NEW INFO 5 Results from share redemption are posted. Less than .2% redeemed. Very bullish as investors are showing extreme confidence in the future of PLBY.
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/playboy-mountain-crest-acquisition-corp-120000721.html
NEW INFO 4 Definitive Agreement to purchase 100% of Lovers brand stores announced 2/1.
https://www.streetinsider.com/Corporate+News/Playboy+%28MCAC%29+Confirms+Deal+to+Acquire+Lovers/17892359.html
NEW INFO 3 I bought more on the dip today. 5081 total. Price rose AH to $12.38 (2.15%)
NEW INFO 2 Here is the full webinar.
https://icrinc.zoom.us/rec/play/9GWKdmOYumjWfZuufW3QXpe_FW_g--qeNbg6PnTjTMbnNTgLmCbWjeRFpQga1iPc-elpGap8dnDv8Zww.yD7DjUwuPmapeEdP?continueMode=true&tk=lEYc4F_FkKlgsmCIs6w0gtGHT2kbgVGbUju3cIRBSjk.DQIAAAAV8NK49xZWdldRM2xNSFNQcTBmcE00UzM3bXh3AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA&uuid=WN_GKWqbHkeSyuWetJmLFkj4g&_x_zm_rtaid=kR45-uuqRE-L65AxLjpbQw.1611967079119.2c054e3d3f8d8e63339273d9175939ed&_x_zm_rhtaid=866
NEW INFO 1 Live merger webinar with PLBY and MCAC on Friday January 29, 2021 at 12:00 NOON EST link below
https://mcacquisition.com/investor-relations/press-release-details/2021/Playboy-Enterprises-Inc.-and-Mountain-Crest-Acquisition-Corp-Participate-in-SPACInsider-ICR-Webinar-on-January-29th-at-12pm-ET/default.aspx
Playboy going public: Porn, Gambling, and Cannabis
!!!WARNING READING AHEAD!!! TL;DR at the end. It will take some time to sort through all the links and read/watch everything, but you should.
In the next couple weeks, Mountain Crest Acquisition Corp is taking Playboy public. The existing ticker MCAC will become PLBY. Special purpose acquisition companies have taken private companies public in recent months with great success. I believe this will be no exception. Notably, Playboy is profitable and has skyrocketing revenue going into a transformational growth phase.
Porn - First and foremost, let's talk about porn. I know what you guys are thinking. “Porno mags are dead. Why would I want to invest in something like that? I can get porn for free online.” Guess what? You are absolutely right. And that’s exactly why Playboy doesn’t do that anymore. That’s right, they eliminated their print division. And yet they somehow STILL make money from porn that people (see: boomers) pay for on their website through PlayboyTV, Playboy Plus, and iPlayboy. Here’s the thing: Playboy has international, multi-generational name recognition from porn. They have content available in 180 countries. It will be the only publicly traded adult entertainment (porn) company. But that is not where this company is going. It will help support them along the way. You can see every Playboy magazine through iPlayboy if you’re interested. NSFW links below:
https://www.playboy.com/
https://www.playboytv.com/
https://www.playboyplus.com/
https://www.iplayboy.com/
Gambling - Some of you might recognize the Playboy brand from gambling trips to places like Las Vegas, Atlantic City, Cancun, London or Macau. They’ve been in the gambling biz for decades through their casinos, clubs, and licensed gaming products. They see the writing on the wall. COVID is accelerating the transition to digital, application based GAMBLING. That’s right. What we are doing on Robinhood with risky options is gambling, and the only reason regulators might give a shit anymore is because we are making too much money. There may be some restrictions put in place, but gambling from your phone on your couch is not going anywhere. More and more states are allowing things like Draftkings, poker, state ‘lottery” apps, hell - even political betting. Michigan and Virginia just ok’d gambling apps. They won’t be the last. This is all from your couch and any 18 year old with a cracked iphone can access it. Wouldn’t it be cool if Playboy was going to do something like that? They’re already working on it. As per CEO Ben Kohn who we will get to later, “...the company’s casino-style digital gaming products with Scientific Games and Microgaming continue to see significant global growth.” Honestly, I stopped researching Scientific Games' sports betting segment when I saw the word ‘omni-channel’. That told me all I needed to know about it’s success.
“Our SG Sports™ platform is an enhanced, omni-channel solution for online, self-service and retail fixed odds sports betting – from soccer to tennis, basketball, football, baseball, hockey, motor sports, racing and more.”
https://www.scientificgames.com/
https://www.microgaming.co.uk/
“This latter segment has become increasingly enticing for Playboy, and it said last week that it is considering new tie-ups that could include gaming operators like PointsBet and 888Holdings.”
https://calvinayre.com/2020/10/05/business/playboys-gaming-ops-could-get-a-boost-from-spac-purchase/
As per their SEC filing:
“Significant consumer engagement and spend with Playboy-branded gaming properties around the world, including with leading partners such as Microgaming, Scientific Games, and Caesar’s Entertainment, steers our investment in digital gaming, sports betting and other digital offerings to further support our commercial strategy to expand consumer spend with minimal marginal cost, and gain consumer data to inform go-to-market plans across categories.”
https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgadata/1803914/000110465921005986/tm2034213-12_defm14a.htm#tMDAA1
They are expanding into more areas of gaming/gambling, working with international players in the digital gaming/gambling arena, and a Playboy sportsbook is on the horizon.
https://www.playboy.com/read/the-pleasure-of-playing-with-yourself-mobile-gaming-in-the-covid-era
Cannabis - If you’ve ever read through a Playboy magazine, you know they’ve had a positive relationship with cannabis for many years. As of September 2020, Playboy has made a major shift into the cannabis space. Too good to be true you say? Check their website. Playboy currently sells a range of CBD products. This is a good sign. Federal hemp products, which these most likely are, can be mailed across state lines and most importantly for a company like Playboy, can operate through a traditional banking institution. CBD products are usually the first step towards the cannabis space for large companies. Playboy didn’t make these products themselves meaning they are working with a processor in the cannabis industry. Another good sign for future expansion. What else do they have for sale? Pipes, grinders, ashtrays, rolling trays, joint holders. Hmm. Ok. So it looks like they want to sell some shit. They probably don’t have an active interest in cannabis right? Think again:
https://www.forbes.com/sites/javierhasse/2020/09/24/playboy-gets-serious-about-cannabis-law-reform-advocacy-with-new-partnership-grants/?sh=62f044a65cea
“Taking yet another step into the cannabis space, Playboy will be announcing later on Thursday (September, 2020) that it is launching a cannabis law reform and advocacy campaign in partnership with National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML), Last Prisoner Project, Marijuana Policy Project, the Veterans Cannabis Project, and the Eaze Momentum Program.”
“According to information procured exclusively, the three-pronged campaign will focus on calling for federal legalization. The program also includes the creation of a mentorship plan, through which the Playboy Foundation will support entrepreneurs from groups that are underrepresented in the industry.” Remember that CEO Kohn from earlier? He wrote this recently:
https://medium.com/naked-open-letters-from-playboy/congress-must-pass-the-more-act-c867c35239ae
Seems like he really wants weed to be legal? Hmm wonder why? The writing's on the wall my friends. Playboy wants into the cannabis industry, they are making steps towards this end, and we have favorable conditions for legislative progress.
Don’t think branding your own cannabis line is profitable or worthwhile? Tell me why these 41 celebrity millionaires and billionaires are dummies. I’ll wait.
https://www.celebstoner.com/news/celebstoner-news/2019/07/12/top-celebrity-cannabis-brands/
Confirmation: I hear you. “This all seems pretty speculative. It would be wildly profitable if they pull this shift off. But how do we really know?” Watch this whole video:
https://finance.yahoo.com/video/playboy-ceo-telling-story-female-154907068.html
Man - this interview just gets my juices flowing. And highlights one of my favorite reasons for this play. They have so many different business avenues from which a catalyst could appear. I think paying attention, holding shares, and options on these staggered announcements over the next year is the way I am going to go about it. "There's definitely been a shift to direct-to-consumer," he (Kohn) said. "About 50 percent of our revenue today is direct-to-consumer, and that will continue to grow going forward.” “Kohn touted Playboy's portfolio of both digital and consumer products, with casino-style gaming, in particular, serving a crucial role under the company's new business model. Playboy also has its sights on the emerging cannabis market, from CBD products to marijuana products geared toward sexual health and pleasure.” "If THC does become legal in the United States, we have developed certain strains to enhance your sex life that we will launch," Kohn said. https://cheddar.com/media/playboy-goes-public-health-gaming-lifestyle-focus Oh? The CEO actually said it? Ok then. “We have developed certain strains…” They’re already working with growers on strains and genetics? Ok. There are several legal cannabis markets for those products right now, international and stateside. I expect Playboy licensed hemp and THC pre-rolls by EOY. Something like this: https://www.etsy.com/listing/842996758/10-playboy-pre-roll-tubes-limited?ga_order=most_relevant&ga_search_type=all&ga_view_type=gallery&ga_search_query=pre+roll+playboy&ref=sr_gallery-1-2&organic_search_click=1 Maintaining cannabis operations can be costly and a regulatory headache. Playboy’s licensing strategy allows them to pick successful, established partners and sidestep traditional barriers to entry. You know what I like about these new markets? They’re expanding. Worldwide. And they are going to be a bigger deal than they already are with or without Playboy. Who thinks weed and gambling are going away? Too many people like that stuff. These are easy markets. And Playboy is early enough to carve out their spot in each. Fuck it, read this too: https://www.forbes.com/sites/jimosman/2020/10/20/playboy-could-be-the-king-of-spacs-here-are-three-picks/?sh=2e13dcaa3e05
Numbers: You want numbers? I got numbers. As per the company’s most recent SEC filing:
“For the year ended December 31, 2019, and the nine months ended September 30, 2020, Playboy’s historical consolidated revenue was $78.1 million and $101.3 million, respectively, historical consolidated net income (loss) was $(23.6) million and $(4.8) million, respectively, and Adjusted EBITDA was $13.1 million and $21.8 million, respectively.”
“In the nine months ended September 30, 2020, Playboy’s Licensing segment contributed $44.2 million in revenue and $31.1 million in net income.”
“In the ninth months ended September 30, 2020, Playboy’s Direct-to-Consumer segment contributed $40.2 million in revenue and net income of $0.1 million.”
“In the nine months ended September 30, 2020, Playboy’s Digital Subscriptions and Content segment contributed $15.4 million in revenue and net income of $7.4 million.”
They are profitable across all three of their current business segments.
“Playboy’s return to the public markets presents a transformed, streamlined and high-growth business. The Company has over $400 million in cash flows contracted through 2029, sexual wellness products available for sale online and in over 10,000 major retail stores in the US, and a growing variety of clothing and branded lifestyle and digital gaming products.”
https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgadata/1803914/000110465921005986/tm2034213-12_defm14a.htm#tSHCF
Growth: Playboy has massive growth in China and massive growth potential in India. “In China, where Playboy has spent more than 25 years building its business, our licensees have an enormous footprint of nearly 2,500 brick and mortar stores and 1,000 ecommerce stores selling high quality, Playboy-branded men’s casual wear, shoes/footwear, sleepwear, swimwear, formal suits, leather & non-leather goods, sweaters, active wear, and accessories. We have achieved significant growth in China licensing revenues over the past several years in partnership with strong licensees and high-quality manufacturers, and we are planning for increased growth through updates to our men’s fashion lines and expansion into adjacent categories in men’s skincare and grooming, sexual wellness, and women’s fashion, a category where recent launches have been well received.” The men’s market in China is about the same size as the entire population of the United States and European Union combined. Playboy is a leading brand in this market. They are expanding into the women’s market too. Did you know CBD toothpaste is huge in China? China loves CBD products and has hemp fields that dwarf those in the US. If Playboy expands their CBD line China it will be huge. Did you know the gambling money in Macau absolutely puts Las Vegas to shame? Technically, it's illegal on the mainland, but in reality, there is a lot of gambling going on in China. https://www.forbes.com/sites/javierhasse/2020/10/19/magic-johnson-and-uncle-buds-cbd-brand-enter-china-via-tmall-partnership/?sh=271776ca411e “In India, Playboy today has a presence through select apparel licensees and hospitality establishments. Consumer research suggests significant growth opportunities in the territory with Playboy’s brand and categories of focus.” “Playboy Enterprises has announced the expansion of its global consumer products business into India as part of a partnership with Jay Jay Iconic Brands, a leading fashion and lifestyle Company in India.” “The Indian market today is dominated by consumers under the age of 35, who represent more than 65 percent of the country’s total population and are driving India’s significant online shopping growth. The Playboy brand’s core values of playfulness and exploration resonate strongly with the expressed desires of today’s younger millennial consumers. For us, Playboy was the perfect fit.” “The Playboy international portfolio has been flourishing for more than 25 years in several South Asian markets such as China and Japan. In particular, it has strategically targeted the millennial and gen-Z audiences across categories such as apparel, footwear, home textiles, eyewear and watches.” https://www.licenseglobal.com/industry-news/playboy-expands-global-footprint-india It looks like they gave COVID the heisman in terms of net damage sustained: “Although Playboy has not suffered any material adverse consequences to date from the COVID-19 pandemic, the business has been impacted both negatively and positively. The remote working and stay-at-home orders resulted in the closure of the London Playboy Club and retail stores of Playboy’s licensees, decreasing licensing revenues in the second quarter, as well as causing supply chain disruption and less efficient product development thereby slowing the launch of new products. However, these negative impacts were offset by an increase in Yandy’s direct-to-consumer sales, which have benefited in part from overall increases in online retail sales so far during the pandemic.” Looks like the positives are long term (Yandy acquisition) and the negatives are temporary (stay-at-home orders).
https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgadata/1803914/000110465921006093/tm213766-1_defa14a.htm
This speaks to their ability to maintain a financially solvent company throughout the transition phase to the aforementioned areas. They’d say some fancy shit like “expanded business model to encompass four key revenue streams: Sexual Wellness, Style & Apparel, Gaming & Lifestyle, and Beauty & Grooming.” I hear “we’re just biding our time with these trinkets until those dollar dollar bill y’all markets are fully up and running.” But the truth is these existing revenue streams are profitable, scalable, and rapidly expanding Playboy’s e-commerce segment around the world.
"Even in the face of COVID this year, we've been able to grow EBITDA over 100 percent and revenue over 68 percent, and I expect that to accelerate going into 2021," he said. “Playboy is accelerating its growth in company-owned and branded consumer products in attractive and expanding markets in which it has a proven history of brand affinity and consumer spend.”
Also in the SEC filing, the Time Frame:
“As we detailed in the definitive proxy statement, the SPAC stockholder meeting to vote on the transaction has been set for February 9th, and, subject to stockholder approval and satisfaction of the other closing conditions, we expect to complete the merger and begin trading on NASDAQ under ticker PLBY shortly thereafter,” concluded Kohn.
The Players: Suhail “The Whale” Rizvi (HMFIC), Ben “The Bridge” Kohn (CEO), “lil” Suying Liu & “Big” Dong Liu (Young-gun China gang). I encourage you to look these folks up. The real OG here is Suhail Rizvi. He’s from India originally and Chairman of the Board for the new PLBY company. He was an early investor in Twitter, Square, Facebook and others. His firm, Rizvi Traverse, currently invests in Instacart, Pinterest, Snapchat, Playboy, and SpaceX. Maybe you’ve heard of them. “Rizvi, who owns a sprawling three-home compound in Greenwich, Connecticut, and a 1.65-acre estate in Palm Beach, Florida, near Bill Gates and Michael Bloomberg, moved to Iowa Falls when he was five. His father was a professor of psychology at Iowa. Along with his older brother Ashraf, a hedge fund manager, Rizvi graduated from Wharton business school.” “Suhail Rizvi: the 47-year-old 'unsocial' social media baron: When Twitter goes public in the coming weeks (2013), one of the biggest winners will be a 47-year-old financier who guards his secrecy so zealously that he employs a person to take down his Wikipedia entry and scrub his photos from the internet. In IPO, Twitter seeks to be 'anti-FB'” “Prince Alwaleed bin Talal of Saudi Arabia looks like a big Twitter winner. So do the moneyed clients of Jamie Dimon. But as you’ve-got-to-be-joking wealth washed over Twitter on Thursday — a company that didn’t exist eight years ago was worth $31.7 billion after its first day on the stock market — the non-boldface name of the moment is Suhail R. Rizvi. Mr. Rizvi, 47, runs a private investment company that is the largest outside investor in Twitter with a 15.6 percent stake worth $3.8 billion at the end of trading on Thursday (November, 2013). Using a web of connections in the tech industry and in finance, as well as a hearty dose of good timing, he brought many prominent names in at the ground floor, including the Saudi prince and some of JPMorgan’s wealthiest clients.” https://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/08/technology/at-twitter-working-behind-the-scenes-toward-a-billion-dollar-payday.html Y’all like that Arab money? How about a dude that can call up Saudi Princes and convince them to spend? Funniest shit about I read about him: “Rizvi was able to buy only $100 million in Facebook shortly before its IPO, thus limiting his returns, according to people with knowledge of the matter.” Poor guy :(
He should be fine with the 16 million PLBY shares he's going to have though :)
Shuhail also has experience in the entertainment industry. He’s invested in companies like SESAC, ICM, and Summit Entertainment. He’s got Hollywood connections to blast this stuff post-merger. And he’s at least partially responsible for that whole Twilight thing. I’m team Edward btw.
I really like what Suhail has done so far. He’s lurked in the shadows while Kohn is consolidating the company, trimming the fat, making Playboy profitable, and aiming the ship at modern growing markets.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-twitter-ipo-rizvi-insight/insight-little-known-hollywood-investor-poised-to-score-with-twitter-ipo-idUSBRE9920VW20131003
Ben “The Bridge” Kohn is an interesting guy. He’s the connection between Rizvi Traverse and Playboy. He’s both CEO of Playboy and was previously Managing Partner at Rizvi Traverse. Ben seems to be the voice of the Playboy-Rizvi partnership, which makes sense with Suhail’s privacy concerns. Kohn said this:
“Today is a very big day for all of us at Playboy and for all our partners globally. I stepped into the CEO role at Playboy in 2017 because I saw the biggest opportunity of my career. Playboy is a brand and platform that could not be replicated today. It has massive global reach, with more than $3B of global consumer spend and products sold in over 180 countries. Our mission – to create a culture where all people can pursue pleasure – is rooted in our 67-year history and creates a clear focus for our business and role we play in people’s lives, providing them with the products, services and experiences that create a lifestyle of pleasure. We are taking this step into the public markets because the committed capital will enable us to accelerate our product development and go-to-market strategies and to more rapidly build our direct to consumer capabilities,” said Ben Kohn, CEO of Playboy.
“Playboy today is a highly profitable commerce business with a total addressable market projected in the trillions of dollars,” Mr. Kohn continued, “We are actively selling into the Sexual Wellness consumer category, projected to be approximately $400 billion in size by 2024, where our recently launched intimacy products have rolled out to more than 10,000 stores at major US retailers in the United States. Combined with our owned & operated ecommerce Sexual Wellness initiatives, the category will contribute more than 40% of our revenue this year. In our Apparel and Beauty categories, our collaborations with high-end fashion brands including Missguided and PacSun are projected to achieve over $50M in retail sales across the US and UK this year, our leading men’s apparel lines in China expanded to nearly 2500 brick and mortar stores and almost 1000 digital stores, and our new men’s and women’s fragrance line recently launched in Europe. In Gaming, our casino-style digital gaming products with Scientific Games and Microgaming continue to see significant global growth. Our product strategy is informed by years of consumer data as we actively expand from a purely licensing model into owning and operating key high-growth product lines focused on driving profitability and consumer lifetime value. We are thrilled about the future of Playboy. Our foundation has been set to drive further growth and margin, and with the committed capital from this transaction and our more than $180M in NOLs, we will take advantage of the opportunity in front of us, building to our goal of $100M of adjusted EBITDA in 2025.”
https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20201001005404/en/Playboy-to-Become-a-Public-Company
Also, according to their Form 4s, “Big” Dong Liu and “lil” Suying Liu just loaded up with shares last week. These guys are brothers and seem like the Chinese market connection. They are only 32 & 35 years old. I don’t even know what that means, but it's provocative.
https://www.secform4.com/insider-trading/1832415.htm
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/mountain-crest-acquisition-corp-ii-002600994.html
Y’all like that China money?
“Mr. Liu has been the Chief Financial Officer of Dongguan Zhishang Photoelectric Technology Co., Ltd., a regional designer, manufacturer and distributor of LED lights serving commercial customers throughout Southern China since November 2016, at which time he led a syndicate of investments into the firm. Mr. Liu has since overseen the financials of Dongguan Zhishang as well as provided strategic guidance to its board of directors, advising on operational efficiency and cash flow performance. From March 2010 to October 2016, Mr. Liu was the Head of Finance at Feidiao Electrical Group Co., Ltd., a leading Chinese manufacturer of electrical outlets headquartered in Shanghai and with businesses in the greater China region as well as Europe.”
Dr. Suying Liu, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Mountain Crest Acquisition Corp., commented, “Playboy is a unique and compelling investment opportunity, with one of the world’s largest and most recognized brands, its proven consumer affinity and spend, and its enormous future growth potential in its four product segments and new and existing geographic regions. I am thrilled to be partnering with Ben and his exceptional team to bring his vision to fruition.”
https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20201001005404/en/Playboy-to-Become-a-Public-Company
These guys are good. They have a proven track record of success across multiple industries. Connections and money run deep with all of these guys. I don’t think they’re in the game to lose.
I was going to write a couple more paragraphs about why you should have a look at this but really the best thing you can do is read this SEC filing from a couple days ago. It explains the situation in far better detail. Specifically, look to page 137 and read through their strategy. Also, look at their ownership percentages and compensation plans including the stock options and their prices. The financials look great, revenue is up 90% Q3, and it looks like a bright future.
https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgadata/1803914/000110465921005986/tm2034213-12_defm14a.htm#tSHCF
I’m hesitant to attach this because his position seems short term, but I’m going to with a warning because he does hit on some good points (two are below his link) and he’s got a sizable position in this thing (500k+ on margin, I think). I don’t know this guy but he did look at the same publicly available info and make roughly the same prediction, albeit without the in depth gambling or cannabis mention. You can also search reddit for ‘MCAC’ and very few relevant results come up and none of them even come close to really looking at this thing.
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1gOvAd6lebs452hFlWWbxVjQ3VMsjGBkbJeXRwDwIJfM/edit?usp=sharing
“Also, before you people start making claims that Playboy is a “boomer” company, STOP RIGHT THERE. This is not a good argument. Simply put. The only thing that matters is Playboy’s name recognition, not their archaic business model which doesn’t even exist anymore as they have completely repurposed their business.”
“Imagine not buying $MCAC at a 400M valuation lol. Streetwear department is worth 1B alone imo.”
Considering the ridiculous Chinese growth as a lifestyle brand, he’s not wrong.
Current Cultural Significance and Meme Value: A year ago I wouldn’t have included this section but the events from the last several weeks (even going back to tsla) have proven that a company’s ability to meme and/or gain social network popularity can have an effect. Tik-tok, Snapchat, Twitch, Reddit, Youtube, Facebook, Twitter. They all have Playboy stuff on them. Kids in middle and highschool know what Playboy is but will likely never see or touch one of the magazines in person. They’ll have a Playboy hoodie though. Crazy huh? A lot like GME, PLBY would hugely benefit from meme-value stock interest to drive engagement towards their new business model while also building strategic coffers. This interest may not directly and/or significantly move the stock price but can generate significant interest from larger players who will.
Bull Case: The year is 2025. Playboy is now the world leader pleasure brand. They began by offering Playboy licensed gaming products, including gambling products, direct to consumers through existing names. By 2022, demand has skyrocketed and Playboy has designed and released their own gambling platforms. In 2025, they are also a leading cannabis brand in the United States and Canada with proprietary strains and products geared towards sexual wellness. Cannabis was legalized in the US in 2023 when President Biden got glaucoma but had success with cannabis treatment. He personally pushes for cannabis legalization as he steps out of office after his first term. Playboy has also grown their brand in China and India to multi-billion per year markets. The stock goes up from 11ish to 100ish and everyone makes big gains buying somewhere along the way.
Bear Case: The United States does a complete 180 on marijuana and gambling. President Biden overdoses on marijuana in the Lincoln bedroom when his FDs go tits up and he loses a ton of money in his sports book app after the Fighting Blue Hens narrowly lose the National Championship to Bama. Playboy is unable to expand their cannabis and gambling brands but still does well with their worldwide lifestyle brand. They gain and lose some interest in China and India but the markets are too large to ignore them completely. The stock goes up from 11ish to 13ish and everyone makes 15-20% gains.
TL;DR: Successful technology/e-commerce investment firm took over Playboy to turn it into a porn, online gambling/gaming, sports book, cannabis company, worldwide lifestyle brand that promotes sexual wellness, vetern access, women-ownership, minority-ownership, and “pleasure for all”. Does a successful online team reinventing an antiquated physical copy giant sound familiar? No options yet, shares only for now. $11.38 per share at time of writing. My guess? $20 by the end of February. $50 by EOY. This is not financial advice. I am not qualified to give financial advice. I’m just sayin’ I would personally use a Playboy sports book app while smoking a Playboy strain specific joint and it would be cool if they did that. Do your own research. You’d probably want to start here:
WARNING - POTENTIALLY NSFW - SEXY MODELS AHEAD - no actual nudity though
https://s26.q4cdn.com/895475556/files/doc_presentations/Playboy-Craig-Hallum-Conference-Investor-Presentation-11_17_20-compressed.pdf
Or here:
https://www.mcacquisition.com/investor-relations/default.aspx
Jimmy Chill: “Get into any SPAC at $10 or $11 and you are going to make money.”
STL;DR: Buy MCAC. MCAC > PLBY couple weeks. Rocketship. Moon.
Position: 5000 shares. I will buy short, medium, and long-dated calls once available.

