27 books like The Spider Network

By David Enrich,

Here are 27 books that The Spider Network fans have personally recommended if you like The Spider Network. Shepherd is a community of 12,000+ authors and super readers sharing their favorite books with the world.

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Book cover of The Big Short

Claire A. Hill Author Of Better Bankers, Better Banks: Promoting Good Business through Contractual Commitment

From my list on bankers, especially bankers behaving badly.

Why am I passionate about this?

I’ve always been interested—a vast understatement to anyone who knows me—in what makes people tick. I’ve focused on analyzing business actors – bankers, lawyers, investors, executives, shareholders, and others. What do they want? Some combination of money, power, or prestige? How does loving to win fit in? How about hating to lose? When is enough (money/power/prestige) enough? What do they think is ok to do to get what they want? What do they think is not ok? Amazingly, as a law professor, I can pursue that interest as part of my job, and – I think and hope – do so in a way that might help lawmakers, regulators, and policymakers do better.

Claire's book list on bankers, especially bankers behaving badly

Claire A. Hill Why did Claire love this book?

As everyone knows at this point, anything Michael Lewis writes will be enormous fun to read, while being about something really important—something he’ll make you care about even if you didn’t when you started the book.

In this case, the subject is people who bet on the direction of mortgages (and thus, house prices), and how those who bet on a huge plunge were right. This book has an amazing cast of characters, all richly drawn: some are smart, some are not so smart; some are excellent schmoozers, some can barely tolerate human interaction; some care a lot about money, some care more about being right, especially if everyone else is wrong.

Each book I've recommended cries out to be made into a movie. This one actually was.

By Michael Lewis,

Why should I read it?

8 authors picked The Big Short as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

The real story of the crash began in bizarre feeder markets where the sun doesn't shine and the SEC doesn't dare, or bother, to tread: the bond and real estate derivative markets where geeks invent impenetrable securities to profit from the misery of lower- and middle-class Americans who can't pay their debts. The smart people who understood what was or might be happening were paralyzed by hope and fear; in any case, they weren't talking.

Michael Lewis creates a fresh, character-driven narrative brimming with indignation and dark humor, a fitting sequel to his #1 bestseller Liar's Poker. Out of a…


Book cover of The Billionaire's Apprentice

Claire A. Hill Author Of Better Bankers, Better Banks: Promoting Good Business through Contractual Commitment

From my list on bankers, especially bankers behaving badly.

Why am I passionate about this?

I’ve always been interested—a vast understatement to anyone who knows me—in what makes people tick. I’ve focused on analyzing business actors – bankers, lawyers, investors, executives, shareholders, and others. What do they want? Some combination of money, power, or prestige? How does loving to win fit in? How about hating to lose? When is enough (money/power/prestige) enough? What do they think is ok to do to get what they want? What do they think is not ok? Amazingly, as a law professor, I can pursue that interest as part of my job, and – I think and hope – do so in a way that might help lawmakers, regulators, and policymakers do better.

Claire's book list on bankers, especially bankers behaving badly

Claire A. Hill Why did Claire love this book?

This is a beautifully written story about bankers who rise, and fall spectacularly – into crime, in this case insider trading, with the loss of money, status, and prestige that followed.

What’s particularly fascinating is the historical, ethnic, and sociological backdrop. The book begins with a scene in which Indian-born Rajat Gupta, having come to the US and ascended to the highest echelons of the US business world, was attending a White House dinner for India’s Prime Minister.

The book ends as some people who had been on top are dealing with the aftermath of trials that went very badly for them. The word “Shakespearean” has been used to describe this book, and aptly so.

By Anita Raghavan,

Why should I read it?

2 authors picked The Billionaire's Apprentice as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Just as WASPs, Irish-Catholics and Our Crowd Jews once made the ascent from immigrants to powerbrokers, it is now the Indian-American's turn. Citigroup, PepsiCo and Mastercard are just a handful of the Fortune 500 companies led by a group known as the "Twice Blessed." Yet little is known about how these Indian emigres (and children of emigres) rose through the ranks. Until now...The collapse of the Galeon Group--a hedge fund that managed more than $7 billion in assets--from criminal charges of insider trading was a sensational case that pitted Preet Bharara, himself the son of Indian immigrants, against the best…


Book cover of The Hour Between Dog and Wolf: How Risk Taking Transforms Us, Body and Mind

Claire A. Hill Author Of Better Bankers, Better Banks: Promoting Good Business through Contractual Commitment

From my list on bankers, especially bankers behaving badly.

Why am I passionate about this?

I’ve always been interested—a vast understatement to anyone who knows me—in what makes people tick. I’ve focused on analyzing business actors – bankers, lawyers, investors, executives, shareholders, and others. What do they want? Some combination of money, power, or prestige? How does loving to win fit in? How about hating to lose? When is enough (money/power/prestige) enough? What do they think is ok to do to get what they want? What do they think is not ok? Amazingly, as a law professor, I can pursue that interest as part of my job, and – I think and hope – do so in a way that might help lawmakers, regulators, and policymakers do better.

