocent? YOU be the Judge. by Peter Roberts (Goldtree Press, 1995).
  41. I Want to Tell You, by O. J. Simpson "with Lawrence Schiller" (Little Brown, 1995). This has sold nearly 600,000 books. The authors received a $1 million advance. First author was in jail when book was written. Knowledgable observers think OJ was innocent of writing the book, but not of much else. For more details, check out the book, which has has its own home page (!!), because it is promoted by media giant Time-Warner. Click for a book review. There is no truth to the rumor that OJ is planning a sequel, to be entitled Don't Make Me Tell You Again, Bitch!.In fact, Simpson and Schiller are trying to sell a sequel for a figure reputed to be $5.5M. It has reportedly been turned down by Little Brown (who published the first book) and by St. Martin's Press.
  42. I Know You Really Want to Tell Me, But I Really Don't Want to Know -- Alternative Answers and Letters to O. J.: A Parody by the staff of Dove Books (Dove, 1995).
  43. Carmen II: A One-Act on Nicole Brown Simpson by S. Colman (Dawn Press, 1994).
  44. Raging Heart: The Intimate Story of the Tragic Marriage of O. J. and Nicole Brown Simpson, by Sheila Weller. (Pocket Books, 1995) I actually READ this one: it's not bad!
  45. The O. J. Simpson Joke Book by Jack Butcher (S. P. I. Books, 1994).
  46. 55 Things You'd Better Not Say Around O. J. by Anonymous (Off Color Press, 1995). Sounds good!
  47. The O. J. Joke Book: How Many O. J. Jokes Does It Take to Turn a Stomach by Anonymous (Barricade, 1994).
  48. Fallen Hero: The Shocking True Story Behind the O. J. Simpson Tragedy by Don Davis (St. Martin's Press, 1994).
  49. The National O. J.: Special Collector's Edition! by Rick Dees and Peter Green (Magnolia Lane, 1995).
  50. Juice: the O. J. Simpson Tragedy by Larry Browne (Princeton Publishing West, 1994)
  51. We Are At Sidebar by Jack Walraven.
  52. Verdict: A Chronicle of the O. J. Simpson Trial by Linda Deutsch and Michael Fleeman, Associated Press reporter, who has also covered high-profile trials,including: Sirhan Sirhan, Charles Manson, Patty Hearst, Angela Davis, Daniel Ellsberg, John DeLorean, Exxon Valdez skipper Joseph Hazelwod, William Kennedy Smith, and the four cops who beat Rodney King. Ms. Deutch definitely sounds like a trial junkie, only she gets paid for it. FLASH! A friend of mine actually READ this book. She says it's a terrible book; mainly a collection of newspaper articles, published at the rate of one or two per month during the trial.
  53. O. J. Simpson: American Hero, American Tragedy, by Marc Cerasini. (Windsor, 1994).
  54. The OJ Whodunnit Book: You Figure It Out, by Larry Wolfe Horwitz (Vertical, 1994).
  55. The O. J. Simpson Conspiracy: All the Facts Proving that O. J. is 100% Innocent by Fred Hughes (Action Academy, 1995).
  56. Justice on Trial: An African American Perspective on the O. J. Simpson Saga by James A. Mays (Jam Entertainment, 1995).
  57. Trial of the Century: You Be the Jury. by Robert J. Walton with F. LaGard Smith. To order online, click here.
  58. The OJ Simpson Trial: What It Shows About Our Legal System by Nathan Aaseng (Walker, 1995).
  59. The Robert Shapiro Story by Larry Kenny (First Amendment Publishing, 1995).
  60. The Marcia Clark Story ALSO by Larry Kenny (First Amendment Publishing, 1995).
  61. The Marcia Clark Story by George Carpozi (Celebrity Publishing, 1995). I guess the minds of great authors think alike.
  62. The Lies of O. J. Simpson also by the prolific George Carpozi (Celebrity Publishing, 1995).
  63. The Dog Who Knew Too Much: The Murder Trial of the Century Viewed from the Doghouse by Robert Stahr Reehling and Dave Stirbe (Mad Dog Books, 1995).
  64. The O. J. Simpson Story: The Case for the Defense, by Anonymous (First Amendment Publishing, 1995). The same author wrote the next book. This book and the next item are flip-side comic books.
  65. The Nicole Simpson Story: The Case for the Prosecution by Anonymous (First Amendment Publishing, 1995). This item and the previous are flip-side comic books.
  66. Marcia Clark: Her Private Trials and Public Triumphs, by Clifford L. Linedecker (Kensington, 1995)..
  67. OJ: A to Z, ALSO by the prolific Clifford L. Linedecker. How prolific is he? Mr. Linedecker has previously written a number of books, including

Forthcoming OJ books

  1. A forthcoming book by Paula Barbieri, former OJ girlfriend, for which she received a reported $3.5 M advance.
  2. Beyond a Doubt, by Marcia Clark, for which she received an advance of $4.2M. Her co-author is Teresa Carpenter. Not out yet!
  3. Witness to the Prosecution by Robert Tourtelot (forthcoming, from Dove Books). Tourtelot is the former attorney for Mark Fuhrman, and presently the attorney for the Goldman family. The publisher touts this book as "eye-melting, blood-curdling". How about "stomach-churning" or "burger-masticating"? FLASH! In a Feb., 3, 1996 newspaper article, it was announced that Tourgelot has filed suit against Dove books for refusing to publish his book! Apparently the publisher is afraid that there are just too many O. J. books on the market. How did they ever get THAT idea??
  4. A forthcoming book by Joe McGinniss (Crown publishers). Look for it in fall 1998
  5. Another City, Not My Own by Dominick Dunne of Vanity Fair (forthcoming in 1997, Crown). Will be a nonfiction novel, a la In Cold Blood.
  6. Inside the Simpson Jury: The Parallel Universe, by Brenda Moran and Gina Rosborough. At last sight, the two jurors were working feverishly to meet a mid-November 1995 release date. As of Feb. 1997, this is STILL not published!
  7. Heidstra, the dog-walker and witness during the trial, is attempting to sell a book. Why not? Everyone else is!
  8. The Memoirs of Marguerite Simpson Thomas (forthcoming, from Crown). OJ's first wife. Book contract was signed one hour before the verdict was announced!

Special new section! Books whose new edition includes a new chapter or afterward that cover the O.J. Simpson trial. Just call these the "Affiliated OJ books"

  1. Two Nations: Black and White, Separate, Hostile, Unequal Andrew Hacker (Ballantine, 1995). New edition has a chapter on the O. J. Simpson trial.
  2. LAPD: To Protect and To Serve Joe Domanik (Pocket, 1995). Includes an Afterward, "How the LAPD helped acquit O. J. Simpson".
  3. DNA in the Courtroom: A Trial Watcher's Guide by Howard Coleman and Eric Swenson, 1994. Has a chapter on the O. J. trial. Book was published before the trial!. Go figure. FLASH! I got an email message from Eric Swenson. He says the book was published before the trial so that people could have a better understanding of forensic DNA during the trial. Swenson claims that he and his co-author Coleman know what evidence had been collected, and what experts would be called, and what arguments would be made. Swenson also says that lawyers on both sides ordered copies, as did many members of the media. Judge Ito ordered two copies! I wonder what would have happened if Swenson and Comeman had predicted the outcome...would they have held the trial anyway?
  4. We, the Jury Jeffrey Abramson, 1994. Paperback has new epilogue, with a brief discussion of the O. J. case.
  5. The Abuse Excuse Alan Dershowitz, includes a few brief references to the O. J. case.