Best run in terms of anything
William Wyler: The Westerner, The Heiress, The Little Foxes, The Letter, The Best Years of Our Lives, Mrs. Miniver, Memphis Belle, and Thunderbolt.
Orson Welles: Citizen Kane, The Magnificent Ambersons, The Lady from Shanghai, Macbeth, Journey into Fear, The Stranger, Black Magic, and Follow the Boys.
John Huston: The Maltese Falcon, The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, Key Largo, We Were Strangers, In This Our Life, Across the Pacific, and Let There Be Light.
Howard Hawks: Red River, I Was a Male War Bride,A Song Is Born, To Have and Have Not, The Big Sleep, Sergeant York, His Girl Friday, Air Force, and Ball of Fire.
Alfred Hitchcock: Notorious, Rebecca, Shadow of a Doubt, Spellbound, Rope, Suspicion, Under Capricorn, Foreign Correspondent, Saboteur, Mr. & Mrs. Smith, Lifeboat, and The Paradine Case.
Preston Sturges: The Palm Beach Story, Sullivan's Travels, Unfaithfully Yours, The Great Moment, The Miracle of Morgan's Creek,I Married a Witch, Christmas in July, The Lady Eve, and The Great McGinty.
George Cukor: The Philadelphia Story, Gaslight, Adam's Rib, Susan and God, Her Cardboard Lover, Keeper of the Flame, Edward, My Son, A Double Life, I'll Be Seeing You, and Desire Me.
John Ford: The Grapes of Wrath, The Long Voyage Home, Tobacco Road, How Green Was My Valley, 3 Godfathers, December 7th: The Movie, My Darling Clementine, They Were Expendable, We Sail at Midnight, Fort Apache, Torpedo Squadron ,The Battle of Midway, How to Operate Behind Enemy Lines, She Wore a Yellow Ribbon, and The Fugitive.
Jacques Tourneur: Cat People, I Walked With a Zombie, Out of the Past, Canyon Passage, The Leopard Man, Phantom Raiders, Days of Glory, Easy Living, Experiment Perilous, and Berlin Express.
Vittorio De Sica: Shoeshine, Bicycle Thieves, Heart and Soul, The Children Are Watching Us, The Gates of Heaven, A Garibaldian in the Convent, Teresa Venerdì, Maddalena, Zero for Conduct, and Red Roses.
Roberto Rossellini: Rome, Open City, Paisan, Germany, Year Zero, L'Amore, The White Ship, A Pilot Returns, and The Man with a Cross.
Ernst Lubitsch: To Be or Not to Be, The Shop Around the Corner, Heaven Can Wait, Cluny Brown, That Uncertain Feeling, A Royal Scandal, and That Lady in Ermine.
Powell and Pressburger: The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp, The Red Shoes, A Canterbury Tale, I Know Where I'm Going!, A Matter of Life and Death, Black Narcissus, Contraband, 49th Parallel, One of Our Aircraft Is Missing,The Small Back Room, and An Airman's Letter to His Mother.
Michael Curtiz: Casablanca, Mildred Pierce, The Sea Wolf, Yankee Doodle Dandy, This Is the Army, Night and Day, Romance on the High Seas, Santa Fe Trail, Virginia City, The Sea Hawk, Captains of the Clouds, Dive Bomber, Life with Father, Mission to Moscow, Janie, Passage to Marseille, Roughly Speaking, The Unsuspected, My Dream Is Yours, Flamingo Road, and The Lady Takes a Sailor.
John M. Stahl: Leave Her to Heaven, The Foxes of Harrow, The Eve of St. Mark, Our Wife, Immortal Sergeant, Holy Matrimony, The Keys of the Kingdom, The Walls of Jericho, Father Was a Fullback, and Oh, You Beautiful Doll.
Billy Wilder: The Major and the Minor, The Lost Weekend, Double Indemnity, Five Graves to Cairo, Death Mills, The Emperor Waltz, and A Foreign Affair.
Nicholas Ray: They Live by Night, A Roseanna McCoy, Woman's Secret, and Knock on Any Door.
Elia Kazan: A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, Pinky, Boomerang, The Sea of Grass, and Gentleman's Agreement.
Frank Capra: It’s a Wonderful Life, Arsenic and Old Lace, State of the Union, and Meet John Doe.
Carol Reed: The Third Man, Odd Man Out, The Fallen Idol, The Stars Look Down, Girl in the News, A Letter from Home, Kipps, The Young Mr. Pitt, Night Train to Munich, The New Lot, and The Way Ahead.
David Lean: In Which We Serve, This Happy Breed, Brief Encounter, Blithe Spirit, Oliver Twist, Great Expectations, and The Passionate Friends.
Mervyn LeRoy: Waterloo Bridge, Random Harvest, Little Women, East Side, West Side, Without Reservations, Any Number Can Play, The House I Live In, Madame Curie, Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo, Blossoms in the Dust, Johnny Eager, Escape, and Homecoming.
Vincente Minnelli: Meet Me in St. Louis, I Dood It, Cabin in the Sky, Yolanda and the Thief, The Clock, Undercurrent, Ziegfeld Follies, The Pirate, Madame Bovary, and Till the Clouds Roll By.
Charles Walters: Ziegfeld Follies, Easter Parade, Good News, and The Barkleys of Broadway.
Leo McCarey: The Bells of St. Mary's and Once Upon a Honeymoon.
Jean Renoir: The Woman on the Beach, The Southerner, The Diary of a Chambermaid, Swamp Water, and This Land is Mine.
Anthony Mann: Moonlight in Havana, Sing Your Way Home, My Best Gal, Nobody's Darling, Dr. Broadway, Strangers in the Night, Bamboo Blonde, Raw Deal, T-Men, Desperate, Railroaded!, Border Incident, Reign of Terror, Two O'Clock Courage, and Strange Impersonation.
King Vidor: The Fountainhead, On Our Merry Way, Duel in the Sun, An American Romance, Comrade X, Northwest Passage, H. M. Pulham, Esq., and Beyond the Forest.
Robert Rossen: All The King’s Men, Johnny O'Clock, The Strange Love of Martha Ivers, A Child Is Born, Edge of Darkness, Out of the Fog, Blues in the Night, A Walk in the Sun, The Undercover Man, Desert Fury, and Body and Soul.
Fred Zinnemann: The Search, Kid Glove Killer, Eyes in the Night, The Clock, Act of Violence, The Seventh Cross, Little Mister Jim, and My Brother Talks to Horses.
Robert Wise: Criminal Court, The Curse of the Cat People, Mademoiselle Fifi, The Body Snatcher, Born to Kill, The Set-Up, A Game of Death, Blood on the Moon, and Mystery in Mexico.
Akira Kurosawa: Sanshiro Sugata, Sanshiro Sugata Part II, The Most Beautiful, One Wonderful Sunday, Drunken Angel, The Quiet Duel, Stray Dog, The Men Who Tread on the Tiger's Tail, and No Regrets for Our Youth.
Otto Preminger: Laura, Fallen Angel, Daisy Kenyon, Forever Amber, Whirl Pool, The Fan, Margin for Error, In the Meantime, Darling, and Centennial Summer.
Jules Dassin: Thieves' Highway, A Letter for Evie, Brute Force, Two Smart People, The Naked City, Young Ideas, The Canterville Ghost, Nazi Agent, The Tell-Tale Heart, The Affairs of Martha, and Reunion in France.
Charlie Chaplin: The Great Dictator, and Monsieur Verdoux. George Stevens: The More the Merrier, The Talk of the Town, Penny Serenade, Woman of the Year, Vigil in the Night, On Our Merry Way, The Nazi Plan, and I Remember Mama.
Yasujirô Ozu: Late Spring, Brothers and Sisters of the Toda Family, A Hen in the Wind, There Was a Father, and Record of a Tenement Gentleman.
Fritz Lang: Secret Beyond the Door, The Woman in the Window, Scarlet Street, Cloak and Dagger, Man Hunt, Ministry of Fear, Hangmen Also Die!, Western Union, Moon Tide, and The Return of Frank James.
Raoul Walsh: High Sierra, White Heat, Colorado Territory, Fighter Squadron, Silver River, Pursued, The Man I Love, Cheyenne, Uncertain Glory, Objective, Burma!, Manpower, Desperate Journey, Northern Pursuit, The Strawberry Blonde, They Died with Their Boots On, Gentleman Jim, Dark Command, and They Drive by Night.
Vincent Sherman: Nora Prentiss, Mr. Skeffington, Adventures of Don Juan, The Unfaithful, The Hard Way, Old Acquaintance, The Hasty Heart, In our Time, Pillow to Post, Janie Gets Married, Saturday's Children, The Man Who Talked Too Much, Underground, Flight from Destiny, Across the Pacific, and All Through the Night.
Anatole Litvak: The Snake Pit, City for Conquest, The Battle of Russia, Why We Fight, Sorry, Wrong Number, This Above All, The Long Night, All This, and Heaven Too, and Castle on the Hudson.
Max Ophüls: Caught, The Reckless Moment, The Exile, Letter from an Unknown Woman, Vendetta, and Sarajevo.
Charles Vidor: Gilda, Cover Girl, Over 21, The Loves of Carmen, The Tuttles of Tahiti, The Desperadoes, Together Again, A Song to Remember, The Man from Colorado, New York Town, Ladies in Retirement, My Son, My Son!, and The Lady in Question.
Edgar G. Ulmer: Detour, Isle of Forgotten Sins, Girls in Chains, Tomorrow We Live, Club Havana, The Strange Woman, My Son, the Hero, Jive Junction, Strange Illusion, Bluebeard, Her Sister's Secret, The Pirates of Capri, Ruthless, The Wife of Monte Cristo, and Carnegie Hall.
Victor Fleming: Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Joan of Arc, Adventure, A Guy Named Joe, and Tortilla Flat.
Joseph L. Mankiewicz: A Letter to Three Wives, Escape, House of Strangers, The Late George Apley, The Ghost and Mrs. Muir, Dragonwyck, and Somewhere in the Night.
Robert Bresson: Angels of Sin and Les Dames du Bois de Boulogne.
Luis Buñuel: Gran Casino and The Great Madcap.
Fei Mu: Spring in a Small Town, Confucius, The Beauty, A Wedding in the Dream, The Magnificent Country, Songs of Ancient China, and The Little Cowheard.
Kenji Mizoguchi: The 47 Ronin, A Woman of Osaka, Flame of My Love, The Love of the Actress Sumako, Victory Song, Utamaro and His Five Women, Women of the Night, Victory of Women, The Famous Sword Bijomaru, Three Generations of Danjuro, The Life of an Actor, and Miyamoto Musashi.
Douglas Sirk: Lured, Sleep, My Love, Hitler's Madman, Summer Storm, A Scandal in Paris, Shockproof, and Slightly French.
René Clément: The Battle of the Rails, The Damned, Mr. Orchid, and The Walls of Malapaga.
Robert Hamer: Kind Hearts and Coronets, The Spider and the Fly, It Always Rains on Sunday, San Demetrio London, and Pink String and Sealing Wax.
Robert Siodmak: Criss Cross, Cry of The City, Dark Mirror, Phantom Lady, The Killers, The Spiral Staircase, Christmas Holiday, The Strange Affair of Uncle Harry, Time Out of Mind, Son of Dracula, The Suspect, The Night Before the Divorce, Someone to Remember, Cobra Woman, The File on Thelma Jordon, The Great Sinner, West Point Widow, My Heart Belongs to Daddy, and Fly-by-Night.
Humphrey Jennings: Spring Offensive, Welfare of the Workers, London Can Take It!, A Diary for Timothy, This Is England, Words for Battle, Fires Were Started, Listen to Britain, The Silent Village, The True Story of Lili Marlene, The Eighty Days, Myra Hess, A Defeated People, The Cumberland Story, and The Dim Little Island.
William Dieterle: Dr. Ehrlich's Magic Bullet, Kismet, This Love of Ours, Syncopation, The Searching Wind, Rope of Sand, Portrait of Jennie, The Accused, I'll Be Seeing You, A Dispatch from Reuters, The Devil and Daniel Webster, Tennessee Johnson, and Love Letters.
Edmund Goulding: The Razor's Edge, Nightmare Alley, The Shocking Miss Pilgrim, Everybody Does It, Claudia, Of Human Bondage, Flight from Folly, Forever and a Day, Old Acquaintance, The Constant Nymph, The Great Lie, and Til We Meet Again.
Luchino Visconti: Ossessione and La Terra Trema.
Ernest B. Schoedsack: Dr. Cyclops and Mighty Joe Young.
Roy Del Ruth: It Happened on 5th Avenue, Red Light, The Babe Ruth Story, The Chocolate Soldier, Topper Returns, He Married His Wife, Du Barry Was a Lady, and Ziegfeld Follies.
Rene Clair: And Then There Were None, I Married a Witch, Man About Town,It Happened Tomorrow, The Flame of New Orleans, and Forever and a Day.
John Cromwell: Victory, Abe Lincoln in Illinois, So Ends Our Night, Son of Fury: The Story of Benjamin Blake, Anna and the King of Siam, Dead Reckoning, The Enchanted Cottage, Since You Went Away, and Night Song.
Richard Fleischer: Trapped, Make Mine Laughs, The Clay Pigeon, Follow Me Quietly, Banjo, Design for Death, So This Is New York, Bodyguard, and Child of Divorce.
Norman Z. McLeod: Jackass Mail, The Secret Life of Walter Mitty, Panama Hattie, The Paleface, and Little Men.
Dorothy Arzner: Dance, Girl, Dance and First Comes Courage.
George Sidney: Pilot No. 5, Holiday in Mexico, Ziegfeld Follies, Thousands Cheer, Anchors Aweigh, The Harvey Girls, Bathing Beauty, The Three Musketeers, Cass Timberlane, and The Red Danube.
Howard Hawks, John Ford, and Orson Welles are my Top Three.

