The best books about fabulous fabulists: a list for liars and people who deal with them

In a world of aggregate and pre-release reviews, it’s easy to forget that one of the most important measures of a book's success is how much it stays with you in the years after you read it.

Look At Me has haunted me in the years since I read it. No other book has had a greater impact on the way I think about our perception of ourselves vs. the way the world perceives us, and how that can be manipulated and exploited.

Like many great books, knowing too much about the plot before you pick it up is going to lessen your experience, so I’m just going to say that it’s about people who have constructed new identities and covers themes of deception, and reinvention and let you discover it for yourself (and thank me later).

Obviously, I couldn’t put together a list of liars without mentioning Ripley, one of literature’s most unforgettable conmen.

Having watched the superb film version years ago, I only got around to finally reading the book after picking up Greg Sestero’s Disaster Artist (another great book about a liar) wherein he talks about how Ripley’s deception mirrors that of his creative partner Tommy Wisseau. Highsmith sets the watermark for elegant, character-driven crime novels and Ripley is arguably her best work.

While some parts of it inevitably feel a little dated (it was written in 1955), Highsmith does an incredible job of persuading the reader to alternate between praying for Ripley’s success and demise, and he remains a quintessential unreliable narrator that set the scene for countless fabulists to follow.

I’ve always been confused by the longstanding misconception that thrillers can’t be thematically complex and literary novels can’t be briskly plotted page turners. Birnam Wood is one of many excellent examples of a book that accomplishes both.

Catton’s novel covers activism, climate change, class struggle, idealism vs pragmatism, and a range of other related themes all while moving at a cracking pace and unleashing a thrilling, pulse-pounding plot. Some characters are lying by omission, others for the sake of preservation, others for the sake of self-interest. The result is a deliciously deceptive story where you aren’t sure who to trust or who the villains and heroes are until well into the second act.

Birnam Wood will have you alternating between thoughtfully stroking your chin, gasping in shock, and screaming in horror.

We all have secrets. If you read that sentence and thought “not me!” then that’s likely because you’ve repressed something so dark and dangerous that your psyche let you unleash it from the depths of your unconscious into your working memory.

This book looks at the myriad ways that holding onto secrets can affect our relationships and day-to-day lives through an engaging blend of personal, creative, and scientific perspectives.

Peppered with both fun tidbits of information (the average person has thirteen secrets), as well as complex, deeper insights into the science of secrets, I found this fascinating both as a general reader and more specifically as someone who writes characters who are burdened with secrets and have to construct a false reality around them.

In an age of constant digital deception, it was utterly fascinating to read the story of someone who manipulates people through the simple use of a phone call.

The plot follows two filmmakers, Carrie and Meadow, the latter of whom makes a documentary about “Nicole”, a woman who seduced an array of Hollywood heavy hitters armed with nothing more than a telephone. The novel unfolds through multiple perspectives and timeframes that begin as disparate but are slowly woven together by Spiotta’s expert hand.

The plot itself is fascinating, but Spiotta’s stylistic and thematic mastery are a wonder to behold. Sidenote: Nicole is loosely based on the true story of Whitney Walton, on whom Jen Silverman also did a brilliant take in her audiobook The Miranda Obsession (performed by Rachel Brosnahan).