100 books like The Curse of the Marquis de Sade

By Joel Warner,

Here are 100 books that The Curse of the Marquis de Sade fans have personally recommended if you like The Curse of the Marquis de Sade. Shepherd is a community of 11,000+ authors and super readers sharing their favorite books with the world.

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Book cover of The Wizard of Lies: Bernie Madoff and the Death of Trust

Alan Prendergast Author Of Gangbuster: One Man's Battle Against Crime, Corruption, and the Klan

From my list on con artists, swindlers, and other big fat liars.

Why am I passionate about this?

My father was a stage magician, and I grew up looking for the gimmick behind the marvel. As a journalist, I gravitated toward true crime and the many varieties of fraud, deception, and misdirection on display in any high-stakes criminal trial. I am particularly fascinated by elaborate cons, whether they involve sideshow mitt readers, political hucksters, or cryptocurrency barons. When I found out that a century ago my hometown was the center of a Big Con operation that raked in millions, I had to learn more. The result is my book Gangbuster

Alan's book list on con artists, swindlers, and other big fat liars

Alan Prendergast Why did Alan love this book?

Out of all the investigative reporting that emerged from the 2008 financial meltdown, Henriques’ account of the scheme that out-Ponzied Ponzi is the book that stays with me.

The Madoff story is about brazen lies and insatiable greed, to be sure, but Henriques’ approach is nuanced, thorough, yet accessible, showing the complacency (one might say complicity) of investors and regulators, dazzled or cowed by Madoff’s magic.

How do you pull off a $65 billion scam? With a lot of help. 

By Diana B. Henriques,

Why should I read it?

2 authors picked The Wizard of Lies as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Who is Bernie Madoff, and how did he pull off the biggest Ponzi scheme in history? In "The Wizard of Lies", Diana B. Henriques of "The New York Times" - who has led the paper's coverage of the Madoff scandal since the day the story broke - has written the definitive book on the man and his scheme, drawing on unprecedented access and more than one hundred interviews with people at all levels and on all sides of the crime, including Madoff's first interviews for publication since his arrest. Henriques also provides vivid details from the various lawsuits, government investigations,…


Book cover of The Big Con: The Story of the Confidence Man

Alan Prendergast Author Of Gangbuster: One Man's Battle Against Crime, Corruption, and the Klan

From my list on con artists, swindlers, and other big fat liars.

Why am I passionate about this?

My father was a stage magician, and I grew up looking for the gimmick behind the marvel. As a journalist, I gravitated toward true crime and the many varieties of fraud, deception, and misdirection on display in any high-stakes criminal trial. I am particularly fascinated by elaborate cons, whether they involve sideshow mitt readers, political hucksters, or cryptocurrency barons. When I found out that a century ago my hometown was the center of a Big Con operation that raked in millions, I had to learn more. The result is my book Gangbuster

Alan's book list on con artists, swindlers, and other big fat liars

Alan Prendergast Why did Alan love this book?

Linguistics professor Maurer was fascinated by con-artist slang and subcultures, but this classic 1940 work is more than a sociology treatise.

It offers precious insights and yarns from the aristocrats of the underworld, the operators of the Big Con, a high-stakes form of flim-flammery that required many talented performers and thrived in the early years of the twentieth century.

(The fake betting parlor in the movie The Sting is a good example of how these folks operated.)

Maurer peels back the layers of a juicy world of crime and deception. 

By David Maurer,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked The Big Con as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

The classic 1940 study of con men and con games that Luc Sante in Salon called “a bonanza of wild but credible stories, told concisely with deadpan humor, as sly and rich in atmosphere as anything this side of Mark Twain.”
 
“Of all the grifters, the confidence man is the aristocrat,” wrote David Maurer, a proposition he definitely proved in The Big Con, one of the most colorful, well-researched, and entertaining works of criminology ever written. A professor of linguistics who specialized in underworld argot, Maurer won the trust of hundreds of swindlers, who let him in on not simply…


Book cover of Con Man: A Master Swindler's Own Story

Alan Prendergast Author Of Gangbuster: One Man's Battle Against Crime, Corruption, and the Klan

From my list on con artists, swindlers, and other big fat liars.

Why am I passionate about this?

My father was a stage magician, and I grew up looking for the gimmick behind the marvel. As a journalist, I gravitated toward true crime and the many varieties of fraud, deception, and misdirection on display in any high-stakes criminal trial. I am particularly fascinated by elaborate cons, whether they involve sideshow mitt readers, political hucksters, or cryptocurrency barons. When I found out that a century ago my hometown was the center of a Big Con operation that raked in millions, I had to learn more. The result is my book Gangbuster

Alan's book list on con artists, swindlers, and other big fat liars

Alan Prendergast Why did Alan love this book?