Best run in terms of anything
William Wyler: The Westerner, The Heiress, The Little Foxes, The Letter, The Best Years of Our Lives, Mrs. Miniver, Memphis Belle, and Thunderbolt.
Orson Welles: Citizen Kane, The Magnificent Ambersons, The Lady from Shanghai, Macbeth, Journey into Fear, The Stranger, Black Magic, and Follow the Boys.
John Huston: The Maltese Falcon, The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, Key Largo, We Were Strangers, In This Our Life, Across the Pacific, and Let There Be Light.
Howard Hawks: Red River, I Was a Male War Bride,A Song Is Born, To Have and Have Not, The Big Sleep, Sergeant York, His Girl Friday, Air Force, and Ball of Fire.
Alfred Hitchcock: Notorious, Rebecca, Shadow of a Doubt, Spellbound, Rope, Suspicion, Under Capricorn, Foreign Correspondent, Saboteur, Mr. & Mrs. Smith, Lifeboat, and The Paradine Case.
Preston Sturges: The Palm Beach Story, Sullivan's Travels, Unfaithfully Yours, The Great Moment, The Miracle of Morgan's Creek,I Married a Witch, Christmas in July, The Lady Eve, and The Great McGinty.
George Cukor: The Philadelphia Story, Gaslight, Adam's Rib, Susan and God, Her Cardboard Lover, Keeper of the Flame, Edward, My Son, A Double Life, I'll Be Seeing You, and Desire Me.
John Ford: The Grapes of Wrath, The Long Voyage Home, Tobacco Road, How Green Was My Valley, 3 Godfathers, December 7th: The Movie, My Darling Clementine, They Were Expendable, We Sail at Midnight, Fort Apache, Torpedo Squadron ,The Battle of Midway, How to Operate Behind Enemy Lines, She Wore a Yellow Ribbon, and The Fugitive.
Jacques Tourneur: Cat People, I Walked With a Zombie, Out of the Past, Canyon Passage, The Leopard Man, Phantom Raiders, Days of Glory, Easy Living, Experiment Perilous, and Berlin Express.
Vittorio De Sica: Shoeshine, Bicycle Thieves, Heart and Soul, The Children Are Watching Us, The Gates of Heaven, A Garibaldian in the Convent, Teresa Venerdì, Maddalena, Zero for Conduct, and Red Roses.
Roberto Rossellini: Rome, Open City, Paisan, Germany, Year Zero, L'Amore, The White Ship, A Pilot Returns, and The Man with a Cross.
Ernst Lubitsch: To Be or Not to Be, The Shop Around the Corner, Heaven Can Wait, Cluny Brown, That Uncertain Feeling, A Royal Scandal, and That Lady in Ermine.
Powell and Pressburger: The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp, The Red Shoes, A Canterbury Tale, I Know Where I'm Going!, A Matter of Life and Death, Black Narcissus, Contraband, 49th Parallel, One of Our Aircraft Is Missing, The Small Back Room,and An Airman's Letter to His Mother.
Michael Curtiz: Casablanca, Mildred Pierce, The Sea Wolf, Yankee Doodle Dandy, This Is the Army, Night and Day, Romance on the High Seas, Santa Fe Trail, Virginia City, The Sea Hawk, Captains of the Clouds, Dive Bomber, Life with Father, Mission to Moscow, Janie, Passage to Marseille, Roughly Speaking, The Unsuspected, My Dream Is Yours, Flamingo Road, and The Lady Takes a Sailor.
John M. Stahl: Leave Her to Heaven, The Foxes of Harrow, The Eve of St. Mark, Our Wife, Immortal Sergeant, Holy Matrimony, The Keys of the Kingdom, The Walls of Jericho, Father Was a Fullback, and Oh, You Beautiful Doll.
Billy Wilder: The Major and the Minor, The Lost Weekend, Double Indemnity, Five Graves to Cairo, Death Mills, The Emperor Waltz, and A Foreign Affair.
Nicholas Ray: They Live by Night, A Roseanna McCoy, Woman's Secret, and Knock on Any Door.
Elia Kazan: A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, Pinky, Boomerang, The Sea of Grass, and Gentleman's Agreement.
Frank Capra: It’s a Wonderful Life, Arsenic and Old Lace, State of the Union, and Meet John Doe.
Carol Reed: The Third Man, Odd Man Out, The Fallen Idol, The Stars Look Down, Girl in the News, A Letter from Home, Kipps, The Young Mr. Pitt, Night Train to Munich, The New Lot, and The Way Ahead. David Lean: In Which We Serve, This Happy Breed, Brief Encounter, Blithe Spirit, Oliver Twist, Great Expectations, and The Passionate Friends.
Mervyn LeRoy: Waterloo Bridge, Random Harvest, Little Women, East Side, West Side, Without Reservations, Any Number Can Play, The House I Live In, Madame Curie, Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo, Blossoms in the Dust, Johnny Eager, Escape, and Homecoming.
Vincente Minnelli: Meet Me in St. Louis, I Dood It, Cabin in the Sky, Yolanda and the Thief, The Clock, Undercurrent, Ziegfeld Follies, The Pirate, Madame Bovary, and Till the Clouds Roll By. Charles Walters: Ziegfeld Follies, Easter Parade, Good News, and The Barkleys of Broadway.
Leo McCarey: The Bells of St. Mary's and Once Upon a Honeymoon.
Jean Renoir: The Woman on the Beach, The Southerner, The Diary of a Chambermaid, Swamp Water, and This Land is Mine.
Anthony Mann: Moonlight in Havana, Sing Your Way Home, My Best Gal, Nobody's Darling, Dr. Broadway, Strangers in the Night, Bamboo Blonde, Raw Deal, T-Men, Desperate, Railroaded!, Border Incident, Reign of Terror, Two O'Clock Courage, and Strange Impersonation.
King Vidor: The Fountainhead, On Our Merry Way, Duel in the Sun, An American Romance, Comrade X, Northwest Passage, H. M. Pulham, Esq., and Beyond the Forest.
Robert Rossen: All The King’s Men, Johnny O'Clock, The Strange Love of Martha Ivers, A Child Is Born, Edge of Darkness, Out of the Fog, Blues in the Night, A Walk in the Sun, The Undercover Man, Desert Fury, and Body and Soul.
Fred Zinnemann: The Search, Kid Glove Killer, Eyes in the Night, The Clock, Act of Violence, The Seventh Cross, Little Mister Jim, and My Brother Talks to Horses.
Robert Wise: Criminal Court, The Curse of the Cat People, Mademoiselle Fifi, The Body Snatcher, Born to Kill, The Set-Up, A Game of Death, Blood on the Moon, and Mystery in Mexico.
Akira Kurosawa: Sanshiro Sugata, Sanshiro Sugata Part II, The Most Beautiful, One Wonderful Sunday, Drunken Angel, The Quiet Duel, Stray Dog, The Men Who Tread on the Tiger's Tail, and No Regrets for Our Youth.
Otto Preminger: Laura, Fallen Angel, Daisy Kenyon, Forever Amber, Whirl Pool, The Fan, Margin for Error, In the Meantime, Darling, and Centennial Summer.
Jules Dassin: Thieves' Highway, A Letter for Evie, Brute Force, Two Smart People, The Naked City, Young Ideas, The Canterville Ghost, Nazi Agent, The Tell-Tale Heart, The Affairs of Martha, and Reunion in France.
Charlie Chaplin: The Great Dictator, and Monsieur Verdoux. George Stevens: The More the Merrier, The Talk of the Town, Penny Serenade, Woman of the Year, Vigil in the Night, On Our Merry Way, The Nazi Plan, and I Remember Mama.
Yasujirô Ozu: Late Spring, Brothers and Sisters of the Toda Family, A Hen in the Wind, There Was a Father, and Record of a Tenement Gentleman.
Fritz Lang: Secret Beyond the Door, The Woman in the Window, Scarlet Street, Cloak and Dagger, Man Hunt, Ministry of Fear, Hangmen Also Die!, Western Union, Moon Tide, and The Return of Frank James.
Raoul Walsh: High Sierra, White Heat, Colorado Territory, Fighter Squadron, Silver River, Pursued, The Man I Love, Cheyenne, Uncertain Glory, Objective, Burma!, Manpower, Desperate Journey, Northern Pursuit, The Strawberry Blonde, They Died with Their Boots On, Gentleman Jim, Dark Command, and They Drive by Night.
Vincent Sherman: Nora Prentiss, Mr. Skeffington, Adventures of Don Juan, The Unfaithful, The Hard Way, Old Acquaintance, The Hasty Heart, In our Time, Pillow to Post, Janie Gets Married, Saturday's Children, The Man Who Talked Too Much, Underground, Flight from Destiny, Across the Pacific, and All Through the Night.
Anatole Litvak: The Snake Pit, City for Conquest, The Battle of Russia, Why We Fight, Sorry, Wrong Number, This Above All, The Long Night, All This, and Heaven Too, and Castle on the Hudson.
Max Ophüls: Caught, The Reckless Moment, The Exile, Letter from an Unknown Woman, Vendetta, and Sarajevo.
Charles Vidor: Gilda, Cover Girl, Over 21, The Loves of Carmen, The Tuttles of Tahiti, The Desperadoes, Together Again, A Song to Remember, The Man from Colorado, New York Town, Ladies in Retirement, My Son, My Son!, and The Lady in Question.
Edgar G. Ulmer: Detour, Isle of Forgotten Sins, Girls in Chains, Tomorrow We Live, Club Havana, The Strange Woman, My Son, the Hero, Jive Junction, Strange Illusion, Bluebeard, Her Sister's Secret, The Pirates of Capri, Ruthless, The Wife of Monte Cristo, and Carnegie Hall.
Victor Fleming: Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Joan of Arc, Adventure, A Guy Named Joe, and Tortilla Flat.
Joseph L. Mankiewicz: A Letter to Three Wives, Escape, House of Strangers, The Late George Apley, The Ghost and Mrs. Muir, Dragonwyck, and Somewhere in the Night.
Robert Bresson: Angels of Sin and Les Dames du Bois de Boulogne.
Luis Buñuel: Gran Casino and The Great Madcap.
Fei Mu: Spring in a Small Town, Confucius, The Beauty, A Wedding in the Dream, The Magnificent Country, Songs of Ancient China, and The Little Cowheard.
Kenji Mizoguchi: The 47 Ronin, A Woman of Osaka, Flame of My Love, The Love of the Actress Sumako, Victory Song, Utamaro and His Five Women, Women of the Night, Victory of Women, The Famous Sword Bijomaru, Three Generations of Danjuro, The Life of an Actor, and Miyamoto Musashi.
Douglas Sirk: Lured, Sleep, My Love, Hitler's Madman, Summer Storm, A Scandal in Paris, Shockproof, and Slightly French.
René Clément: The Battle of the Rails, The Damned, Mr. Orchid, and The Walls of Malapaga.
Robert Hamer: Kind Hearts and Coronets, The Spider and the Fly, It Always Rains on Sunday, San Demetrio London, and Pink String and Sealing Wax.
Robert Siodmak: Criss Cross, Cry of The City, Dark Mirror, Phantom Lady, The Killers, The Spiral Staircase, Christmas Holiday, The Strange Affair of Uncle Harry, Time Out of Mind, Son of Dracula, The Suspect, The Night Before the Divorce, Someone to Remember, Cobra Woman, The File on Thelma Jordon, The Great Sinner, West Point Widow, My Heart Belongs to Daddy, and Fly-by-Night.
Humphrey Jennings: Spring Offensive, Welfare of the Workers, London Can Take It!, A Diary for Timothy, This Is England, Words for Battle, Fires Were Started, Listen to Britain, The Silent Village, The True Story of Lili Marlene, The Eighty Days, Myra Hess, A Defeated People, The Cumberland Story, and The Dim Little Island.
William Dieterle: Dr. Ehrlich's Magic Bullet, Kismet, This Love of Ours, Syncopation, The Searching Wind, Rope of Sand, Portrait of Jennie, The Accused, I'll Be Seeing You, A Dispatch from Reuters, The Devil and Daniel Webster, Tennessee Johnson, and Love Letters.
Edmund Goulding: The Razor's Edge, Nightmare Alley, The Shocking Miss Pilgrim, Everybody Does It, Claudia, Of Human Bondage, Flight from Folly, Forever and a Day, Old Acquaintance, The Constant Nymph, The Great Lie, and Til We Meet Again.
Luchino Visconti: Ossessione and La Terra Trema.
Ernest B. Schoedsack: Dr. Cyclops and Mighty Joe Young.
Roy Del Ruth: It Happened on 5th Avenue, Red Light, The Babe Ruth Story, The Chocolate Soldier, Topper Returns, He Married His Wife, Du Barry Was a Lady, and Ziegfeld Follies.
Rene Clair: And Then There Were None, I Married a Witch, Man About Town,It Happened Tomorrow, The Flame of New Orleans, and Forever and a Day.
John Cromwell: Victory, Abe Lincoln in Illinois, So Ends Our Night, Son of Fury: The Story of Benjamin Blake, Anna and the King of Siam, Dead Reckoning, The Enchanted Cottage, Since You Went Away, and Night Song.
Richard Fleischer: Trapped, Make Mine Laughs, The Clay Pigeon, Follow Me Quietly, Banjo, Design for Death, So This Is New York, Bodyguard, and Child of Divorce.
Norman Z. McLeod: Jackass Mail, The Secret Life of Walter Mitty, Panama Hattie, The Paleface, and Little Men.
Dorothy Arzner: Dance, Girl, Dance and First Comes Courage.
George Sidney: Pilot No. 5, Holiday in Mexico, Ziegfeld Follies, Thousands Cheer, Anchors Aweigh, The Harvey Girls, Bathing Beauty, The Three Musketeers, Cass Timberlane, and The Red Danube.

