Best JFK Jr., Carolyn Bessette Kennedy Book​s Like ‘Love Story’ Show

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Ryan Murphy’s Love Story has captured the attention of audiences both deeply familiar and unfamiliar with JFK Jr. and Carolyn Bessette’s lives, and reignited America’s deep fascination with and adoration for the couple. The Sarah Pidgeon- and Paul Anthony Kelly-fronted season is intended to be the first of many stories captured in FX’s new anthology series, and is inspired by Elizabeth Beller’s 2024 New York Times Best Seller, Once Upon a Time: The Captivating Life of Carolyn Bessette-Kennedy.

In addition to Beller’s biography, which, at time of publish, is ranked no. 1 on Amazon’s Women in History list and no. 6 under Women’s Biographies, there are a number of other books from the past 20+ years currently moving up best-seller charts as Murphy’s series takes off. Below, The Hollywood Reporter listed out 10 of the most popular works documenting the life of the pair, both individually and as a couple.

Beller’s 352-page Bessette-Kennedy biography features exclusive interviews with friends, family, teachers, roommates and colleagues, along with never-before-seen photos.

For those enthralled by Bessette’s classic and effortless style, we’ll point you towards the CBK coffee table book, a combination of photography and never-before-published personal anecdotes from friends and family.

The nearly 500-page biography provides a portrait of JFK Jr. by decades-long friend and historian Steven M. Gillon. Spanning from before his birth to his final day, America’s Reluctant Prince features exclusive interviews and details from previously classified documents.

One of the most popular works on JFK Jr., Fairy Tale Interrupted was written by RoseMarie Terenzio, his executive assistant of five years.

Currently ranked no. 4 on both Amazon’s Women in History list and Political Leader Biographies ranking, Ask Not: The Kennedys and the Women They Destroyed “reveals the Kennedys’ hidden history of violence and exploitation… from Jacqueline Onassis and Marilyn Monroe to Carolyn Bessette, Martha Moxley, Mary Jo Kopechne, Rosemary Kennedy, and many others whose names aren’t nearly as well known but should be,” according to the book’s summary.

The Good Son is for readers interested in the dynamic between JFK. Jr and his mother Jackie Kennedy Onassis.

Written alongside Liz McNeil, the 2024 book is a follow-up to RoseMarie Terenzio’s Fairy Tale Interrupted.

The 2004 biography was written by JFK Jr.’s friend Rob Littell, who met Kennedy as a freshman during orientation week at Brown.

Another portrait of Kennedy by a close friend, Forever Young “describes the shared loss that bonded their childhoods, the author’s witness to John Jr.’s marriage to Carolyn Bessette, and the heartbreaking aftermath of the plane crash that ended their lives,” reads the book summary.

See also the 2019 magazine: PEOPLE John F. Kennedy Jr.: An American Life.