Is there anything juicier than a scammer story? Con artists author their own narratives with unimaginable confidence, leaving us to wonder why they did it, how everyone fell for it, and whether there are any long cons quietly unfolding in our own lives.
Epic rip-offs are the cultural wreckage we can’t look away from. Fraudulent f*ckery has dominated a decade of discourse, from Anna Delvey and FyreFest to the Tinder Swindler and disgraced tech startup founder Elizabeth Holmes.
A new Holmes documentary— courtesy of A24 and Nathan Fielder— drops today. Given how the YOU CAN SEE EVERYTHING trailer broke the internet, it’s safe to say we’re all ready to embrace scammer stories again.
If you’re craving your next con chronicle, consider these book recs. Spanning literary fiction, analytical nonfiction, and buzzy biographies of under-the-radar scammers who deserve their time in the side-eye spotlight, these reads are ready to pull you out of your reading slump.
For lit fic full of scams & schemes:
The Glass Hotel by Emily St. John Mandel
Fruit Fly by Josh Silver
The Fraud by Zadie Smith
Like This, But Funnier by Hallie Cantor
Just Watch Me by Lior Torenberg
Yellowface by R.F. Kuang
For tales of fraudulent nonfiction:
Bad Blood: Secrets and Lies in a Silicon Valley Startup by John Carreyrou
The Cult of We: WeWork, Adam Neumann, and the Great Startup Delusion by Eliot Brown and Maureen Farrell
Doctored: Fraud, Arrogance, and Tragedy in the Quest to Cure Alzheimer’s by Charles Piller
Money Men: A Hot Startup, A Billion Dollar Fraud, A Fight for the Truth by Dan McCrum
Billion Dollar Whale by Bradley Hope and Tom Wright
The Missing Crypto Queen by Jamie Bartlett
For the how & the why:
Too Big to Fail by Andrew Ross Sorkin
Cultish: The Language of Fanaticism by Amanda Montell
Swiped by Adam Levin
Honorable mentions:
Scammer by Caroline Calloway
My Friend Anna: The True Story of a Fake Heiress by Rachel DeLoache Williams
Empire of AI by Karen Hao
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