Best run in terms of anything
William Wyler: The Westerner, The Heiress, The Little Foxes, The Letter, The Best Years of Our Lives, Mrs. Miniver, Memphis Belle, and Thunderbolt.
Orson Welles: Citizen Kane, The Magnificent Ambersons, The Lady from Shanghai, Macbeth, Journey into Fear, The Stranger, Black Magic, and Follow the Boys.
John Huston: The Maltese Falcon, The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, Key Largo, We Were Strangers, In This Our Life, Across the Pacific, and Let There Be Light.
Howard Hawks: Red River, I Was a Male War Bride,A Song Is Born, To Have and Have Not, The Big Sleep, Sergeant York, His Girl Friday, Air Force, and Ball of Fire.
Alfred Hitchcock: Notorious, Rebecca, Shadow of a Doubt, Spellbound, Rope, Suspicion, Under Capricorn, Foreign Correspondent, Saboteur, Mr. & Mrs. Smith, Lifeboat, and The Paradine Case.
Preston Sturges: The Palm Beach Story, Sullivan's Travels, Unfaithfully Yours, The Great Moment, The Miracle of Morgan's Creek,I Married a Witch, Christmas in July, The Lady Eve, and The Great McGinty.
George Cukor: The Philadelphia Story, Gaslight, Adam's Rib, Susan and God, Her Cardboard Lover, Keeper of the Flame, Edward, My Son, A Double Life, I'll Be Seeing You, and Desire Me.
John Ford: The Grapes of Wrath, The Long Voyage Home, Tobacco Road, How Green Was My Valley, We Sail at Midnight, Sex Hygiene, 3 Godfathers, My Darling Clementine, Torpedo Squadron,December 7th: The Movie,They Were Expendable, Fort Apache, The Battle of Midway, She Wore a Yellow Ribbon, and The Fugitive.
Jacques Tourneur: Cat People, I Walked With a Zombie, Out of the Past, Canyon Passage, The Leopard Man, Phantom Raiders, Days of Glory, Easy Living, Experiment Perilous, and Berlin Express.
Vittorio De Sica: Shoeshine, Bicycle Thieves, Heart and Soul, The Children Are Watching Us, The Gates of Heaven, A Garibaldian in the Convent, Teresa Venerdì, Maddalena, Zero for Conduct, and Red Roses.
Roberto Rossellini: Rome, Open City, Paisan, Germany, Year Zero, L'Amore, The White Ship, A Pilot Returns, and The Man with a Cross.
Ernst Lubitsch: To Be or Not to Be, The Shop Around the Corner, Heaven Can Wait, Cluny Brown, That Uncertain Feeling, A Royal Scandal, and That Lady in Ermine.
Powell and Pressburger: The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp, The Red Shoes, A Canterbury Tale, I Know Where I'm Going!, A Matter of Life and Death, Black Narcissus, Contraband, 49th Parallel, One of Our Aircraft Is Missing,The Small Back Room,and An Airman's Letter to His Mother.
Michael Curtiz: Casablanca, Mildred Pierce, The Sea Wolf, Yankee Doodle Dandy, This Is the Army, Night and Day, Romance on the High Seas, Santa Fe Trail, Virginia City, The Sea Hawk, Captains of the Clouds, Dive Bomber, Life with Father, Mission to Moscow, Janie, Passage to Marseille, Roughly Speaking, The Unsuspected, My Dream Is Yours, Flamingo Road, and The Lady Takes a Sailor.
John M. Stahl: Leave Her to Heaven, The Foxes of Harrow, The Eve of St. Mark, Our Wife, Immortal Sergeant, Holy Matrimony, The Keys of the Kingdom, The Walls of Jericho, Father Was a Fullback, and Oh, You Beautiful Doll.
Billy Wilder: The Major and the Minor, The Lost Weekend, Double Indemnity, Five Graves to Cairo, Death Mills, The Emperor Waltz, and A Foreign Affair.
Nicholas Ray: They Live by Night, A Woman's Secret, and Knock on Any Door.
Elia Kazan: A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, Pinky, Boomerang, The Sea of Grass, and Gentleman's Agreement.
Frank Capra: It’s a Wonderful Life, Arsenic and Old Lace, State of the Union, and Meet John Doe.
Carol Reed: The Third Man, Odd Man Out, The Fallen Idol, The Stars Look Down, Girl in the News, A Letter from Home, Kipps, The Young Mr. Pitt, Night Train to Munich, The New Lot, and The Way Ahead.
David Lean: In Which We Serve, This Happy Breed, Brief Encounter, Blithe Spirit, Oliver Twist, Great Expectations, and The Passionate Friends.
Mervyn LeRoy: Waterloo Bridge, Random Harvest, Little Women, East Side, West Side, Without Reservations, Any Number Can Play, The House I Live In, Madame Curie, Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo, Blossoms in the Dust, Johnny Eager, Escape, and Homecoming.
Vincente Minnelli: Meet Me in St. Louis, I Dood It, Cabin in the Sky, Yolanda and the Thief, The Clock, Undercurrent, Ziegfeld Follies, The Pirate, Madame Bovary, and Till the Clouds Roll By.
Charles Walters: Ziegfeld Follies, Easter Parade, Good News, and The Barkleys of Broadway.
Leo McCarey: The Bells of St. Mary's and Once Upon a Honeymoon.
Jean Renoir: The Woman on the Beach, The Southerner, The Diary of a Chambermaid, Swamp Water, and This Land is Mine.
Anthony Mann: Moonlight in Havana, Sing Your Way Home, My Best Gal, Nobody's Darling, Dr. Broadway, Strangers in the Night, Bamboo Blonde, Raw Deal, T-Men, Desperate, Railroaded!, Border Incident, Reign of Terror, Two O'Clock Courage, and Strange Impersonation.
King Vidor: The Fountainhead, On Our Merry Way, Duel in the Sun, An American Romance, Comrade X, Northwest Passage, H. M. Pulham, Esq., and Beyond the Forest.
Robert Rossen: All The King’s Men, Johnny O'Clock, The Strange Love of Martha Ivers, A Child Is Born, Edge of Darkness, Out of the Fog, Blues in the Night, A Walk in the Sun, The Undercover Man, Desert Fury, and Body and Soul.
Fred Zinnemann: The Search, Kid Glove Killer, Eyes in the Night, The Clock, Act of Violence, The Seventh Cross, Little Mister Jim, and My Brother Talks to Horses.
Robert Wise: Criminal Court, The Curse of the Cat People, Mademoiselle Fifi, The Body Snatcher, Born to Kill, The Set-Up, A Game of Death, Blood on the Moon, and Mystery in Mexico.
Akira Kurosawa: Sanshiro Sugata, Sanshiro Sugata Part II, The Most Beautiful, One Wonderful Sunday, Drunken Angel, The Quiet Duel, Stray Dog, The Men Who Tread on the Tiger's Tail, and No Regrets for Our Youth.
Otto Preminger: Laura, Fallen Angel, Daisy Kenyon, Forever Amber, Whirl Pool, The Fan, Margin for Error, In the Meantime, Darling, and Centennial Summer.
Jules Dassin: Thieves' Highway, A Letter for Evie, Brute Force, Two Smart People, The Naked City, Young Ideas, The Canterville Ghost, Nazi Agent, The Tell-Tale Heart, The Affairs of Martha, and Reunion in France.
Charlie Chaplin: The Great Dictator, and Monsieur Verdoux.
George Stevens: The More the Merrier, The Talk of the Town, Penny Serenade, Woman of the Year, Vigil in the Night, On Our Merry Way, The Nazi Plan, and I Remember Mama.
Yasujirô Ozu: Late Spring, Brothers and Sisters of the Toda Family, A Hen in the Wind, There Was a Father, and Record of a Tenement Gentleman.
Fritz Lang: Secret Beyond the Door, The Woman in the Window, Scarlet Street, Cloak and Dagger, Man Hunt, Ministry of Fear, Hangmen Also Die!, Western Union, Moon Tide, and The Return of Frank James.
Raoul Walsh: High Sierra, White Heat, Colorado Territory, Fighter Squadron, Silver River, Pursued, The Man I Love, Cheyenne, Uncertain Glory, Objective, Burma!, Manpower, Desperate Journey, Northern Pursuit, The Strawberry Blonde, They Died with Their Boots On, Gentleman Jim, Dark Command, and They Drive by Night.
Vincent Sherman: Nora Prentiss, Mr. Skeffington, Adventures of Don Juan, The Unfaithful, The Hard Way, Old Acquaintance, The Hasty Heart, In our Time, Pillow to Post, Janie Gets Married, Saturday's Children, The Man Who Talked Too Much, Underground, Flight from Destiny, Across the Pacific, and All Through the Night.
Anatole Litvak: The Snake Pit, City for Conquest, The Battle of Russia, Why We Fight, Sorry, Wrong Number, This Above All, The Long Night, All This, and Heaven Too, and Castle on the Hudson.
Max Ophüls: Caught, The Reckless Moment, The Exile, Letter from an Unknown Woman, Vendetta, and Sarajevo.
Charles Vidor: Gilda, Cover Girl, Over 21, The Loves of Carmen, The Tuttles of Tahiti, The Desperadoes, Together Again, A Song to Remember, The Man from Colorado, New York Town, Ladies in Retirement, My Son, My Son!, and The Lady in Question.
Edgar G. Ulmer: Detour, Isle of Forgotten Sins, Girls in Chains, Tomorrow We Live, Club Havana, The Strange Woman, My Son, the Hero, Jive Junction, Strange Illusion, Bluebeard, Her Sister's Secret, The Pirates of Capri, Ruthless, The Wife of Monte Cristo, and Carnegie Hall.
Maya Daren: At Land, Meshes of the Afternoon, A Study for Choreography for Camera, Ritual in Transfigured Time, and Meditation on Violence.
Victor Fleming: Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Joan of Arc, Adventure, A Guy Named Joe, and Tortilla Flat.
Joseph L. Mankiewicz: A Letter to Three Wives, Escape, House of Strangers, The Late George Apley, The Ghost and Mrs. Muir, Dragonwyck, and Somewhere in the Night.
Robert Bresson: Angels of Sin and Les Dames du Bois de Boulogne.
Luis Buñuel: Gran Casino and The Great Madcap.
Fei Mu: Spring in a Small Town, Confucius, The Beauty, A Wedding in the Dream, The Magnificent Country, Songs of Ancient China, and The Little Cowheard.
Kenji Mizoguchi: The 47 Ronin, A Woman of Osaka, Flame of My Love, The Love of the Actress Sumako, Victory Song, Utamaro and His Five Women, Women of the Night, Victory of Women, The Famous Sword Bijomaru, Three Generations of Danjuro, The Life of an Actor, and Miyamoto Musashi.
Douglas Sirk: Lured, Sleep, My Love, Hitler's Madman, Summer Storm, A Scandal in Paris, Shockproof, and Slightly French.
René Clément: The Battle of the Rails, The Damned, Mr. Orchid, and The Walls of Malapaga.
Robert Hamer: Kind Hearts and Coronets, The Spider and the Fly, It Always Rains on Sunday, San Demetrio London, and Pink String and Sealing Wax.
Robert Siodmak: Criss Cross, Cry of The City, Dark Mirror, Phantom Lady, The Killers, The Spiral Staircase, Christmas Holiday, The Strange Affair of Uncle Harry, Time Out of Mind, Son of Dracula, The Suspect, The Night Before the Divorce, Someone to Remember, Cobra Woman, The File on Thelma Jordon, The Great Sinner, West Point Widow, My Heart Belongs to Daddy, and Fly-by-Night.
Humphrey Jennings: Spring Offensive, Welfare of the Workers, London Can Take It!, A Diary for Timothy, This Is England, Words for Battle, Fires Were Started, Listen to Britain, The Silent Village, The True Story of Lili Marlene, The Eighty Days, Myra Hess, A Defeated People, The Cumberland Story, and The Dim Little Island.
William Dieterle: Dr. Ehrlich's Magic Bullet, Kismet, This Love of Ours, Syncopation, The Searching Wind, Rope of Sand, Portrait of Jennie, The Accused, I'll Be Seeing You, A Dispatch from Reuters, The Devil and Daniel Webster, Tennessee Johnson, and Love Letters.
Edmund Goulding: The Razor's Edge, Nightmare Alley, The Shocking Miss Pilgrim, Everybody Does It, Claudia, Of Human Bondage, Flight from Folly, Forever and a Day, Old Acquaintance, The Constant Nymph, The Great Lie, and Til We Meet Again.
Luchino Visconti: Ossessione and La Terra Trema.
Ernest B. Schoedsack: Dr. Cyclops and Mighty Joe Young.
Roy Del Ruth: It Happened on 5th Avenue, Red Light, The Babe Ruth Story, The Chocolate Soldier, Topper Returns, He Married His Wife, Du Barry Was a Lady, and Ziegfeld Follies.
Rene Clair: And Then There Were None, I Married a Witch, Man About Town,It Happened Tomorrow, The Flame of New Orleans, and Forever and a Day.
John Cromwell: Victory, Abe Lincoln in Illinois, So Ends Our Night, Son of Fury: The Story of Benjamin Blake, Anna and the King of Siam, Dead Reckoning, The Enchanted Cottage, Since You Went Away, and Night Song.
Richard Fleischer: Trapped, Make Mine Laughs, The Clay Pigeon, Follow Me Quietly, Banjo, Design for Death, So This Is New York, Bodyguard, and Child of Divorce.
Norman Z. McLeod: Jackass Mail, The Secret Life of Walter Mitty, Panama Hattie, The Paleface, and Little Men.
Dorothy Arzner: Dance, Girl, Dance and First Comes Courage.
George Sidney: Pilot No. 5, Holiday in Mexico, Ziegfeld Follies, Thousands Cheer, Anchors Aweigh, The Harvey Girls, Bathing Beauty, The Three Musketeers, Cass Timberlane, and The Red Danube.

