100 books like They Call Me Supermensch

This was the book that kicked off my obsession with mind control, social psychology, and media hacking. Ryan Holiday is one of the modern era's best marketers, and he's a pretty great writer as well. When he ran the marketing at American Apparel (at twenty-something), he took hype to new heights.

A small list of some of his stunts: Hiring a porn star to pose in nothing but socks in an ad for a clothing company, secretly defacing his own clients' billboards to generate publicity, and provoking a famous Internet media startup legend to threaten to punch him in the face in order to drive up book sales.

In this book, he reveals all his tricks while delivering a scathing critique of the broken system that let him do what he did.

It was during the earliest days of the first Trump campaign, and I was reading this one-hundred-plus-year-old book with one of the first debates playing in the background. It felt like he had used this book as his operating manual (although I'm almost positive he never read it). When I got home, I started telling my friends, "I think this guy could win." They thought I was crazy. The rest was history.

This book is the definition of timeless. Le Bon was remarkably perceptive about what makes groups of people react in certain ways and how leaders can get them to do their bidding. 

I have to admit it: I’m pretty sure I bought this book in my early twenties with less-than-pure intentions. It didn’t end up doing much for my romantic life, but it changed the way I think forever after.

In writing about how to get attractive people to fall into your arms (and into your bed), Robert Greene makes no distinction between seducing an individual and seducing an audience of millions. It’s one of those books that makes you feel like you want to take a shower. Then again, most of my favorite books make me feel that way.

This one is a pure a page turner. It’s about a man named “Dr.” John R. Brinkley who became one of the richest people in the country by selling a procedure in which he transplanted goat testicles into healthy adult males. He was responsible for the deaths of nearly fifty people, came a few votes shy of becoming governor of Arkansas, and more or less invented modern marketing. What’s not to like?

Newbie novelist Jacqueline Susann created an iconic all-time bestseller with her tale of three young glamazons who vault to the show business heights, only to tumble into a pit of addictions, poor choices in men, and delightfully overripe dialogue. Susann made her sweeping, sexy soap opera shenanigans even more irresistible by patterning her characters on such 20th-century headline-makers as Marilyn Monroe, Judy Garland, Grace Kelly, Ethel Merman, and the Kennedys. Said publicity-savvy Susann, “They can keep calling it that ‘roman à clef'. It’ll only make my books sell.” They did. It did. Although the sanitized and critically bashed 1967 movie version toned down the à clef elements, it became a box-office smash that has gone on to become enshrined as a kitsch classic.

A list of play recommendations from me has to include something by Martin McDonagh who is now garnering serious attention as a filmmaker.

I chose The Cripple of Inishmaan because of its dynamic main character “Cripple” Billy Craven who yearns to escape the poverty and boredom of his life on an Aran island off the west coast of Ireland. Billy begins to envision a future for himself in Hollywood when he learns about a film shoot on a neighboring island and has to figure out a way to get over there.

I love the strange world of this play and how it is revealed through the characters we meet, such as Billy’s Aunt Kate who talks to stones; Johnnypateenmike, the town gossip; and Helen McCormick, Billy’s ever-feisty friend.

We believe you can learn more from failure than success. Misfires don’t come much bigger than the 1990 adaptation of Tom Wolfe’s blockbuster novel The Bonfire of the Vanities. The movie busted nary a block, which only makes director Brian De Palma’s willingness to open up the process to reporter/critic Salamon more remarkable.

This visits every department—including our favorite, costume design—and underscores that no one knows if a movie will be a smash or a flop while they’re making it, so cast and crew work just as hard on both. We love the story of second-unit director Eric Schwab seizing the opportunity to prove himself.

I’ve read this book a few times, and I honestly can’t tell if it’s a praise or a damning critique of Los Angeles. I think that West–like myself and so many others–is addicted to Los Angeles and is still a bit critical of it.

Tod Hackett is a trained artist who comes to Hollywood to work in set and costume design. Like most outsiders, he sees the city as a projection of all his dreams and nightmares. Set in the 1930s, this book is a moving carnival of outsized stereotypes and winning caricatures. The entire thing feels like a carnival. Read this if you love the Golden Age of Hollywood.

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).

Carrie Fischer became an icon after playing Princess Leia in the original Star Wars trilogy, but there’s a whole subpopulation of women who idolize Carrie and still mourn her death for an entirely different reason. We love her writing, and also who she was – honest, vulnerable, subversive, and hilarious. In my 20s, I read three Carrie Fischer novels in a row. Sometimes you have that youthful moment when you connect with the voice of a writer so strongly, that you become forever devoted to them. For me, this author was Carrie Fischer. The novel is about an actress who goes to rehab, so, like the others mentioned here, there’s an autobiographical thread running through it. I love Carrie’s honest writing, her wicked insights into the human condition, and her heroic sense of humor in the face of being a woman in Hollywood and on the planet.