Claire's book list on bankers, especially bankers behaving badly

Claire A. Hill Why did Claire love this book?

No, this book is not by John Coates the corporate law professor. It's by another John Coates, who was a Wall Street trader and became a neuroscientist (!).

The descriptions of the physiology of risk-taking are not only fascinating in their own right but also deeply intuitive, and should be of enormous help to regulators trying to address banker misbehavior. They give the lie to the idea that simple stories—people are good or bad! It’s all about incentives!can do a good job in explaining what happened.

This book makes clear that we have to understand the role of biology as well. People can’t just turn their risk-taking tendencies and reactions on and off at will. We’ve seen what happens when banks and regulators don’t take that into account.    

By John Coates,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked The Hour Between Dog and Wolf as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

As scandal and the aftershocks of the crash rock the financial world, former Wall Street trader John Coates investigates why our financiers are driven to take risks.

Now shortlisted for the 2012 Financial Times and Goldman Sachs Business Book of the Year Award and the Wellcome Trust Book Prize, this startling and unconventional book sees neuroscientist and former Wall Street trader John Coates explain something we have long suspected: that we think with our body as well as our brain. And this only intensifies when we take risks; at work, in sport and on the financial markets. Making and losing…


Book cover of The Accidental Investment Banker: Inside the Decade That Transformed Wall Street

Claire A. Hill Author Of Better Bankers, Better Banks: Promoting Good Business through Contractual Commitment

From my list on bankers, especially bankers behaving badly.

Why am I passionate about this?

I’ve always been interested—a vast understatement to anyone who knows me—in what makes people tick. I’ve focused on analyzing business actors – bankers, lawyers, investors, executives, shareholders, and others. What do they want? Some combination of money, power, or prestige? How does loving to win fit in? How about hating to lose? When is enough (money/power/prestige) enough? What do they think is ok to do to get what they want? What do they think is not ok? Amazingly, as a law professor, I can pursue that interest as part of my job, and – I think and hope – do so in a way that might help lawmakers, regulators, and policymakers do better.

Claire's book list on bankers, especially bankers behaving badly

Claire A. Hill Why did Claire love this book?

This book is a wry look at investment banking from the inside. The author, a banker and professor school professor, provides a rich and entertaining perspective on banks and bankers.  

The book captures an era when banks were changing dramatically, and, some might say, were getting less genteel. The author is really gifted at conjuring up and caricaturing some of banking’s pathologies.

I particularly loved the culminatory line in an account of junior analysts’ jobs in preparing “pitch books” – the analysts had to tout the bank’s “number one” status, and, scrambling to find something the bank was number one in, might fantasize about saying “We have 100% market share of all deals we did.”  

By Jonathan A. Knee,

Why should I read it?

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

What is this book about?

Jonathan A. Knee had a ringside seat during the go-go, boom-and-bust decade and into the 21st century, at the two most prestigious investment banks on Wall Street-Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley. In this candid and irreverent insider's account of an industry in free fall, Knee captures an exhilarating era of fabulous deal-making in a free-wheeling Internet economy-and the catastrophe that followed when the bubble burst. Populated with power players, back stabbers, celebrity bankers, and godzillionaires, here is a vivid account of the dramatic upheaval that took place in investment banking. Indeed, Knee entered an industry that was typified by the…


Book cover of The Way We Live Now

Jennifer Delamere Author Of Line by Line

From my list on unique insights on the Victorians.

Why am I passionate about this?

I’m the sort of person who reads history books for fun. It’s perhaps odd to be a novelist who prefers nonfiction for my personal reading, but then again, I’ve managed to utilize those traits for writing 9 historical novels. The Victorian era has fascinated me since childhood. (The first play I ever saw was Oliver!, inspired by Dickens’ Oliver Twist. I still remember it vividly.) The Victorian era was a time of momentous change, becoming more like the world we know today and yet still within living memory of a very different way of life. The books I’ve chosen here reflect that time of upheaval and how, for better or worse, people dealt with it.

Jennifer's book list on unique insights on the Victorians

Jennifer Delamere Why did Jennifer love this book?

The book’s massive length is equivalent to about four modern novels, but it remains a fascinating read—even if I found few of the characters to be truly likable.

Like the Victorians themselves, Trollope’s writing style feels to me both old-fashioned and modern at the same time. To read this work today is to discover many similarities between their “now” (circa 1875) and ours.

Some things never change, including the chase for money and status, the societal traditions and prejudices that can be hard to overcome, and the ways lust and greed can upend just about any of our better human impulses.