Best run in terms of anything
William Wyler: The Westerner, The Heiress, The Little Foxes, The Letter, The Best Years of Our Lives, Mrs. Miniver, Memphis Belle, and Thunderbolt.
Orson Welles: Citizen Kane, The Magnificent Ambersons, The Lady from Shanghai, Macbeth, Journey into Fear,The Stranger, Black Magic, and Follow the Boys.
John Huston: The Maltese Falcon, The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, Key Largo, We Were Strangers, In This Our Life, Across the Pacific, and Let There Be Light.
Howard Hawks: Red River, I Was a Male War Bride,A Song Is Born, To Have and Have Not, The Big Sleep, Sergeant York, His Girl Friday, Air Force, and Ball of Fire.
Alfred Hitchcock: Notorious, Rebecca, Shadow of a Doubt, Spellbound, Rope, Suspicion, Under Capricorn, Foreign Correspondent, Saboteur, Mr. & Mrs. Smith, Lifeboat, and The Paradine Case.
Preston Sturges: The Palm Beach Story, Sullivan's Travels, Unfaithfully Yours, The Great Moment, The Miracle of Morgan's Creek,I Married a Witch, Christmas in July, The Lady Eve, and The Great McGinty.
George Cukor: The Philadelphia Story, Gaslight, Adam's Rib, Susan and God, Her Cardboard Lover, Keeper of the Flame, Edward, My Son, A Double Life, I'll Be Seeing You, and Desire Me.
John Ford: The Grapes of Wrath, The Long Voyage Home, Tobacco Road, How Green Was My Valley, 3 Godfathers, December 7th: The Movie, My Darling Clementine, They Were Expendable, We Sail at Midnight, Fort Apache, Torpedo Squadron ,The Battle of Midway, How to Operate Behind Enemy Lines, She Wore a Yellow Ribbon, and The Fugitive.
Jacques Tourneur: Cat People, I Walked With a Zombie, Out of the Past, Canyon Passage, The Leopard Man, Phantom Raiders, Days of Glory, Easy Living, Experiment Perilous, and Berlin Express.
Vittorio De Sica: Shoeshine, Bicycle Thieves, Heart and Soul, The Children Are Watching Us, The Gates of Heaven, A Garibaldian in the Convent, Teresa Venerdì, Maddalena, Zero for Conduct, and Red Roses.
Roberto Rossellini: Rome, Open City, Paisan, Germany, Year Zero, L'Amore, The White Ship, A Pilot Returns, and The Man with a Cross.
Ernst Lubitsch: To Be or Not to Be, The Shop Around the Corner, Heaven Can Wait, Cluny Brown, That Uncertain Feeling, A Royal Scandal, and That Lady in Ermine.
Powell and Pressburger: The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp, The Red Shoes, A Canterbury Tale, I Know Where I'm Going!, A Matter of Life and Death, Black Narcissus, Contraband, 49th Parallel, One of Our Aircraft Is Missing, The Small Back Room, and An Airman's Letter to His Mother.
Michael Curtiz: Casablanca, Mildred Pierce, The Sea Wolf, Yankee Doodle Dandy, This Is the Army, Night and Day, Romance on the High Seas, Santa Fe Trail, Virginia City, The Sea Hawk, Captains of the Clouds, Dive Bomber, Life with Father, Mission to Moscow, Janie, Passage to Marseille, Roughly Speaking, The Unsuspected, My Dream Is Yours, Flamingo Road, and The Lady Takes a Sailor.
John M. Stahl: Leave Her to Heaven, The Foxes of Harrow, The Eve of St. Mark, Our Wife, Immortal Sergeant, Holy Matrimony, The Keys of the Kingdom, The Walls of Jericho, Father Was a Fullback, and Oh, You Beautiful Doll.
Billy Wilder: The Major and the Minor, The Lost Weekend, Double Indemnity, Five Graves to Cairo, Death Mills, The Emperor Waltz, and A Foreign Affair.
Nicholas Ray: They Live by Night, A Roseanna McCoy, Woman's Secret, and Knock on Any Door.
Elia Kazan: A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, Pinky, Boomerang, The Sea of Grass, and Gentleman's Agreement.
Frank Capra: It’s a Wonderful Life, Arsenic and Old Lace, State of the Union, and Meet John Doe.
Carol Reed: The Third Man, Odd Man Out, The Fallen Idol, The Stars Look Down, Girl in the News, A Letter from Home, Kipps, The Young Mr. Pitt, Night Train to Munich, The New Lot, and The Way Ahead.
David Lean: In Which We Serve, This Happy Breed, Brief Encounter, Blithe Spirit, Oliver Twist, Great Expectations, and The Passionate Friends.
Mervyn LeRoy: Waterloo Bridge, Random Harvest, Little Women, East Side, West Side, Without Reservations, Any Number Can Play, The House I Live In, Madame Curie, Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo, Blossoms in the Dust, Johnny Eager, Escape, and Homecoming.
Vincente Minnelli: Meet Me in St. Louis, I Dood It, Cabin in the Sky, Yolanda and the Thief, The Clock, Undercurrent, Ziegfeld Follies, The Pirate, Madame Bovary, and Till the Clouds Roll By.
Charles Walters: Ziegfeld Follies, Easter Parade, Good News, and The Barkleys of Broadway.
Leo McCarey: The Bells of St. Mary's and Once Upon a Honeymoon.
Jean Renoir: The Woman on the Beach, The Southerner, The Diary of a Chambermaid, Swamp Water, and This Land is Mine.
Anthony Mann: Moonlight in Havana, Sing Your Way Home, My Best Gal, Nobody's Darling, Dr. Broadway, Strangers in the Night, Bamboo Blonde, Raw Deal, T-Men, Desperate, Railroaded!, Border Incident, Reign of Terror, Two O'Clock Courage, and Strange Impersonation.
King Vidor: The Fountainhead, On Our Merry Way, Duel in the Sun, An American Romance, Comrade X, Northwest Passage, H. M. Pulham, Esq., and Beyond the Forest.
Robert Rossen: All The King’s Men, Johnny O'Clock, The Strange Love of Martha Ivers, A Child Is Born, Edge of Darkness, Out of the Fog, Blues in the Night, A Walk in the Sun, The Undercover Man, Desert Fury, and Body and Soul.
Fred Zinnemann: The Search, Kid Glove Killer, Eyes in the Night, The Clock, Act of Violence, The Seventh Cross, Little Mister Jim, and My Brother Talks to Horses.
Robert Wise: Criminal Court, The Curse of the Cat People, Mademoiselle Fifi, The Body Snatcher, Born to Kill, The Set-Up, A Game of Death, Blood on the Moon, and Mystery in Mexico.
Akira Kurosawa: Sanshiro Sugata, Sanshiro Sugata Part II, The Most Beautiful, One Wonderful Sunday, Drunken Angel, The Quiet Duel, Stray Dog, The Men Who Tread on the Tiger's Tail, and No Regrets for Our Youth.
Otto Preminger: Laura, Fallen Angel, Daisy Kenyon, Forever Amber, Whirl Pool, The Fan, Margin for Error, In the Meantime, Darling, and Centennial Summer.
Jules Dassin: Thieves' Highway, A Letter for Evie, Brute Force, Two Smart People, The Naked City, Young Ideas, The Canterville Ghost, Nazi Agent, The Tell-Tale Heart, The Affairs of Martha, and Reunion in France.
Charlie Chaplin: The Great Dictator, and Monsieur Verdoux. George Stevens: The More the Merrier, The Talk of the Town, Penny Serenade, Woman of the Year, Vigil in the Night, On Our Merry Way, The Nazi Plan, and I Remember Mama.
Yasujirô Ozu: Late Spring, Brothers and Sisters of the Toda Family, A Hen in the Wind, There Was a Father, and Record of a Tenement Gentleman.
Fritz Lang: Secret Beyond the Door, The Woman in the Window, Scarlet Street, Cloak and Dagger, Man Hunt, Ministry of Fear, Hangmen Also Die!, Western Union, Moon Tide, and The Return of Frank James.
Raoul Walsh: High Sierra, White Heat, Colorado Territory, Fighter Squadron, Silver River, Pursued, The Man I Love, Cheyenne, Uncertain Glory, Objective, Burma!, Manpower, Desperate Journey, Northern Pursuit, The Strawberry Blonde, They Died with Their Boots On, Gentleman Jim, Dark Command, and They Drive by Night.
Vincent Sherman: Nora Prentiss, Mr. Skeffington, Adventures of Don Juan, The Unfaithful, The Hard Way, Old Acquaintance, The Hasty Heart, In our Time, Pillow to Post, Janie Gets Married, Saturday's Children, The Man Who Talked Too Much, Underground, Flight from Destiny, Across the Pacific, and All Through the Night.
Anatole Litvak: The Snake Pit, City for Conquest, The Battle of Russia, Why We Fight, Sorry, Wrong Number, This Above All, The Long Night, All This, and Heaven Too, and Castle on the Hudson.
Max Ophüls: Caught, The Reckless Moment, The Exile, Letter from an Unknown Woman, Vendetta, and Sarajevo.
Charles Vidor: Gilda, Cover Girl, Over 21, The Loves of Carmen, The Tuttles of Tahiti, The Desperadoes, Together Again, A Song to Remember, The Man from Colorado, New York Town, Ladies in Retirement, My Son, My Son!, and The Lady in Question.
Edgar G. Ulmer: Detour, Isle of Forgotten Sins, Girls in Chains, Tomorrow We Live, Club Havana, The Strange Woman, My Son, the Hero, Jive Junction, Strange Illusion, Bluebeard, Her Sister's Secret, The Pirates of Capri, Ruthless, The Wife of Monte Cristo, and Carnegie Hall.
Victor Fleming: Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Joan of Arc, Adventure, A Guy Named Joe, and Tortilla Flat.
Joseph L. Mankiewicz: A Letter to Three Wives, Escape, House of Strangers, The Late George Apley, The Ghost and Mrs. Muir, Dragonwyck, and Somewhere in the Night.
Robert Bresson: Angels of Sin and Les Dames du Bois de Boulogne.
Luis Buñuel: Gran Casino and The Great Madcap.
Fei Mu: Spring in a Small Town, Confucius, The Beauty, A Wedding in the Dream, The Magnificent Country, Songs of Ancient China, and The Little Cowheard.
Kenji Mizoguchi: The 47 Ronin, A Woman of Osaka, Flame of My Love, The Love of the Actress Sumako, Victory Song, Utamaro and His Five Women, Women of the Night, Victory of Women, The Famous Sword Bijomaru, Three Generations of Danjuro, The Life of an Actor, and Miyamoto Musashi.
Douglas Sirk: Lured, Sleep, My Love, Hitler's Madman, Summer Storm, A Scandal in Paris, Shockproof, and Slightly French.
René Clément: The Battle of the Rails, The Damned, Mr. Orchid, and The Walls of Malapaga.
Robert Hamer: Kind Hearts and Coronets, The Spider and the Fly, It Always Rains on Sunday, San Demetrio London, and Pink String and Sealing Wax.
Robert Siodmak: Criss Cross, Cry of The City, Dark Mirror, Phantom Lady, The Killers, The Spiral Staircase, Christmas Holiday, The Strange Affair of Uncle Harry, Time Out of Mind, Son of Dracula, The Suspect, The Night Before the Divorce, Someone to Remember, Cobra Woman, The File on Thelma Jordon, The Great Sinner, West Point Widow, My Heart Belongs to Daddy, and Fly-by-Night.
Humphrey Jennings: Spring Offensive, Welfare of the Workers, London Can Take It!, A Diary for Timothy, This Is England, Words for Battle, Fires Were Started, Listen to Britain, The Silent Village, The True Story of Lili Marlene, The Eighty Days, Myra Hess, A Defeated People, The Cumberland Story, and The Dim Little Island.
William Dieterle: Dr. Ehrlich's Magic Bullet, Kismet, This Love of Ours, Syncopation, The Searching Wind, Rope of Sand, Portrait of Jennie, The Accused, I'll Be Seeing You, A Dispatch from Reuters, The Devil and Daniel Webster, Tennessee Johnson, and Love Letters.
Edmund Goulding: The Razor's Edge, Nightmare Alley, The Shocking Miss Pilgrim, Everybody Does It, Claudia, Of Human Bondage, Flight from Folly, Forever and a Day, Old Acquaintance, The Constant Nymph, The Great Lie, and Til We Meet Again.
Luchino Visconti: Ossessione and La Terra Trema.
Ernest B. Schoedsack: Dr. Cyclops and Mighty Joe Young.
Roy Del Ruth: It Happened on 5th Avenue, Red Light, The Babe Ruth Story, The Chocolate Soldier, Topper Returns, He Married His Wife, Du Barry Was a Lady, and Ziegfeld Follies.
Rene Clair: And Then There Were None, I Married a Witch, Man About Town,It Happened Tomorrow, The Flame of New Orleans, and Forever and a Day.
John Cromwell: Victory, Abe Lincoln in Illinois, So Ends Our Night, Son of Fury: The Story of Benjamin Blake, Anna and the King of Siam, Dead Reckoning, The Enchanted Cottage, Since You Went Away, and Night Song.
Richard Fleischer: Trapped, Make Mine Laughs, The Clay Pigeon, Follow Me Quietly, Banjo, Design for Death, So This Is New York, Bodyguard, and Child of Divorce.
Norman Z. McLeod: Jackass Mail, The Secret Life of Walter Mitty, Panama Hattie, The Paleface, and Little Men.
Dorothy Arzner: Dance, Girl, Dance and First Comes Courage.
George Sidney: Pilot No. 5, Holiday in Mexico, Ziegfeld Follies, Thousands Cheer, Anchors Aweigh, The Harvey Girls, Bathing Beauty, The Three Musketeers, Cass Timberlane, and The Red Danube.