This as-told-to memoir by Weil, better known as the Yellow Kid, is a crash course in grifts of all kinds, from petty barroom scams to elaborate shady deals in oil, stocks, and real estate.

Weil is a witty tour guide and a gifted impostor, posing as a geologist, banker, or tycoon as needed. To me, what’s most eye-opening is his total lack of compassion for his victims, whom he regards as greedy suckers who deserve to be fleeced.

Criminals rarely see themselves as in the wrong, and Weil’s efforts to justify his larcenous career make for an intriguing con played on the reader.  

By J.R. Weil, W.T. Brannon,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Con Man as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

The story of Joseph “Yellow Kid” Weil, a man who could—and often did—pull off scams to outshine The Sting.

In his long career as a confidence man, Joseph “Yellow Kid” Weil swindled the public of more than eight million dollars and established the reputation for robbery and trickery. Always beating the police at their own game, “Yellow Kid” used phony oil deals, women, fixed races, and an endless list of other tricks to best an increasingly gullible public. One day, he was Dr. Henri Reuel, a noted geologist who traveled around and told his hosts that he was a representative…


Book cover of Joe Gould's Secret

Alan Prendergast Author Of Gangbuster: One Man's Battle Against Crime, Corruption, and the Klan

From my list on con artists, swindlers, and other big fat liars.

Why am I passionate about this?

My father was a stage magician, and I grew up looking for the gimmick behind the marvel. As a journalist, I gravitated toward true crime and the many varieties of fraud, deception, and misdirection on display in any high-stakes criminal trial. I am particularly fascinated by elaborate cons, whether they involve sideshow mitt readers, political hucksters, or cryptocurrency barons. When I found out that a century ago my hometown was the center of a Big Con operation that raked in millions, I had to learn more. The result is my book Gangbuster

Alan's book list on con artists, swindlers, and other big fat liars

Alan Prendergast Why did Alan love this book?

Nobody was better than New Yorker writer Mitchell at capturing the gritty realities of the Bowery, but he met his match when he decided to profile Joe Gould, a Harvard-educated bohemian said to be working on a massive “Oral History of Our Time.”

Twenty years later, Mitchell returned to his subject and revealed the secret he’d learned shortly after the first piece was published: that Gould had perpetrated (with Mitchell’s unwitting help) one of the great literary hoaxes of all time – not out of greed or a desire for fame, but out of desperation and mental illness.

But is Mitchell giving us the straight story, or is there more he’s not telling? This labyrinth of smoke and mirrors still astonishes me. 

By Joseph Mitchell,

Why should I read it?

2 authors picked Joe Gould's Secret as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

'It's a masterpiece, of course, but more than that it shows that there is some such thing as being a simple observer' Nicci French, Independent

It was 1932 when Joseph Mitchell first came across Joe Gould, a Harvard-educated vagrant of Greenwich Village. Penniless, filthy, scurrilous, charming, thieving, Joe Gould was widely considered a genius. He was working on a book he called an Oral History - the longest book ever written he claimed, formed of recorded conversations set down in exercise books. Of course, when Gould died the great epic was nowhere to be found.

This compelling portrait of a…


Book cover of La Grande Therese: The Greatest Scandal of the Century

Annie Reed Author Of The Impostor Heiress: Cassie Chadwick, The Greatest Grifter of the Gilded Age

From my list on bygone women you'd want to avoid at all costs.

Why am I passionate about this?

I love history. I’ve loved it ever since I was a kid, listening to my dad’s history lectures. And in my history classes, I always tucked away stories about women. There weren’t many; most were trailblazers like Amelia Earhart or Susan B. Anthony. They were completely admirable, but I wanted to know about the women who had strayed from the straight and narrow: the murderers, the liars, and the thieves. Now, I write about women committing crimes throughout history. As a reader, I can never resist a story about a woman from the past doing things she shouldn’t. These books were endlessly entertaining and sometimes downright chilling to read.

Annie's book list on bygone women you'd want to avoid at all costs

Annie Reed Why did Annie love this book?

This book tells the story of Therese Humbert, swindler extraordinaire. There’s just something thrilling about a con artist fighting their way through life with nothing more than their own wits. I loved reading about Therese’s boldness and cleverness.

I felt I could live vicariously through her as she hustled her way into French society. Her fraud lasted for years, and I couldn’t help admiring her coolness under fire. Her story made for an exciting and incredible read.

By Hilary Spurling,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked La Grande Therese as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Chronicles the life of ThTrFse Humbert, the fabled "billionaire's daughter," covering her rise from peasant status to high society salon doyenne, and citing the carefully fabricated illusions she wove around herself in order to rise to power.


Book cover of Down and Out in Paris and London

Patrick Bringley Author Of All the Beauty in the World: The Metropolitan Museum of Art and Me

From my list on bringing you deep inside fascinating workplaces.