I picked this novel for this list because it makes an interesting contrast to North and South, and not just because they deal with different levels of society (working class vs. “genteel”).

In Gaskell’s book, most of the characters are searching for moral high ground as they try to…

By Anthony Trollope,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked The Way We Live Now as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?


'Trollope did not write for posterity,' observed Henry James. 'He wrote for the day, the moment; but these are just the writers whom posterity is apt to put into its pocket.' Considered by contemporary critics to be Trollope's greatest novel, The Way We Live Now is a satire of the literary world of London in the 1870s and a bold indictment of the new power of speculative finance in English life. 'I was instigated by what I conceived to be the commercial profligacy of the age,' Trollope said.

His story concerns Augustus Melmotte, a French swindler and scoundrel, and his…


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 Why They Do It: Inside the Mind of the White-Collar Criminal

Gretchen Cherington Author Of The Butcher, the Embezzler, and the Fall Guy: A Family Memoir of Greed and Scandal in the Meat Industry

From my list on the intersection of history, business, and personality.

Why am I passionate about this?

Early observations of power and privilege came from growing up around my Pulitzer Prize-winning father, Richard Eberhart, and his circle of iconic literary friends. During my long career advising top executives, I came to understand the dynamics of male power and privilege and its fit with individual personality. In their corner suites, I listened to CEOs interpret their pasts and envision their futures while the best of them uncovered their real fears and vulnerabilities. As these (mostly) men confronted their own mythologies and legacies, I, too, got to examine mine—recognizing that the best way to change our companies and our lives is to change ourselves. 

Gretchen's book list on the intersection of history, business, and personality

Gretchen Cherington Why did Gretchen love this book?

This is the best book I’ve read about the human dreams and failings of white-collar criminals.

With Soltes’ direct access to headline names—like Bernie Madoff, Jeffrey Skilling, and Marc Drier—I steeped myself in his profound research on our myths about “nurture vs. nature,” whether companies are inherently “good” or “bad,” and whether criminal behavior inside companies is performed by fundamentally “bad” people. The book taught me about the psyche of embezzlers and the conditions inside companies that influence their stealing. That knowledge took me beyond my own familial myths about George Hormel’s embezzler and enhanced my understanding of why he likely did his stealing.

The book also outlined the great impact of white-collar crime on families, companies, and our economy, leading me to a more nuanced understanding of southern Minnesota in the 1920s. History and humanity are woven together in whole cloth, and Soltes’ work allowed me to speculate about…

By Eugene Soltes,

Why should I read it?

2 authors picked Why They Do It as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

From the financial fraudsters of Enron, to the embezzlers at Tyco, to the insider traders at McKinsey, to the Ponzi schemer Bernie Madoff, the failings of corporate titans are regular fixtures in the news. In Why They Do It, Harvard Business School professor Eugene Soltes draws from extensive personal interaction and correspondence with nearly fifty former executives as well as the latest research in psychology, criminology, and economics to investigate how once-celebrated executives become white-collar criminals.

White-collar criminals are not merely driven by excessive greed or hubris, nor do they usually carefully calculate costs and benefits before breaking the law.…


Book cover of Candy Story

Stacey Levine Author Of Frances Johnson

From my list on fiction that writes against narrative convention.

Why am I passionate about this?

I’m a novelist and admire writing that pushes against the conventions of mainstream fiction, that goes around and beyond the formulaic, commercial concept of plot. In the Western world, we’re especially stuck on what film director Raul Ruiz calls “conflict theory”—the masculinist idea that only conflict can create narrative. Of course conflict is part of life, but hello—there’s more. Conventional plot’s well-worn heroes, helpers, villians, saviours, and conflict-based climax, so closely tied to Hollywood USA, are predictable and unfulfilling. Many people seek something more innovative, like the literary versions of Philip Glass or Fernando Botero.

Stacey's book list on fiction that writes against narrative convention

Stacey Levine Why did Stacey love this book?

A mysterious, melancholy narrative translated from French is rendered in stripped-down sentences, following a novelist, Mia, after a death in the family. The subsequent plot of subterfuge and corporate crime is so full and busy with knotty, overly complex occurrences that it begins to seem a deliberate distortion and exaggeration of the convention of plot itself. Through the character of Mia, the gifted Redonnet reports tragic and powerful occurrences in flat, clear prose that packs emotion just under the surface of the affectless sentences. The word “Candy” recurs hauntingly through the novel: as a song title, as the name of a character in a show, and as the name that Mia’s lovers call her. This slight novel leaves searing traces of emotional impact long after you read it.

By Marie Redonnet, Alexandra Quinn (translator),

Why should I read it?

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

What is this book about?