This is my third list for this sub. I hope you enjoy it.
ART THIEVES, FORGERS, SMUGGLERS.
The Art of the Steal by Christopher Mason. A true story about the auction houses Sotheby’s and Christie’s and how they conspired to cheat their clients out of millions of dollars.
The Billionaire’s Vinegar: The Mystery of the World’s Most Expensive Bottle of Wine by Benjamin Wallace. The most expensive bottle of wine and the conflicting reports about its history. This is a book that would enchant wine conessi… conues… lovers.
The Gardner Heist: The True Story of the World’s Largest Unsolved Art Theft by Ulrich Boser. Author Ulrich Boser looks at the unsolved art theft case of Boston’s Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum.
The Golden Spruce: A True Story of Myth, Madness, and Greed by John Vaillant. Grant Hadwin, a logger-turned-activist, fells a unique 165 feet Sitka spruce in an act of protest. John Vaillant takes the readers into the heart of North America’s last great forest to find out why he did that.
Hitler’s Art Thief: Hildebrand Gurlitt, the Nazis, and the Looting of Europe’s Treasures by Susan Ronald. Hildebrand Gurlitt was an art thief, or as he put it himself, an ‘official dealer’ for Hitler and Goebbels. But he stole from the Jews and Nazis alike. This book was published after his hoard was recently (2013) discovered which created an international furor.
The Irish Game: A True Story of Crime and Art by Matthew Hart. This book is about the art theft at Ireland’s Russborough House in 1986. The suspect, a gangster named Martin Cahill, played cat and mouse with police for years.
The Island of Lost Maps: A True Story of Cartographic Crime by Miles Harvey. When you think about stealing some valuable art, do maps come to your mind? Then this book is for you. Gilbert Joseph Bland Jr. stole numerous centuries-old maps from research libraries in US and Canada.
I Was Vermeer: The Rise and Fall of the Twentieth Century’s Greatest Forger by Frank Wynne. Han van Meegeren became so much adapt at forging Vermeer paintings that it is said that even professional experts would find it difficult to point out his works from the originals. He earned more than $50 million by selling his forgeries – and he even swindled the Nazis.
The Lizard King: The True Crimes and Passions of the World’s Greatest Reptile Smugglers by Bryan Christy. Reptile smuggling is a big “business”. The author, a federal agent, suspected a reptile business owner of being a major smuggler and he started investigating. It was not as simple as it sounds because at one point he was chased by a mother alligator and even bitten by a python.
The Lost Chalice: The Epic Hunt for a Priceless Masterpiece by Vernon Silver. A 2500 year old cup made by the Greek master Euphronios which depicted the fall of Troy gets stolen and sold (along with 3 other such vessels). Then due to the questionable practice of some art dealers, no one can track down its last known owner.
The Lost Painting by Jonathan Harr. With nothing better to do, the author embarks on a journey to discover a Caravaggio painting which was lost to time two hundred years ago.
The Man Who Loved Books Too Much: The True Story of a Thief, a Detective, and a World of Literary Obsession by Allison Hoover Bartlett. John Charles Gilkey stole rare books not because he wanted to make profit as most thieves do, but because he loved books. I guess if you want to call yourself a book-reader but don’t actually want to say… read a book, you could just steal them and show them off to your friends. But who are we to question the wisdom of “booklovers”, right?
The Orchid Thief: A True Story of Beauty and Obsession by Susan Orlean. If you thought that stealing maps is a weird “job” to have, how about stealing a rare breed of flower? We all know about the Tulipomania that gripped Netherlands in the 1630s. But this is a modern tale, and the book is perhaps one of the most popular ones on this list.
Priceless: How I Went Undercover to Rescue the World’s Stolen Treasures by Robert K. Wittman, John Shiffman. This book is about Robert K. Wittman, FBI’s founder of the Art Crime Team and his undercover missions around the world to rescue various pieces of stolen art.
Provenance: How a Con Man and a Forger Rewrote the History of Modern Art by Laney Salisbury. You could have a Jackson Pollock lying around in your basement, but if you can’t prove that the piece is real, you might as well use it as a table cloth (I might have exaggerated there a bit, but you get the point). John Myatt, a struggling artist, and John Drewe, a conman who knew the importance of Provenance in the art world, duped many people and museums by creating a fake paper trial that seemed to prove that the art was a real thing and not a forgery. So much so that the experts believe that there might still be some fake paintings created by Myatt displayed in prominent places as the real thing.
The Rescue Artist: A True Story of Art, Thieves, and the Hunt for a Missing Masterpiece by Edward Dolnick. Dolnick writes about the theft of Edvard Munch’s The Scream from the National Gallery in Oslo in 1994 and the subsequent investigation that took place to track it down.
Selling Hitler by Robert Harris In mid-eighties, Hitler’s diaries were “discovered” and many experts fell for the con. The backpeddling many did when it was revealed that the diaries were not real is really amusing to read about.
Shell Games: Rogues, Smugglers, and the Hunt for Nature’s Bounty by Craig Welch. This book is about the poaching of a larger-than-life clam – a Geoduck, to be precise, and the subsequent chase from the wildlife police to nab the poacher.
Stealing History: Tomb Raiders, Smugglers and the Looting of the Ancient World by Roger Atwood. This book provides a sweeping history of thefts of various priceless antiques.
Stealing the Mystic Lamb: The True Story of the World’s Most Coveted Masterpiece by Noah Charney. The twelve panel oil-painting of the Mystic Lamb is the most frequently stolen artwork in the world. It was stolen 13 times. One wonders whether they could have guarded it a little better after the first couple of times, you know. Anyway, this book describes the events of each theft.
Stolen World: A Tale of Reptiles, Smugglers, and Skulduggery by Jennie Erin Smith. Two reptile smugglers compete against each other to conquer the illegal trade for themselves. The funny thing is, the Zoos stood against them in the courts, but they had no problem buying rare fauna from the two smugglers, sometimes simultaneously.
Tangled Vines: Greed, Murder, Obsession, and an Arsonist in the Vineyards of California by Frances Dinkelspiel. A massive fire destroyed wines worth $250 million in a California warehouse, making it the largest destruction of wine in history. It was done by a conman named Mark Anderson, who rented storage space at the same warehouse. This book tells why he did that and also goes into the surprisingly bloody history of wine trade in California. (reads well with cranberry juice).
Vanished Smile: The Mysterious Theft of Mona Lisa by R. A. Scotti. On August 21, 1911, a man walked out of the Louvre with the Mona Lisa tucked inside his coat (should have painted it bigger, eh Vinci?). I am not going to spoil this book for anyone. Read it if you want to know whether Mona Lisa was recovered or was lost to time forever.
CARTELS, GANGS, UNDERWORLD.
American Desperado: My Life --- From Mafia Soldier to Cocaine Cowboy to Secret Government Asset by Jon Roberts, Evan Wright. Jon Roberts, who starred in documentary Cocaine Cowboys tells his story to the journalist Evan Wright in this book. Roberts smuggled drugs to Miami for the Medellin Cartel (which will feature many times in this category).
At the Devil’s Table: The Untold Story of the Insider Who Brought Down the Cali Cartel by William C. Rempel. This is Narcos Season 3, basically. Remember the family guy who gets involved with the Cali Cartel and mops around for the whole season even though he had an unbelievably hot wife who was clearly out of his league? That character was based on Rempel. And if I must say so, the book is more compelling than that season of Narcos. Nothing can beat Agent Pena, though.
Black Mass: The True Story of an Unholy Alliance Between the FBI and the Irish Mob by Dick Lehr, Gerard O’Neill. The story of James ‘Whitey’ Bulger – the head of the Irish Mob in Boston - who became an informant for the FBI and chaos ensued. Depp plays Whitey Bulger in the movie adaptation with a soggy tortilla glued to his face as make-up.
Blow: How a Small -Town Bay Made $100 Million with the Medellin Cocaine Cartel and Lost it All by Bruce Porter. Another book where Johnny Depp plays the main character in the movie adaptation. This book is about George Jung, who after meeting Carlos Lehder, started selling cocaine in the United States through Medellin Cartel.
Cocaine Diaries: A Venezuelan Prison Nightmare by Paul Keany, Jeff Farrell. Paul Keany was caught smuggling half-a-million euro worth of cocaine into Venezuela. He was sentenced to 8 years in prison. Now, prisons everywhere aren’t exactly fun places to be, but Los Teques where Keany was incarcerated was nothing short of hell on earth.
Confessions of a Yakuza by Junichi Saga. Junichi Saga was a doctor by profession. A patient, who was a former Yakuza, recounted his life story before him. Saga recorded the conversations, and broke doctor-patient confidentiality by writing this book.
Doctor Dealer: The Rise and Fall of an All-American Boy and His Multimillion-Dollar Cocaine Empire by Mark Bowden. A dentist named Larry Lavin builds the foundation for a cocaine empire in the United States.
Donnie Brasco by Joseph D. Pistone, Richard Woodley. Joseph D. Pistone, an FBI agent, goes undercover for six years to infiltrate the Mafia. Do watch the movie too, it is Depp’s last movie without weird make-up.
El Narco: Inside Mexico’s Criminal Insurgency by Ioan Grillo. Journalist Ioan Grillo has written, arguably, the definitive book on Mexican drug cartels. Why he is still alive is anybody’s guess.
Gang Leader for a Day: A Rogue Sociologist Takes to the Streets by Sudhir Venkatesh. Venkatesh, who was a sociology grad student at the time, infiltrated one of Chicago’s most notorious gangs. This is one of a kind type of book.
Gomorrah by Roberto Saviano. This book is about the Italian Crime Network called Camorra in Naples, Italy. Due to his intensive investigative journalism which exposed lot of insider information about the crime syndicate, author Saviano still has to live under constant police protection.
The Good Mothers: The True Story of the Women Who Took on the World’s Most Powerful Mafia by Alex Perry. This is a recent book, where the author Alex Perry looks inside the ruthless Calabrian Mafia of Italy and three women who want to save their own and their children’s lives. This is a fascinating and courageous look into an aspect of the Mafia which is often overlooked by most.
Hunting El Chapo: The Inside Story of the American Lawman Who Captured the World’s Most Wanted Drug-Lord by Andrew Hogan, Douglas Century. Remember when Joaquin Guzman was caught for the first time and then he escaped and then he was caught again for good? Yes? Then read this one. But this book only focuses on the operation that nabbed him for the first time. I must warn you though – the author, Andrew Hogan – is really really in love with himself and it seeps into his writing.
The Infiltrator: My Secret Life Inside the Dirty Banks Behind Pablo Escobar’s Medellin Cartel by Robert Mazur. Mazur went undercover and actually became a money launderer for Pablo Escobar. This book is more about how bankers actively helped to launder the drug money and how Mazur helped to bring them down.
Killing Pablo: The Hunt for the World’s Greatest Outlaw by Mark Bowden. This is the best book about tracking and eventually killing Pablo Escobar. And as Walter Jr. pointed out to Walter White, it focuses on the good guys, not the bad ones. Good companion book to Pablo Escobar: My Father written by Escobar’s son.
Marching Powder: A True Story of Friendship, Cocaine, and South America’s Strangest Jail by Rusty Young. The author stays inside San Pedro jail for months with a drug smuggler to chronicle his tale. This is one of the most popular books written on cocaine smuggling.
McMafia: A Journey Through the Global Criminal Underworld by Misha Glenny. This is a thorough investigation into organized crime worldwide which accounts for 1/5th of total GDP of the world. This book would please readers who are into extensively researched true-crime history books, not so much a casual reader (inb4 - I just read 5 pages of McMafia and wow… just wow).
Mr. Blue: Memoirs of a Renegade by Edward Bunker. Edward Bunker had had an eventful life. Incarceration for two and a half decades, being on FBI’s most wanted list, and being a crime novelist. This is his autobiography.
Mr. Nice by Howard Marks. Howard Marks started dealing dope in small quantities while he was studying at Oxford – as you do – and then eventually graduated to dealing it in tons (what the hell was he studying there? Oh, philosophy). This is his fascinating story.
Narcoland: The Mexican Drug Lords and Their Godfathers by Anabel Hernandez. Yet another book that resulted in the author getting death threats. This proves the old cliché true that the pen is mightier than the sword; until the sword comes down and cuts your neck. That’s why the author has to live under constant protection.
Narconomics: How to Run a Drug Cartel by Tom Wainwright. Any aspiring drug lords should read this instruction manual. Just kidding. Wainwright goes deep into the functioning of various drug cartels and at the end also comes up with a plan to defeat them.
News of a Kidnapping by Gabriel Garcia Marquez. Little known author tries his hand at true-crime. Pablo Escobar kidnapped 10 journalists when he was on the run from the authorities. This book revolves around that event.
The Night it Rained Guns: Unravelling the Purulia Arms Drop Conspiracy by Chandan Nandy. On a December night in 1995, someone airdropped three weapons-laden wooden pallets over Purulia, West Bengal. Who did it and why? This book tells the story about one of India’s greatest ever security breaches.
No Angel: My Undercover Journey to the Inner Circle of the Hells Angels by Jay Dobyns, Nils Johnson-Shelton. Dobyns was the first federal agent to infiltrate the inner circle of the notorious biker gang. This is his story.
Pablo Escobar: My Father by Juan Pablo Escobar. Juan Pablo is an architect and lives and practices his trade in Argentina. Even though Pablo was his father, Juan does not try to justify his actions even a little bit. This is one of the best books written on Pablo Escobar.
The Snakehead: An Epic Tale of the Chinatown Underworld and the American Dream by Patrick Radden Keefe. Sister Ping, leader of the Chinese underworld in the US, earned $40 million a year smuggling people from China. Told from the viewpoints of gangsters, investigators, and poor immigrants alike, this book provides a unique window into the world of human smuggling.
Scores: How I Opened the Hottest Strip Club in New York City, Was Extorted out of Millions by the Gambino Family, and Became One of the Most Successful Mafia Informants in FBI History by Michael D. Blutrich. I am disappointed that they went with FBI instead of Federal Bureau of Investigation in the title. Should have made it longer. Scores: How I Opened the Hottest Strip Club in New York City on the 34th Street Just Opposite the Starbucks, Was Extorted out of 4.54 Millions and 55 Cents Plus Taxes by the Gambino Family, and Became One of the Most Successful Mafia Informants in Federal Bureau of Investigation History by Michael Dostoyevsky Blutrich
Tokyo Vice: An American Reporter on the Police Beat in Japan by Jake Adelstein. The author, working as a reporter in Japan, writes about the seedy underbelly of crime in the country.
The Untouchables by Eliot Ness, Oscar Fraley. Where’s Nitty? He’s in the car. Great movie. How Eliot Ness and his team started the downward spiral in criminal career of Al Capone. A somewhat embellished account was also written in the book, but nonetheless, it is a gripping tale.
Veerappan: Chasing the Brigand by K. Vijay Kumar. Koose Muniswamy Veerappan was the last big outlaw of India. A sandalwood smuggler who lived in the forest to evade the police, Veerappan killed hundreds of policemen and civilians. K. Vijay Kumar, the officer who led the task force that ultimately brought down the brigand, is the author of this book.
Wiseguy: Life in a Mafia Family by Nicholas Pileggi. I’m funny how, I mean funny like I’m a clown, I amuse you? Goodfellas is perhaps the best Mafia movie ever made, so read it in his own words why Pileggi might fold under questioning.
Zero Zero Zero by Roberto Saviano, Virginia Jewiss. This Saviano guy must have a death wish. But as a handsome list-writer once eloquently said, “If bitten already by a King Cobra, what difference it makes if you French kiss a Black Mamba?” Since the publication of his book on the Italian crime syndicate, Saviano has to live under constant police protection. So to make sure they don’t slack off, he wrote a book on Cocaine Cartel, this time acquiring lots of admirers in Latin America.
CONMEN, IMPOSTORS.
The Art of Making Money: The Story of a Master Counterfeiter by Jason Kersten. The Art of making money is to make other people work for you; not the other way round. But more scrupulous method of making money would be to counterfeit it. Art Williams did exactly that.
Catch Me If You Can: The True Story of a Real Fake by Frank W. Abagnale. Maybe the most popular book on this list, Abagnale Jr.’s book is not to be missed even if you have watched the movie starring the actor who had sex with a bear (no, not Tormund).
Charlatan: America’s Most Dangerous Huckster, the Man Who Pursued Him, and the Age of Flimflam by Pope Brock. One “Dr.” John R. Brinkley, set-up a medical practice to surgically insert goat glands in human testicles to restore their fading sex drive. I am not joking, this happened.
Conman: A Master Swindler’s Own Story by J. R. Weil, W. T. Brannon. Known as “Yellow Kid” Weil was a master conman, who duped public of more than $8 million 100 years ago. He’s called by many as the greatest conman of all time (second to the companies that charge service fees on the internet, of course).
Eyeing the Flash: The Making of a Carnival Con Artist by Peter Fenton. Fenton was a math student until he turned into a carnival con artist. How many bananas he stole from the monkeys? How many bales of potatoes from the elephants? Read this book to find out.
Inconvenient People: Lunacy, Liberty and the Mad-Doctors in Victorian England by Sarah Wise. If you have any annoying friends who romanticize the Victorian era and say that they would have liked to live there, tell them to read this book and get back to you after that.
The Man in the Rockefeller Suit: The Astonishing Rise and Spectacular Fall of a Serial Impostor by Mark Seal. This is the true story of one of the greatest impostors of all time. The man could have impersonated a chihuahua if he wanted to.
The Man Who Sold the Eiffel Tower by James Francis Johnson. Viktor Lustig sold the Eiffel Tower not once, but twice. I still have the relevant papers that my great grandfather left us. I’m going to shift it to Nauru or Detroit.
The Mark Inside: A Perfect Swindle, a Cunning Revenge, and a Small History of the Big Con by Amy Reading. This is a revenge story of a man who sets out to con the conmen who conned him twice. Unfortunately, the book could have been written better, but it is still worth having a look at.
Playing Dead: A Journey Through the World of Death Fraud by Elizabeth Greenwood. I once tried playing dead in a meeting when asked about the progress on my project. But there are people who fake their death for lesser gains, such as insurance fraud and debt fraud. Author Elizabeth Greenwood journeys into the dark world of death fraud to find out more.
Ponzi’s Scheme: The True Story of a Financial Legend by Mitchell Zuckoff. Charles Ponzi was so successful in duping people that we have immortalized his name by terming such swindles after him. At one point, he was raking in $2 millions a week. How many weeks would it take you to earn 2 million dollars at your current income? (sorry, that got heavy fast. It hurt me too).
A Rum Affair: A True Story of Botanical Fraud by Karl Sabbagh. One botanist claimed that some species of plants on the islands south of Scotland survived the last Ice Age. Another botanist doubted him. This might not sound like a big fraud if you are not into plants, but believe me when I say that the 2 botanists who just read this threw their phones away in disgust and disbelief.
Starvation Heights: A True Story of Murder and Malice in the Woods of the Pacific Northwest by Gregg Olsen. A quack doctor named Linda Hazard developed a technique called “fasting treatment”. The story focuses on two sisters who fell for the quack’s assurances that they would be cured of all the diseases - real or imagined. This book is quite infuriating to read. Hazard was a despicable human being.
Swindled: From Poison Sweets to Counterfeit Coffee – The Dark History of the Food Cheats by Bee Wilson. Wilson looks from ancient Rome to current times for food frauds. And she finds them aplenty (companion read - while having a nice snack).
A Treasury of Deception: Liars, Misleaders, Hoodwinkers, and the Extraordinary True Stories of History’s Greatest Hoaxes, Fakes and Frauds by Michael Farquhar. This is a good bathroom book about fakers through history.
The Woman Who Wasn’t There: The True Story of an Incredible Deception by Robin Gaby Fisher, Angelo J. Guglielmo Jr. Have you heard about Tania Head? If you haven’t, I urge you to skip this book. Tania Head duped survivors of 9/11 and the whole world alike into believing that she was one of the survivors from the South Tower of World Trade Center. I feel enraged just by typing this. So just read this book if you want to know more about her. There are a couple of documentaries out there too.
HACKERS.
The Cuckoo’s Egg: Tracking a Spy Through the Maze of Computer Espionage by Clifford Stoll. Long before internet became a place for cat memes, Cliff Stoll was working at a research lab as a systems manager. One day he found 75 cents of accounting error. This made him alert that an unauthorized person was logging into the system. Thus began his lone effort of tracking down the spy.
Exploding the Phone: The Untold Story of the Teenagers and Outlaws Who Hacked Ma Bell by Phil Lapsley. Before there was internet, or even personal computers, mobsters and teenagers hacked the telephone system.
Ghost in the Wires: My Adventures as the World’s Most Wanted Hacker by Kevin D. Mitnick, William L. Simon. The book tells the story of one of the best hackers of all times, Kevin Mitnick, and his cat and mouse game with the FBI.
The Spider Network: The Wild Story of a Math Genius, a Gang of Backstabbing Bankers, and One of the Greatest Scams in Financial History by David Enrich. A group of bankers manipulated daily interest rates just a fraction here and there on loans worth trillions of dollars and made some serious cash for themselves. This book also rocks one of the ugliest book covers of 2017.
MUTINEERS, PIRATES, OUTLAWS.
Batavia’s Graveyard: The True Story of the Mad Heretic Who Led History’s Bloodiest Mutiny by Mike Dash. I was torn whether to include this book in the list as the history of Batavia’s mutiny is littered with corpses. But as the focus is on the mutiny, I am going to keep it here. This event could give the Medusa’s raft a run for its money.
The Floating Brothel: The Extraordinary True Story of an Eighteenth-Century Ship and its Cargo of Female Convicts by Sian Rees. Poor girls in England, most of who were petty thieves, were given a chance to sail to Botany Bay in Australia to create a new life for themselves and the male population of New South Wales. But the real story happened at the sea on board the ship Lady Julian.
The Last Outlaws: The Lives and Legends of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid by Thom Hatch. Butch: What happened to the old bank? It was beautiful. Guard: People kept robbing it. Butch: Small price to pay for beauty. The book might not be full of memorable dialogues as the movie, but if you want to know more about the legendary outlaws, give this book a chance.
Lost Paradise: From Mutiny on the Bounty to a Modern-Day Legacy of Sexual Mayhem, the Dark Secrets of Pitcairn Island Revealed by Kathy Marks. Mutiny of the Bounty is perhaps the most infamous of mutinies that occurred at sea. Even after the event and hundreds of years later, the descendants of Fletcher Christian and his sailors continue to live a crime-filled life like their forefathers on Pitcairn Island.
The Pirate Hunter: The True Story of Captain Kidd by Richard Zacks. This book will change your perception of Captain Kidd, that’s for sure.
To Hell on a Fast Horse: Billy the Kid, Pat Garrett, and the Epic Chase to Justice in the Old West by Mark Lee Gardner. This non-fiction book concentrates on Sheriff Pat Garrett’s chase in pursuit of the bandit Billy the Kid. If you like reading westerns, this one and The Last Outlaws are not to be missed.
Under the Black Flag: The Romance and the Reality of Life Among the Pirates by David Cordingly. Cordingly takes a look at life among the pirates. Some of your romanticism would be squashed, but there were some good things about being a pirate too. Life among the pirates was neither black nor white; it was beige.
POLITICAL CRIMES
Arms and the Dudes: How Three Stoners from Miami Beach Became the Most Unlikely Gunrunners in History by Guy Lawson. Three kids won a 300 million dollar contract – legitimately – I must add, to supply ammunition to the Afghanistan military. They had no money, but still they almost pulled it off. I don’t know, read this book, and if you’re a US citizen, visit the websites mentioned in the book, see if they are still doing business the same way, and if you want, you can become a supplier to the army too. Don’t forget to send me my cut (the movie War Dogs was trash).
The Brother: The Untold Story of Atomic Spy David Greenglass and How He Sent His Sister, Ethel Rosenberg, to the Electric Chair by Sam Roberts. Even if you’re not a United Statian of American (USians?), chances are you might have read at least something about the execution of the Rosenberg couple as spies. This is probably the best book about the subject.
Curveball: Spies, Lies, and the Man Behind Them: How America Went to War in Iraq by Bob Drogin. How many weapons of mass destruction were found in Iraq? If your answer is “what’s that?” then congratulations, you’re not unlike one of your former presidents. Who told the USians that there were WMDs with Saddam? Curveball.
The Confessions of an Economic Hitman by John Perkins. Perkins was an economic hitman, who at the instruction of US intelligence agencies and giant corporations cajoled and blackmailed other country leaders to serve US foreign policy and award lucrative contracts to American businesses (now that job has been transferred to the White House).
A Kim Jong – Il Production: The Extraordinary True Story of a Kidnapped Filmmaker, His Star Actress, and a Young Dictator’s Rise to Power by Paul Fischer. Say you want to make a big movie for your country. But there is no one in your country who can handle such an ambitious project. What do you do? Hire some talent from other country? But you’re Kim Jong – Il. Oh. Then you just kidnap them, and force them to make the glorious movie of yours. Read this book. It’s pretty absurd (the movie they eventually made for Kim was utter shit. The Room would look like Gone with the Wind compared to that abomination).
The Nuclear Jihadist: The True Story of the Man Who Sold the World’s Most Dangerous Secrets… And How We Could Have Stopped Him by Douglas Frantz, Catherine Collins. One day a man Abdul Qadeer Khan caught a plane to Pakistan from Europe. With him he had blueprints of the mechanism that could prepare weapons grade Uranium that he had stolen from the lab he worked at in the last 3 years. He would make the first atomic bomb for Pakistan with that information. Then he sold the tech to stable countries like Iran, North Korea and Libya. How can someone get away with stealing such powerful information? Read this book to find out.
Operation Paperclip: The Secret Intelligence Program that Brought Nazi Scientists to America by Annie Jacobsen. This is a pretty controversial topic that has only gained wider acknowledgement in recent decades. Read this book to know in detail how bogus the claims of justice being served to the perpetrators of the Holocaust were. Basically, if you were a scientist, you were very likely to be acquitted from any War Crimes allegations.
The Real Odessa: How Peron Brought the Nazi War Criminals to Argentina by Uki Goni. How did most of the Nazis who managed to escape from Germany ended up in South America? Read about the collusion of various entities and institutions that made it possible in this book.
The Spy Who Couldn’t Spell: A Dyslexic Traitor, an Unbreakable Code, and the FBI’s Hunt for America’s Stolen Secrets by Yudhijit Bhattacharjee. This is the true story of a mole in FBI, how he attempted to sell classified information and how FBI tried to track him down.
ROBBERIES, HEISTS.
Ballad of the Whiskey Robber: A True Story of Bank Heists, Ice Hockey, Transylvanian Pelt Smuggling, Moonlighting Detectives, and Broken Hearts by Julian Rubinstein. If there is one thief in this list that I admire, it is without a doubt, Attila Ambrus. Ambrus was known as a gentleman thief, who would ask – no, request - the teller to fill his bag with money. If you read this book, it would be hard for you to dislike Attila even though he was a thief.
Confessions of a Master Jewel Thief by Bill Mason, Lee Gruenfeld. Bill Mason looted many famous personalities in his long career as a jewel thief. In this book he tells how he did it.
The Feather Thief: Beauty, Obsession, and the Natural History Heist of the Century by Kirk W. Johnson. Do you know there are people whose hobby is fly tying? The feathery thing that you attach to the hook to catch fish? But these are not your average fly tiers. They use feathers from exotic birds to create different ties whose total cost could run in thousands of dollars. Moreover, many of the most coveted birds are either protected or extinct. So one night a man named Edwin Rist broke into Tring museum and took hundreds of bird skins, some that belonged to Darwin, to fuel his hobby and even getting rich by selling precious feathers to other tiers. Don’t miss this book.
Finders Keepers: The Story of a Man Who Found $1 Million by Mark Bowden. Who hasn’t dreamt of finding a big bag of money? It couldn’t have happened to a more clueless person. Joey Coyle, to be exact.
Flawless: Inside the Largest Diamond Heist in History by Scott Andrew Selby. The theft from Antwerp that still raises many questions.
Go Down Together: The True, Untold Story of Bonnie and Clyde by Jeff Guinn. The truth is not that romantic.
The Great Pearl Heist: London’s Greatest Thief and Scotland Yard’s Hunt for the World’s Most Valuable Necklace by Molly Caldwell Crosby. Pearls, more valuable than the Hope Diamond, are stolen by thieves in Edwardian London.
The Great Train Robbery by Michael Crichton. My favorite Crichton book. Stealing gold from a running train! Watch the movie too that stars the great Sean Connery.
Heist: The Oddball Crew Behind the $17 Million Loomis Fargo Theft by Jeff Diamant. How hard is it to steal 17 million dollars? As far as these thieves were concerned, not much. Getting away with it was another thing altogether. The movie was pretty average, I think.
Into the Blast: The True Story of DB Cooper by Skipp Porteous, Robert Blevins. Is Tommy Wiseau DB Cooper? If only that was true. Read the book but don’t expect any clear-cut answers (I think most people would agree that the clumsy bastard died after he jumped from the plane).
A Pickpocket’s Tale: The Underworld of Nineteenth-Century New York by Timothy J. Gilfoyle. True story of George Appo, a pickpocket living in nineteenth-century New York.
Sex on the Moon: The Amazing Story Behind the Most Audacious Heist in History by Ben Mezrich. A guy steals moon rocks from NASA and then had sex on them with his girlfriend (how the hell is that comfortable?)
The Stranger in the Woods: The Extraordinary Story of the Last True Hermit by Michael Finkel. The last hermit was not a hermit in true sense. He didn’t rely on land to feed himself. He stole from the nearby community. Before someone says I have spoiled the book for them, it is revealed in the first chapter that he is a thief.
WHITE COLLAR CRIMES.
Bad Blood: Secrets and Lies in a Silicon Valley Startup by John Carreyrou. The Steve Jobs impersonator, Elizabeth Holmes, CEO of Theranos, and her old boyfriend, Sunny, are some of the most vile people that I have come across while reading about corporate crime. This is one of the best books that I have read this year.
Den of Thieves by James B. Stewart. This is probably the most famous book written about those Wall Street scoundrels.
Empire of Deception: The Incredible Story of a Master Swindler Who Seduced a City and Captivated the Nation by Dean Jobb. The story of Leo Koretz, who created one of the longest running Ponzi schemes in the 1920s Chicago.
The Informant by Kurt Eichenwald. Mark Whitacre becomes an FBI informant against his own corporation. But as time goes by, the FBI starts to realize that Mark is not as truthful as he seems to be, and he has his own agenda (they made a movie with Matt Damon).
Octopus: Sam Israel, the Secret Market, and Wall Street’s Wildest Con by Guy Lawson. Sam Israel’s hedge fund was making heavy losses. So naturally, he fabricated fake returns to fool the investors. Then he heard about a secret market from where he could convert his millions into billions. That’s how he lost the last 150 million dollars of his invertors’ money.
Red Notice: A True Story of High Finance, Murder, and One Man’s Fight for Justice by Bill Browder. Only thing you are going to learn from this book is don’t do business in Russia.
The Smartest Guys in the Room: The Amazing Rise and Scandalous Fall of Enron by Bethany McLean, Peter Elkind. Bethany McLean asked one simple question in her article when everyone else was going gaga over Enron. “What does Enron actually do?” Nobody knew. Even Enron couldn’t give a specific answer. They were not just committing accounting fraud; they were looting ordinary people by creating fake shortage of electricity and driving the prices high. The documentary is worth watching too.
Stung: The Incredible Obsession of Brian Molony by Gary Stephen Ross. The guy Molony debited huge amounts of money from the bank he worked at to feed his gambling addiction. Oh, and he took the money in other people’s name who held huge accounts there. This is one of the best true-crime books that I have ever read.
Three Cups of Deceit: How Greg Mortenson, Humanitarian Hero, Lost His Way by Jon Krakauer. You know the man who builds schools in remote regions of Afghanistan and Pakistan? Great guy, right? Krakauer doesn’t think so. And he’ll tell you why in this short book.
The Wizard of Lies: Bernie Madoff and the Death of Trust by Diana B. Henriques. 65 billion dollars. That’s the amount that Madoff swindled from people through decades of fraud. I think I can buy a small island country with this much money. The idiot is in jail though. I don’t know, maybe after a couple of billion, skip to a country with no extradition treaty and live the rest of your life without the fear of being getting caught? But then, these types of people don’t know when to stop.
OTHER.
American Roulette: How I Turned the Odds Upside Down --- My Wild Twenty-Five-Year Ride Ripping Off World’s Casinos by Richard Marcus. The guy ripped-off casinos all over the world by stealing gaming chips while maintaining an illusion of a highroller to lend his eventual take required legitimacy.
Breaking the Rock: The Great Escape from Alcatraz by Jolene Babyak. Written by the daughter of a guard at Alcatraz, this book tells the story of the infamous escape from the prison island. Don’t forget to watch the classic movie too.
Bringing Down the House: The Inside Story of Six MIT Students Who Took Vegas for Millions by Ben Mezrich. The movie 21 was based on this book. But if you want to know the real story, without the whitewashing, you have no choice but to read this book.
Disposable People: New Slavery in the Global Economy by Kevin Bales. Kevin Bales estimates that there are 27 million people worldwide who live as slaves, right now. And yes, slavery still exists in United States of America in case you were wondering. This is a depressing book.
Fish: A Memoir of a Boy in a Man’s Prison by T. J. Parsell. Rape in prison is absolutely overlooked almost everywhere. Read this book if you can endure reading about helplessness page after page.
Hotel K: The Shocking Inside Story of Bali’s Most Notorious Jail by Kathryn Bonella. Prison systems in developing world differ from the developed one in one regard that the guards and officials there are more corrupt and hence are likely to look the other way when something bad is going down amongst the inmates. Kerobokan Jail in Bali is one of the worst among those.
The Hot House: Life Inside Leavenworth Prison by Pete Earley. The author interviewed inmates from Leavenworth Prison for two years. The book is the result of that labor.
The Laundrymen: Inside the World’s Third Largest Business by Jeffrey Robinson. I have a perfect idea to launder money. Laser Tag! Robinson looks at the third largest business in the world. The book was published a while ago, but still hasn’t lost most of its relevancy.
Missoula: Rape and the Justice System in a College Town by Jon Krakauer. Jon releases the Krakauer on one of the most relevant subjects of today. Rapes in colleges. These institutes would do anything to sweep things under the rug to maintain the illusion of clean image in the public eye.
Newjack: Guarding Sing Sing by Ted Conover. The author worked as a prison guard for a year at one of the most notorious prisons of the United States. This book is about his experience.