Why am I passionate about this?

I worked for ten years as a guard at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, as narrated in my memoir, All the Beauty in the World. I’ve found that readers are fascinated by the art in the Met but also by the “living museum,” which includes five hundred security guards keeping watch over millions of visitors each year. I’ve read a variety of workplace memoirs to study how authors depict the rhythms of work and the feel of particular workplaces. I’m especially passionate when there are larger themes at play and thus clear reasons why we should care.

Patrick's book list on bringing you deep inside fascinating workplaces

Patrick Bringley Why did Patrick love this book?

Orwell is my favorite nonfiction writer.

This is a workplace memoir in part because of the engaging, disgusting scenes where he labors as a plongeur (dishwasher) in a grimy French restaurant. But in a broader sense, it’s a book about the hard work of being poor.

Every sentence is intelligent and the overall thrust is deeply moral—Orwell’s calling card.

By George Orwell,

Why should I read it?

3 authors picked Down and Out in Paris and London as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

From the author of 1984, the classic semi-autobiographical story about the adventures of a penniless British writer in two cities.

Down and Out in Paris and London follows the journey of a writer among the down-and-out in two great cities. Without self-pity and often with humor, this novel is Orwell at his finest-a sobering, truthful protrayal of poverty and society.


Book cover of Rooftoppers

Natasha Lowe Author Of The Courage of Cat Campbell (Poppy Pendle)

From my list on quirky fantasies with feisty “take charge” girls.

Why am I passionate about this?

I write books about feisty girls who follow their dreams and don’t let fear stand in their way. Growing up in London I was an extremely shy child with a full-blown fantasy life, but at eighteen decided it was time to channel my inner “feisty girl”, take charge of my destiny, and travel to America to pursue my dream of becoming a writer. Now, many years later I am the proud author of five middle-grade novels, and the mother of four amazing children who are all off following their own dreams. When I’m not writing books about feisty girls, I’m reading other people's. Here are some of my favorites.

Natasha's book list on quirky fantasies with feisty “take charge” girls

Natasha Lowe Why did Natasha love this book?

“On the morning of its first birthday, a baby was found floating in a cello case in the English Channel.” From the opening line this is a story you will fall in love with!  Sofie, the orphaned baby in the cello case, is rescued from a shipwreck by an elderly gentleman called Charles who decides to raise her himself. He does an excellent job and I adore Sofie’s bravery, her love of knowledge, and her passion for adventure. Certain that her mother is still alive, Sofie and Charles set off for Paris to look for her, believing that you “never ignore a possible.” This is a fabulous book about pursuing your dreams and the power of hope. Plus the writing is just gorgeous!  

By Katherine Rundell, Terry Fan (illustrator),

Why should I read it?

2 authors picked Rooftoppers as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it. This book is for kids age 8, 9, 10, and 11.

What is this book about?

Go on an adventure with Katherine Rundell... _______________ Winner of the Waterstones Children's Book Prize and the Blue Peter Book Award Shortlisted for the CILIP Carnegie Medal From the winner of the Costa Children's Book Prize _______________ 'I enjoyed it tremendously ... The next time I go to Paris I will be looking up at the rooftops' - Jacqueline Wilson 'A writer with an utterly distinctive voice and a wild imagination' - Philip Pullman 'Read everything she writes' - Daily Mail _______________ Everyone tells Sophie that she was orphaned in a shipwreck - found floating in a cello case on…


Book cover of The Josephine B. Trilogy

Marcia DeSanctis Author Of 100 Places in France Every Woman Should Go

From my list on women in France.

Why am I passionate about this?

I'm a former television news producer who worked for Barbara Walters and Peter Jennings at ABC News, and at Dateline NBC and CBS’s 60 Minutes. I was always a journalist, but mid-career, I switched lanes from TV to writing. Since then, I've contributed essays and stories to many publications, among them Vogue, Travel & Leisure, The New York Times, BBC Travel, and others. I mostly write about travel, but also cover beauty, wellness, international development, and health. I'm the recipient of five Lowell Thomas Awards for excellence in travel journalism, including one for Travel Journalist of the Year. My book of essays, A Hard Place to Leave: Stories From a Restless Life comes out in May 2022.

Marcia's book list on women in France

Marcia DeSanctis Why did Marcia love this book?

It can be difficult to recall that, while laying waste to the armies of Europe, proving himself to be one of the finest military commanders in history, Napoleon was writing salty love letters home to his wife. Narrated in first-person diary-style by Josephine, Sandra Gulland’s sensational trio of books is a credit to the sometimes-overlooked genre of historical autobiographical fiction. The events around her life with the self-anointed Emperor of the French are defined with both intimacy and sweep. Josephine emerges as a most intriguing woman, charming and clever, and a full participant aside from her husband as he rises and falls.