Candy Story recounts a turbulent year in the life of Mia, a young woman whose apparent calm is perpetually threatened by inner doubts and outer catastrophe. Her modest dreams of happiness are dashed by the deaths of her mother, old friends, and her lover. Mia is a talented writer, the author of an autobiographical novel. Now, assailed by calamity and misfortune, she struggles with writer's block, confounded-at least for the moment-by the senseless world around her. Candy Story is the fourth novel by Marie Redonnet. Translations of the first three-Hotel Splendid, Forever Valley, and Rose Mellie Rose-are also available from…


Book cover of Fiasco: The Inside Story of a Wall Street Trader

Samuel Buell Author Of Capital Offenses: Business Crime and Punishment in America's Corporate Age

From my list on corporate crime.

Why am I passionate about this?

I teach the law and enforcement of corporate crime as a law professor. At the outset of the course, I tell the students that corporate crime is a problem, not a body of law. You have to start by thinking about the problem. How do these things occur? What is the psychology, both individual and institutional? What are the economic incentives at each level and with each player? What role do lawyers play? When do regulatory arrangements cause rather than prevent this kind of thing?  If the locution were not too awkward, I might call the field “scandalology.” I love every one of these books because they do such a great job of telling the human stories through which we can ask the most interesting and important questions about how corporate crimes happen.

Samuel's book list on corporate crime

Samuel Buell Why did Samuel love this book?

Partnoy, a distinguished law professor at Berkeley, is a brilliant chronicler of the people and products in modern financial markets. One could read any of his books and say they were among the best ones on the market and corporate chicanery. But I love his first book, in which he tells the tale of his brief time trading derivatives—back in the very early days of those now world-famous products—among the unsavory characters of a Wall Street trading floor. The story has been told by others since (Wolf of Wall Street, Big Short, etc.) but Partnoy may have done it first. And seeing that world through his young, brilliant, and impressionistic eyes is wonderful. His firm tried to block him from publishing the book, but he did it and has gone on to a magnificent academic career in which he continues to tell it like it is, understanding the…

By Frank Partnoy,

Why should I read it?

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

What is this book about?

FIASCO is the shocking story of one man's education in the jungles of Wall Street. As a young derivatives salesman at Morgan Stanley, Frank Partnoy learned to buy and sell billions of dollars worth of securities that were so complex many traders themselves didn't understand them. In his behind-the-scenes look at the trading floor and the offices of one of the world's top investment firms, Partnoy recounts the macho attitudes and fiercely competitive ploys of his office mates. And he takes us to the annual drunken skeet-shooting competition, FIASCO, where he and his colleagues sharpen the killer instincts they are…


Book cover of Tracers in the Dark: The Global Hunt for the Crime Lords of Cryptocurrency

Andrew Chow Author Of Cryptomania: Hype, Hope, and the Fall of Ftx's Billion-Dollar Fintech Empire

From my list on understanding crypto in 2024.

Why am I passionate about this?

Crypto’s rollercoaster journey has given rise to some of the most thrilling real-life tales of the last two decades. These tales teem with personal drama and reveal much larger truths: about our fractured global moment, about the ripple effects of well-intentioned technological systems, and about the massive divide between how we want society to function and how it actually does. 

As much as some people wish it dead, crypto is not going away any time soon. Many of its followers have adopted a religious-like belief that it will transform humanity and bring unlimited wealth to its followers; others simply believe it to be a good investment. Their collective trust in these strange digital currencies means that crypto will continue to shape the world in unpredictable ways. 

Andrew's book list on understanding crypto in 2024

Andrew Chow Why did Andrew love this book?

Like The Departed or No Country For Old Men, Andy Greenberg’s book is a cat-and-mouse thriller in which tireless law enforcement officials chase shrewd criminals across the globe, eventually revealing the horrifying human toll left in their wake.

The cryptocurrency industry isn’t synonymous with crime, but it has facilitated vast amounts of illegal activity. Greenberg, however, shows that the unique qualities of the blockchain have also made it shockingly easy for the feds to chase down their targets. 

By Andy Greenberg,

Why should I read it?

3 authors picked Tracers in the Dark as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

From the award-winning author of Sandworm comes the propulsive story of a new breed of investigators who have cracked the Bitcoin blockchain, exposing once-anonymous realms of money, drugs, and violence. “I love the book… It reads like a thriller… These stories are amazing.” (Michael Lewis)

Over the last decade, a single innovation has massively fueled digital black markets: cryptocurrency. Crime lords inhabiting lawless corners of the internet have operated more freely—whether in drug dealing, money laundering, or human trafficking—than their analog counterparts could have ever dreamed of. By transacting not in dollars or pounds but in currencies with anonymous ledgers,…


Book cover of The Big Short
Book cover of The Billionaire's Apprentice
Book cover of The Hour Between Dog and Wolf: How Risk Taking Transforms Us, Body and Mind

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Interested in the financial crisis of 2007–2008, financial crises, and cryptocurrency?

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