In 2019, a major war between Andrew Cuomo and Bill de Blasio is raging, and the entire city of New York has been converted into a giant maximum security prison. When the MTA is hijacked by fat upstate cats and ceases to operate well, your sanity is taken hostage by a myriad of high pressure stresses. The asknyc mods, former Special Forces soldiers turned criminals, are recruited to develop a fool proof plan help you...Escape from New York ^city

Quickies

• The Town of Milford Connecticut

A cute downtown harbor area with a number of bars and restaurants and beautiful colonial architecture. The train station is right downtown and mercifully the post road is farther north" taarok

• Cold Spring

Cold Spring is on the Hudson and is a quaint river town with good hiking on nearby trails and "mountains".
See below for a tiny write up from weizenbock

• The Poconos

"Indoor Water parks!" tmm224

"Mount Airy Lodge, where all you have to bring is your love of everything." timspc

"There's also a casino and a shooting range in the area. My friends took me away for a birthday weekend. Very affordable. Very fun." ravelight

• Ithaca

If you're willing to go a little further than 3 hours (more like 4 or so) It's a nice college town with lots of good restaurants and shops and has a lot of cool hiking trails with waterfalls nearby. It's also located at the bottom of one of the finger lakes with a bunch of wineries to go wine tasting at along the lake. u/drjimmybrungus

• Saratoga Springs

"it's a spa town. If you're an American history buff, the Battle of Saratoga took place about 15 minutes outside of the present-day town." chengjih

Adirondack Trailways Bus , plenty of B&Bs to choose from, quaint city with a bunch of options for side-trips. carpy22

• The Berkshires!

Lenox and Great Barrington are nice, great dinner spots, hiking outdoor activities, plus museums like the Mass MOCA and the Norman Rockwell museum for indoor adventures. Chesterwood is a fantastic outdoor sculpture park with light hiking and outdoor installations, and Tanglewood for amazing music (mostly classical) if they haven't yet closed for the season. lizzyism

• Delaware Water Gap, NJ

"1.5-2 hours by car. Worthington State Forest is a good campsite with shower. Hike Red Dot Trail for a good view, or Tammany Trail. Kayaking in the river is fun, too." consuellabanana

• Peekskill

There is an old motel there which you can walk up the hill to. The rooms were built in the 50s and are kinda small but most have views of the Hudson Valley. Also, it's a discount place so ask for a remodeled room (room 39 is very nice) and there are bunches of great restaurants in the area. I think you can get discounts from Hotels.com for the room. You can spend a day walking around the city of Peekskill. Great bookstore, old shops, art district etc. If you want, you can hop a train for a side trip to a number of smaller towns and cities like Sleepy Hollow. Anonymoustard

• Long Branch

1:30-1:50 from city- Take the NJ Transit train down to Long Branch. From the station its a short walk east to the beach and Pier Village. Make sure to take a stroll to hit up the Windmill, Max's, Surf Taco or The Inkwell for lunch, Lighthouse for ices. Good bars w/ local crowd on Brighton Ave. Beginning Memorial Day weekend, you can also change trains in Long Branch and head down to Asbury Park. Walk down Cookman Ave. to the Boardwalk & beach area. You can do this out-of-season as well but it's quiet and trains run less frequently. sokpuppet1

• Bear Mountain state park

"For hiking / picnicking. Also possible to get a bus from NY17 on the other side of Harriman at Arden Valley Rd. Hike from Bear Mountain Inn to that point on the Appalachian Trail is ~25 miles." frankiepoops

• The Highlands

Ferry from Wall Street Pier 11 to the Highlands and taking a quick Uber to Donovan's in Sea Bright (in the summer). Beach bar and easy to get to/from. Can be a day trip! Flaythemall

• Harriman State Park

Drive down Seven Lake parkway and choose whichever lake suits you best. Some have sectioned off swimming areas, and the first lake tends to be the most crowded, but further down the parkway is usually quiet. If you can manage to get up during the week, it is virtually empty. There are a few lakes that have some tucked away little coves that are good for swimming, though it is not allowed and park rangers will yell at you if they see you (or so I have heard...personally, never ran into one). Its about 1.5 hrs outside nyc. roboecho

• Storm King

Storm King, the largest outdoor sculpture park, is great. It's an easy drive, about an hour and half. Then you could possibly continue on to Peekskill (~30min from Storm King) and have drinks/snacks at the Peekskill brewery. And I love Hudson Valley, great restaurants/scenery and lots of nice charming towns to visit like Milton, the aforementioned Peekskill, Cold Spring, or Kingston are all worth checking out. Read this NY Times article. And if you're going up this weekend, you might be able to get tickets to the "Jack O'Lantern Blaze" at Van Cortlandt Manor in Cronton-On-Hudson. Check out these pics. You could visit the Culinary Institute in Hyde Park and get a meal at one of the campus restaurants staffed by the students. Bear Mountain is another nice outdoorsy getaway OIlberger

• Vanderbilt on Long Island

Really nice grounds for the kids to run around, you can all tour the old house(where if I remember right they have a mummy) and there's a planetarium. Also on Long Island you can go to Sagamore Hill which is Teddy Roosevelt's house. Its pretty cool to tour since he was an avid hunter. FirstLadyofBeer

• Delaware Water Gap

" The Martz Bus is frequent and convenient. carpy22

• Troy, New York

"Historic downtown along the Hudson, the home of Uncle Sam." carpy22

• Nyack, New York

I love Nyack! I live here now actually. You can get there by taking the Metro North to Tarrytown and then take the Hudson Link across the River.
Lots of little shops and restaurants. On the weekends there’s lots of bikers around. Monthly there’s a pretty big street fair that garners a lot of visitors.
Strawberry place is the best for breakfast (cash only). UP Lounge or OD’s for dinner. The Local or Karma for drinks.
Piermont is very close (biking or cheap bee distance). They have cute stores and restaurants. You can rent kayaks and kayak in the Piermont Marsh, or walk out on Ferry Road which is the furthest you can get to the middle of the Hudson without being on a boat or ferry. nakedrottweiler

Longies

• Virginia Beach
• Burlington, Vermont
• Providence, RI

What's your favorite getaway for a weekend or short trip out of the city?
Help us form this wiki by sharing your favourite location and answering these questions.

• Can you get there by public transit?
  
• How long does it take to get there?
  
• Do you have a favorite B&B or hotel to stay?
  
• What are your favorite things to do there?
  

Send user rave-light a DM with the information.
We thank you for your help!

