The Reading List

Books I've read recently:

Chadwick, Bruce. "Triumvirate"-Nonfiction about the ratification of the Constitution.

Not as engaging as I thought. I think I wasn't entirely in the mood.


Scotti, RA. "Vanished Smile"-Nonfiction about the 1911 theft of the Mona Lisa.

Fascinating. Did you know the Mona Lisa was stolen? I didn't.


Irving, Clifford. "The Hoax"-Nonfiction about Irving's faux autobiography of Howard Hughes

Was made into a movie starring Richard Gere. Not bad, actually. A fine glimpse at how something that sounds fun can spin out of control.


Ben Veniste, Richard. "The Emperor's New Clothes"-Non fiction about the author's role in investigating government scandals from Watergate to the 9/11 Commission.

Great. I am a bit of a Watergate geek, so this was heaven for me, but the other stories were just as good.

Belfort, Jordan. "Catching the Wolf of Wall Street"-Nonfiction about the author's journey from Wall Street to prison.

Belfort ran an investment firm called Stratton Oakmont that was making money hand over fist for quite a while before Belfort got nabbed. This, along with his earlier work "The Wolf of Wall Street" is a no holds barred account of the cheating, the lying, the money, the drugs, and the women. Very Dionysian.

Stoll, Clifford. "The Cuckoo's Egg"-Nonfiction about the author's efforts to catch a computer hacker.

I read this a couple of times before, but I got it out of the library to read again. It is astonishingly out of date for a 20 year old book, but the adventure story of trying to catch the guy holds up.