Recommendations
Swindling
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Creative Nonfiction
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The Blonger Bros.
by Craig and Scott Johnson The most comprehensive site on the web about the Big Con, concentrating on Lou Blonger and Denver, with a bottomless trove of photographs, primary documents, biographies, and timelines On Cooling the Mark Out: Some Aspects of Adaptation to Failure by Erving Goffman The classic sociological essay that uses the final stage of the Big Con to explain how our culture saves face in situations like firing someone from a job The Perfect Mark by Mitchell Zuckoff in the New Yorker How a Massachusetts psychotherapist fell for a Nigerian 419 scheme Pirate of the Caribbean by Bryan Burrough in Vanity Fair Robert Allen Stanford—the Madoff wannabe Broken Trust in God’s Country by Diana B. Henriques in the New York Times The Amish Ponzi scheme; or, Capitalism, the equal opportunity corrupter The Pickpocket’s Tale by Adam Green in the New Yorker Apollo Robbins steals from you for fun, not profit The Encyclopedia of Scams Created by Nicholas J. Jonson, Australia’s Honest Con Man, this website is perhaps most useful for its list of swindler movies. Secrets and Lies about the Bailout by Matt Taibbi in Rolling Stone Just what you suspected: the financial industry bailout is a Ponzi scheme Don’t Blink! The Hazards of Confidence by Daniel Kahneman in the New York Times Magazine Magicians and con men: 1; Malcolm Gladwell: 0 When Dickens met Doestoevsky by Eric Naiman in the TLS A very, very long con in academia. If no one pays attention to your work, just fake your own audience. |
Mr. Wilson's Cabinet of Wonders
Lawrence Weschler Blood Done Sign My Name Timothy Tyson Bad Land: An American Romance Jonathan Raban Arcadian America Aaron Sachs The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks Rebecca Skloot The Beak of the Finch Jonathan Weiner A Primate's Memoir Robert Sapolsky Debt: The First 5000 Years David Graeber The Secret History of Wonder Woman Jill Lepore |