The three books cover the many phases of her exceptional life. From her childhood in the French colony of Martinique, through her first marriage and imprisonment during the revolution, to her fateful introduction to the “strange little man,” and through their marriage and demise, the woman who became…

By Sandra Gulland,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked The Josephine B. Trilogy as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

The Josephine B. Trilogy comprises three acclaimed,bestselling novels that draw the reader into the delicate yet passionaterelationship between Josephine and Napoleon Bonaparte: The Many Lives& Secret Sorrows of Josephine B.; Tales of Passion, Tales of Woe;and The Last Great Dance on Earth. Together in this omnibusedition, they form an irresistible epic, tracing Josephine’s transformationfrom impressionable young girl to canny and compassionate wife, to confidanteempress and one of the most sophisticated and powerful women in history.

Adored by readers of historical fiction, the Josephine novelsare a sweeping tale of love and loss, political intrigue and revolution duringone of the most tumultuous…


Book cover of La Dame d'Esprit: A Biography of Marquise Du Châtelet

Karen Offen Author Of Debating the Woman Question in the French Third Republic, 1870-1920

From my list on remarkable French women.

Why am I passionate about this?

I have always been fascinated by France and things French. In graduate school, no women’s history was on our required reading lists. As a young woman, though, entering a professional field in which women were few on the ground, much less studied, I became an avid reader of biographies of achieving women – partly to learn how they were able to surmount (or not) the obstacles that confronted them in a male-dominated world. The five stellar biographies of French women I present here are products of the newer work in retrieving women’s histories. They are deeply researched and engagingly written. They confirm the saying that “truth is stranger than fiction.”

Karen's book list on remarkable French women

Karen Offen Why did Karen love this book?

This splendid biography traces the life and times of the Marquise Du Châtelet, born in Paris in December 1706, who became one of the most erudite women of her époque. For fifteen years she was the companion to Voltaire, the best-known of the French philosophes. She mastered calculus and translated Newton’s Principia, in addition to carrying on an active social life and raising several children. She died at the age of 42, following the birth of a daughter conceived with another lover. The author explains her subject’s life course as “from a life of frivolity to a life of the mind.” It’s a great read.

By Judith Zinsser,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked La Dame d'Esprit as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Documents the life of the French Enlightenment-era intellectual, from her aristocratic youth and controversial choice to become the mistress of Voltaire to her mathematical and scientific achievements and work as a translator of Newton.


Book cover of Map of Another Town

Marcia DeSanctis Author Of 100 Places in France Every Woman Should Go

From my list on women in France.

Why am I passionate about this?

I'm a former television news producer who worked for Barbara Walters and Peter Jennings at ABC News, and at Dateline NBC and CBS’s 60 Minutes. I was always a journalist, but mid-career, I switched lanes from TV to writing. Since then, I've contributed essays and stories to many publications, among them Vogue, Travel & Leisure, The New York Times, BBC Travel, and others. I mostly write about travel, but also cover beauty, wellness, international development, and health. I'm the recipient of five Lowell Thomas Awards for excellence in travel journalism, including one for Travel Journalist of the Year. My book of essays, A Hard Place to Leave: Stories From a Restless Life comes out in May 2022.

Marcia's book list on women in France

Marcia DeSanctis Why did Marcia love this book?

California-born Mary Francis Kennedy Fisher’s contribution to our culture was revolutionary. Before her, no man or woman wrote about food as they might about art: what was noteworthy in the meal, how the cauliflower was cooked or the paté presented, and how all of it made her feel. She is perhaps best known for her masterpiece The Gastronomical Me, her memoir about her sensory awakening around food, cooking, and love when she moved to Dijon, France. After returning to the States, Fisher moved with her two daughters to Aix-en-Provence following World War II. By now, the memoir of Provence—the farmhouse, lavender fields, and dappled summer light—have become a genre unto themselves. But as with everything this trailblazer wrote, few have ever done is as well or with such exquisite understatement as Fisher did in Map of Another Town.

It is a soulful and beautifully atmospheric chronicle of building…

By M.F.K. Fisher,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Map of Another Town as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

'I was a brash newcomer to it, and yet when I first felt the rhythm of its streets and smelled its ancient smells, I said, 'Of course,' for I was once more in my own place, an invader of what was already mine.'

M.F.K. Fisher moved to Aix-en-Provence with her daughters after the Second World War. In Map of Another Town, she traces the history of this ancient and famous town, known for its tree-lined avenues, pretty fountains and ornate façades. Beyond the tourist sights, Fisher introduces us to its inhabitants: the waiters and landladies, down-and-outs and local characters all…


5 book lists we think you will like!

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