Cross-posting my list from books.
ART THIEVES, FORGERS, SMUGGLERS.
The Art of the Steal by Christopher Mason. A true story about the auction houses Sotheby’s and Christie’s and how they conspired to cheat their clients out of millions of dollars.
The Billionaire’s Vinegar: The Mystery of the World’s Most Expensive Bottle of Wine by Benjamin Wallace. The most expensive bottle of wine and the conflicting reports about its history. This is a book that would enchant wine conessi… conues… lovers.
The Gardner Heist: The True Story of the World’s Largest Unsolved Art Theft by Ulrich Boser. Author Ulrich Boser looks at the unsolved art theft case of Boston’s Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum.
The Golden Spruce: A True Story of Myth, Madness, and Greed by John Vaillant. Grant Hadwin, a logger-turned-activist, fells a unique 165 feet Sitka spruce in an act of protest. John Vaillant takes the readers into the heart of North America’s last great forest to find out why he did that.
Hitler’s Art Thief: Hildebrand Gurlitt, the Nazis, and the Looting of Europe’s Treasures by Susan Ronald. Hildebrand Gurlitt was an art thief, or as he put it himself, an ‘official dealer’ for Hitler and Goebbels. But he stole from the Jews and Nazis alike. This book was published after his hoard was recently (2013) discovered which created an international furor.
The Irish Game: A True Story of Crime and Art by Matthew Hart. This book is about the art theft at Ireland’s Russborough House in 1986. The suspect, a gangster named Martin Cahill, played cat and mouse with police for years.
The Island of Lost Maps: A True Story of Cartographic Crime by Miles Harvey. When you think about stealing some valuable art, do maps come to your mind? Then this book is for you. Gilbert Joseph Bland Jr. stole numerous centuries-old maps from research libraries in US and Canada.
I Was Vermeer: The Rise and Fall of the Twentieth Century’s Greatest Forger by Frank Wynne. Han van Meegeren became so much adapt at forging Vermeer paintings that it is said that even professional experts would find it difficult to point out his works from the originals. He earned more than $50 million by selling his forgeries – and he even swindled the Nazis.
The Lizard King: The True Crimes and Passions of the World’s Greatest Reptile Smugglers by Bryan Christy. Reptile smuggling is a big “business”. The author, a federal agent, suspected a reptile business owner of being a major smuggler and he started investigating. It was not as simple as it sounds because at one point he was chased by a mother alligator and even bitten by a python.
The Lost Chalice: The Epic Hunt for a Priceless Masterpiece by Vernon Silver. A 2500 year old cup made by the Greek master Euphronios which depicted the fall of Troy gets stolen and sold (along with 3 other such vessels). Then due to the questionable practice of some art dealers, no one can track down its last known owner.
The Lost Painting by Jonathan Harr. With nothing better to do, the author embarks on a journey to discover a Caravaggio painting which was lost to time two hundred years ago.
The Man Who Loved Books Too Much: The True Story of a Thief, a Detective, and a World of Literary Obsession by Allison Hoover Bartlett. John Charles Gilkey stole rare books not because he wanted to make profit as most thieves do, but because he loved books. I guess if you want to call yourself a book-reader but don’t actually want to say… read a book, you could just steal them and show them off to your friends. But who are we to question the wisdom of “booklovers”, right?
The Orchid Thief: A True Story of Beauty and Obsession by Susan Orlean. If you thought that stealing maps is a weird “job” to have, how about stealing a rare breed of flower? We all know about the Tulipomania that gripped Netherlands in the 1630s. But this is a modern tale, and the book is perhaps one of the most popular ones on this list.
Priceless: How I Went Undercover to Rescue the World’s Stolen Treasures by Robert K. Wittman, John Shiffman. This book is about Robert K. Wittman, FBI’s founder of the Art Crime Team and his undercover missions around the world to rescue various pieces of stolen art.
Provenance: How a Con Man and a Forger Rewrote the History of Modern Art by Laney Salisbury. You could have a Jackson Pollock lying around in your basement, but if you can’t prove that the piece is real, you might as well use it as a table cloth (I might have exaggerated there a bit, but you get the point). John Myatt, a struggling artist, and John Drewe, a conman who knew the importance of Provenance in the art world, duped many people and museums by creating a fake paper trial that seemed to prove that the art was a real thing and not a forgery. So much so that the experts believe that there might still be some fake paintings created by Myatt displayed in prominent places as the real thing.
The Rescue Artist: A True Story of Art, Thieves, and the Hunt for a Missing Masterpiece by Edward Dolnick. Dolnick writes about the theft of Edvard Munch’s The Scream from the National Gallery in Oslo in 1994 and the subsequent investigation that took place to track it down.
Selling Hitler by Robert Harris In mid-eighties, Hitler’s diaries were “discovered” and many experts fell for the con. The backpeddling many did when it was revealed that the diaries were not real is really amusing to read about.
Shell Games: Rogues, Smugglers, and the Hunt for Nature’s Bounty by Craig Welch. This book is about the poaching of a larger-than-life clam – a Geoduck, to be precise, and the subsequent chase from the wildlife police to nab the poacher.
Stealing History: Tomb Raiders, Smugglers and the Looting of the Ancient World by Roger Atwood. This book provides a sweeping history of thefts of various priceless antiques.
Stealing the Mystic Lamb: The True Story of the World’s Most Coveted Masterpiece by Noah Charney. The twelve panel oil-painting of the Mystic Lamb is the most frequently stolen artwork in the world. It was stolen 13 times. One wonders whether they could have guarded it a little better after the first couple of times, you know. Anyway, this book describes the events of each theft.
Stolen World: A Tale of Reptiles, Smugglers, and Skulduggery by Jennie Erin Smith. Two reptile smugglers compete against each other to conquer the illegal trade for themselves. The funny thing is, the Zoos stood against them in the courts, but they had no problem buying rare fauna from the two smugglers, sometimes simultaneously.
Tangled Vines: Greed, Murder, Obsession, and an Arsonist in the Vineyards of California by Frances Dinkelspiel. A massive fire destroyed wines worth $250 million in a California warehouse, making it the largest destruction of wine in history. It was done by a conman named Mark Anderson, who rented storage space at the same warehouse. This book tells why he did that and also goes into the surprisingly bloody history of wine trade in California. (reads well with cranberry juice).
Vanished Smile: The Mysterious Theft of Mona Lisa by R. A. Scotti. On August 21, 1911, a man walked out of the Louvre with the Mona Lisa tucked inside his coat (should have painted it bigger, eh Vinci?). I am not going to spoil this book for anyone. Read it if you want to know whether Mona Lisa was recovered or was lost to time forever.
CARTELS, GANGS, UNDERWORLD.
American Desperado: My Life --- From Mafia Soldier to Cocaine Cowboy to Secret Government Asset by Jon Roberts, Evan Wright. Jon Roberts, who starred in documentary Cocaine Cowboys tells his story to the journalist Evan Wright in this book. Roberts smuggled drugs to Miami for the Medellin Cartel (which will feature many times in this category).
At the Devil’s Table: The Untold Story of the Insider Who Brought Down the Cali Cartel by William C. Rempel. This is Narcos Season 3, basically. Remember the family guy who gets involved with the Cali Cartel and mops around for the whole season even though he had an unbelievably hot wife who was clearly out of his league? That character was based on Rempel. And if I must say so, the book is more compelling than that season of Narcos. Nothing can beat Agent Pena, though.
Black Mass: The True Story of an Unholy Alliance Between the FBI and the Irish Mob by Dick Lehr, Gerard O’Neill. The story of James ‘Whitey’ Bulger – the head of the Irish Mob in Boston - who became an informant for the FBI and chaos ensued. Depp plays Whitey Bulger in the movie adaptation with a soggy tortilla glued to his face as make-up.
Blow: How a Small -Town Bay Made $100 Million with the Medellin Cocaine Cartel and Lost it All by Bruce Porter. Another book where Johnny Depp plays the main character in the movie adaptation. This book is about George Jung, who after meeting Carlos Lehder, started selling cocaine in the United States through Medellin Cartel.
Cocaine Diaries: A Venezuelan Prison Nightmare by Paul Keany, Jeff Farrell. Paul Keany was caught smuggling half-a-million euro worth of cocaine into Venezuela. He was sentenced to 8 years in prison. Now, prisons everywhere aren’t exactly fun places to be, but Los Teques where Keany was incarcerated was nothing short of hell on earth.
Confessions of a Yakuza by Junichi Saga. Junichi Saga was a doctor by profession. A patient, who was a former Yakuza, recounted his life story before him. Saga recorded the conversations, and broke doctor-patient confidentiality by writing this book.
Doctor Dealer: The Rise and Fall of an All-American Boy and His Multimillion-Dollar Cocaine Empire by Mark Bowden. A dentist named Larry Lavin builds the foundation for a cocaine empire in the United States.
Donnie Brasco by Joseph D. Pistone, Richard Woodley. Joseph D. Pistone, an FBI agent, goes undercover for six years to infiltrate the Mafia. Do watch the movie too, it is Depp’s last movie without weird make-up.
El Narco: Inside Mexico’s Criminal Insurgency by Ioan Grillo. Journalist Ioan Grillo has written, arguably, the definitive book on Mexican drug cartels. Why he is still alive is anybody’s guess.
Gang Leader for a Day: A Rouge Sociologist Takes to the Streets by Sudhir Venkatesh. Venkatesh, who was a sociology grad student at the time, infiltrated one of Chicago’s most notorious gangs. This is one of a kind type of book.
Gomorrah by Roberto Saviano. This book is about the Italian Crime Network called Camorra in Naples, Italy. Due to his intensive investigative journalism which exposed lot of insider information about the crime syndicate, author Saviano still has to live under constant police protection.
The Good Mothers: The True Story of the Women Who Took on the World’s Most Powerful Mafia by Alex Perry. This is a recent book, where the author Alex Perry looks inside the ruthless Calabrian Mafia of Italy and three women who want to save their own and their children’s lives. This is a fascinating and courageous look into an aspect of the Mafia which is often overlooked by most.
Hunting El Chapo: The Inside Story of the American Lawman Who Captured the World’s Most Wanted Drug-Lord by Andrew Hogan, Douglas Century. Remember when Joaquin Guzman was caught for the first time and then he escaped and then he was caught again for good? Yes? Then read this one. But this book only focuses on the operation that nabbed him for the first time. I must warn you though – the author, Andrew Hogan – is really really in love with himself and it seeps into his writing.
The Infiltrator: My Secret Life Inside the Dirty Banks Behind Pablo Escobar’s Medellin Cartel by Robert Mazur. Mazur went undercover and actually became a money launderer for Pablo Escobar. This book is more about how bankers actively helped to launder the drug money and how Mazur helped to bring them down.
Killing Pablo: The Hunt for the World’s Greatest Outlaw by Mark Bowden. This is the best book about tracking and eventually killing Pablo Escobar. And as Walter Jr. pointed out to Walter White, it focuses on the good guys, not the bad ones. Good companion book to Pablo Escobar: My Father written by Escobar’s son.
Marching Powder: A True Story of Friendship, Cocaine, and South America’s Strangest Jail by Rusty Young. The author stays inside San Pedro jail for months with a drug smuggler to chronicle his tale. This is one of the most popular books written on cocaine smuggling.
McMafia: A Journey Through the Global Criminal Underworld by Misha Glenny. This is a thorough investigation into organized crime worldwide which accounts for 1/5th of total GDP of the world. This book would please readers who are into extensively researched true-crime history books, not so much a casual reader (inb4 - I just read 5 pages of McMafia and wow… just wow).
Mr. Blue: Memoirs of a Renegade by Edward Bunker. Edward Bunker had had an eventful life. Incarceration for two and a half decades, being on FBI’s most wanted list, and being a crime novelist. This is his autobiography.
Mr. Nice by Howard Marks. Howard Marks started dealing dope in small quantities while he was studying at Oxford – as you do – and then eventually graduated to dealing it in tons (what the hell was he studying there? Oh, philosophy). This is his fascinating story.
Narcoland: The Mexican Drug Lords and Their Godfathers by Anabel Hernandez. Yet another book that resulted in the author getting death threats. This proves the old cliché true that the pen is mightier than the sword; until the sword comes down and cuts your neck. That’s why the author has to live under constant protection.
Narconomics: How to Run a Drug Cartel by Tom Wainwright. Any aspiring drug lords should read this instruction manual. Just kidding. Wainwright goes deep into the functioning of various drug cartels and at the end also comes up with a plan to defeat them.
News of a Kidnapping by Gabriel Garcia Marquez. Little known author tries his hand at true-crime. Pablo Escobar kidnapped 10 journalists when he was on the run from the authorities. This book revolves around that event.
The Night it Rained Guns: Unravelling the Purulia Arms Drop Conspiracy by Chandan Nandy. On a December night in 1995, someone airdropped three weapons-laden wooden pallets over Purulia, West Bengal. Who did it and why? This book tells the story about one of India’s greatest ever security breaches.
No Angel: My Undercover Journey to the Inner Circle of the Hells Angels by Jay Dobyns, Nils Johnson-Shelton. Dobyns was the first federal agent to infiltrate the inner circle of the notorious biker gang. This is his story.
Pablo Escobar: My Father by Juan Pablo Escobar. Juan Pablo is an architect and lives and practices his trade in Argentina. Even though Pablo was his father, Juan does not try to justify his actions even a little bit. This is one of the best books written on Pablo Escobar.
The Snakehead: An Epic Tale of the Chinatown Underworld and the American Dream by Patrick Radden Keefe. Sister Ping, leader of the Chinese underworld in the US, earned $40 million a year smuggling people from China. Told from the viewpoints of gangsters, investigators, and poor immigrants alike, this book provides a unique window into the world of human smuggling.
Scores: How I Opened the Hottest Strip Club in New York City, Was Extorted out of Millions by the Gambino Family, and Became One of the Most Successful Mafia Informants in FBI History by Michael D. Blutrich. I am disappointed that they went with FBI instead of Federal Bureau of Investigation in the title. Should have made it longer. Scores: How I Opened the Hottest Strip Club in New York City on the 34th Street Just Opposite the Starbucks, Was Extorted out of 4.54 Millions and 55 Cents Plus Taxes by the Gambino Family, and Became One of the Most Successful Mafia Informants in Federal Bureau of Investigation History by Michael Dostoyevsky Blutrich
Tokyo Vice: An American Reporter on the Police Beat in Japan by Jake Adelstein. The author, working as a reporter in Japan, writes about the seedy underbelly of crime in the country.
The Untouchables by Eliot Ness, Oscar Fraley. Where’s Nitty? He’s in the car.” Great movie. How Eliot Ness and his team started the downward spiral in criminal career of Al Capone. A somewhat embellished account was also written in the book, but nonetheless, it is a gripping tale.
Veerappan: Chasing the Brigand by K. Vijay Kumar. Koose Muniswamy Veerappan was the last big outlaw of India. A sandalwood smuggler who lived in the forest to evade the police, Veerappan killed hundreds of policemen and civilians. K. Vijay Kumar, the officer who led the task force that ultimately brought down the brigand, is the author of this book.
Wiseguy: Life in a Mafia Family by Nicholas Pileggi. ” I’m funny how, I mean funny like I’m a clown, I amuse you? Goodfellas is perhaps the best Mafia movie ever made, so read it in his own words why Pileggi might fold under questioning.
Zero Zero Zero by Roberto Saviano, Virginia Jewiss. This Saviano guy must have a death wish. But as a handsome list-writer once eloquently said, “If bitten already by a King Cobra, what difference it makes if you French kiss a Black Mamba?” Since the publication of his book on the Italian crime syndicate, Saviano has to live under constant police protection. So to make sure they don’t slack off, he wrote a book on Cocaine Cartel, this time acquiring lots of admirers in Latin America.
CONMEN, IMPOSTORS.
The Art of Making Money: The Story of a Master Counterfeiter by Jason Kersten. The Art of making money is to make other people work for you; not the other way round. But more scrupulous method of making money would be to counterfeit it. Art Williams did exactly that.
Catch Me If You Can: The True Story of a Real Fake by Frank W. Abagnale. Maybe the most popular book on this list, Abagnale Jr.’s book is not to be missed even if you have watched the movie starring the actor who had sex with a bear (no, not Tormund).
Charlatan: America’s Most Dangerous Huckster, the Man Who Pursued Him, and the Age of Flimflam by Pope Brock. One “Dr.” John R. Brinkley, set-up a medical practice to surgically insert goat glands in human testicles to restore their fading sex drive. I am not joking, this happened.
Conman: A Master Swindler’s Own Story by J. R. Weil, W. T. Brannon. Known as “Yellow Kid” Weil was a master conman, who duped public of more than $8 million 100 years ago. He’s called by many as the greatest conman of all time (second to the companies that charge service fees on the internet, of course).
Eyeing the Flash: The Making of a Carnival Con Artist by Peter Fenton. Fenton was a math student until he turned into a carnival con artist. How many bananas he stole from the monkeys? How many bales of potatoes from the elephants? Read this book to find out.
Inconvenient People: Lunacy, Liberty and the Mad-Doctors in Victorian England by Sarah Wise. If you have any annoying friends who romanticize the Victorian era and say that they would have liked to live there, tell them to read this book and get back to you after that.
The Man in the Rockefeller Suit: The Astonishing Rise and Spectacular Fall of a Serial Impostor by Mark Seal. This is the true story of one of the greatest impostors of all time. The man could have impersonated a chihuahua if he wanted to.
The Man Who Sold the Eiffel Tower by James Francis Johnson. Viktor Lustig sold the Eiffel Tower not once, but twice. I still have the relevant papers that my great grandfather left us. I’m going to shift it to Nauru or Detroit.
The Mark Inside: A Perfect Swindle, a Cunning Revenge, and a Small History of the Big Con by Amy Reading. This is a revenge story of a man who sets out to con the conmen who conned him twice. Unfortunately, the book could have been written better, but it is still worth having a look at.
Playing Dead: A Journey Through the World of Death Fraud by Elizabeth Greenwood. I once tried playing dead in a meeting when asked about the progress on my project. But there are people who fake their death for lesser gains, such as insurance fraud and debt fraud. Author Elizabeth Greenwood journeys into the dark world of death fraud to find out more.
Ponzi’s Scheme: The True Story of a Financial Legend by Mitchell Zuckoff. Charles Ponzi was so successful in duping people that we have immortalized his name by terming such swindles after him. At one point, he was raking in $2 millions a week. How many weeks would it take you to earn 2 million dollars at your current income? (sorry, that got heavy fast. It hurt me too).
A Rum Affair: A True Story of Botanical Fraud by Karl Sabbagh. One botanist claimed that some species of plants on the islands south of Scotland survived the last Ice Age. Another botanist doubted him. This might not sound like a big fraud if you are not into plants, but believe me when I say that the 2 botanists who just read this threw their phones away in disgust and disbelief.
Starvation Heights: A True Story of Murder and Malice in the Woods of the Pacific Northwest by Gregg Olsen. A quack doctor named Linda Hazard developed a technique called “fasting treatment”. The story focuses on two sisters who fell for the quack’s assurances that they would be cured of all the diseases - real or imagined. This book is quite infuriating to read. Hazard was a despicable human being.
Swindled: From Poison Sweets to Counterfeit Coffee – The Dark History of the Food Cheats by Bee Wilson. Wilson looks from ancient Rome to current times for food frauds. And she finds them aplenty (companion read - while having a nice snack).
A Treasury of Deception: Liars, Misleaders, Hoodwinkers, and the Extraordinary True Stories of History’s Greatest Hoaxes, Fakes and Frauds by Michael Farquhar. This is a good bathroom book about fakers through history.
The Woman Who Wasn’t There: The True Story of an Incredible Deception by Robin Gaby Fisher, Angelo J. Guglielmo Jr. Have you heard about Tania Head? If you haven’t, I urge you to skip this book. Tania Head duped survivors of 9/11 and the whole world alike into believing that she was one of the survivors from the South Tower of World Trade Center. I feel enraged just by typing this. So just read this book if you want to know more about her. There are a couple of documentaries out there too.
HACKERS.
The Cuckoo’s Egg: Tracking a Spy Through the Maze of Computer Espionage by Clifford Stoll. Long before internet became a place for cat memes, Cliff Stoll was working at a research lab as a systems manager. One day he found 75 cents of accounting error. This made him alert that an unauthorized person was logging into the system. Thus began his lone effort of tracking down the spy.
Exploding the Phone: The Untold Story of the Teenagers and Outlaws Who Hacked Ma Bell by Phil Lapsley. Before there was internet, or even personal computers, mobsters and teenagers hacked the telephone system.
Ghost in the Wires: My Adventures as the World’s Most Wanted Hacker by Kevin D. Mitnick, William L. Simon. The book tells the story of one of the best hackers of all times, Kevin Mitnick, and his cat and mouse game with the FBI.
The Spider Network: The Wild Story of a Math Genius, a Gang of Backstabbing Bankers, and One of the Greatest Scams in Financial History by David Enrich. A group of bankers manipulated daily interest rates just a fraction here and there on loans worth trillions of dollars and made some serious cash for themselves. This book also rocks one of the ugliest book covers of 2017.
MUTINEERS, PIRATES, OUTLAWS.
Batavia’s Graveyard: The True Story of the Mad Heretic Who Led History’s Bloodiest Mutiny by Mike Dash. I was torn whether to include this book in the list as the history of Batavia’s mutiny is littered with corpses. But as the focus is on the mutiny, I am going to keep it here. This event could give the Medusa’s raft a run for its money.
The Floating Brothel: The Extraordinary True Story of an Eighteenth-Century Ship and its Cargo of Female Convicts by Sian Rees. Poor girls in England, most of who were petty thieves, were given a chance to sail to Botany Bay in Australia to create a new life for themselves and the male population of New South Wales. But the real story happened at the sea on board the ship Lady Julian.
The Last Outlaws: The Lives and Legends of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid by Thom Hatch. Butch: What happened to the old bank? It was beautiful. Guard: People kept robbing it. Butch: Small price to pay for beauty. The book might not be full of memorable dialogues as the movie, but if you want to know more about the legendary outlaws, give this book a chance.
Lost Paradise: From Mutiny on the Bounty to a Modern-Day Legacy of Sexual Mayhem, the Dark Secrets of Pitcairn Island Revealed by Kathy Marks. Mutiny of the Bounty is perhaps the most infamous of mutinies that occurred at sea. Even after the event and hundreds of years later, the descendants of Fletcher Christian and his sailors continue to live a crime-filled life like their forefathers on Pitcairn Island.
The Pirate Hunter: The True Story of Captain Kidd by Richard Zacks. This book will change your perception of Captain Kidd, that’s for sure.
To Hell on a Fast Horse: Billy the Kid, Pat Garrett, and the Epic Chase to Justice in the Old West by Mark Lee Gardner. This non-fiction book concentrates on Sheriff Pat Garrett’s chase in pursuit of the bandit Billy the Kid. If you like reading westerns, this one and The Last Outlaws are not to be missed.
Under the Black Flag: The Romance and the Reality of Life Among the Pirates by David Cordingly. Cordingly takes a look at life among the pirates. Some of your romanticism would be squashed, but there were some good things about being a pirate too. Life among the pirates was neither black nor white; it was beige.
POLITICAL CRIMES
Arms and the Dudes: How Three Stoners from Miami Beach Became the Most Unlikely Gunrunners in History by Guy Lawson. Three kids won a 300 million dollar contract – legitimately – I must add, to supply ammunition to the Afghanistan military. They had no money, but still they almost pulled it off. I don’t know, read this book, and if you’re a US citizen, visit the websites mentioned in the book, see if they are still doing business the same way, and if you want, you can become a supplier to the army too. Don’t forget to send me my cut (the movie War Dogs was trash).
The Brother: The Untold Story of Atomic Spy David Greenglass and How He Sent His Sister, Ethel Rosenberg, to the Electric Chair by Sam Roberts. Even if you’re not a United Statian of American (USians?), chances are you might have read at least something about the execution of the Rosenberg couple as spies. This is probably the best book about the subject.
Curveball: Spies, Lies, and the Man Behind Them: How America Went to War in Iraq by Bob Drogin. How many weapons of mass destruction were found in Iraq? If your answer is “what’s that?” then congratulations, you’re not unlike one of your former presidents. Who told the USians that there were WMDs with Saddam? Curveball.
The Confessions of an Economic Hitman by John Perkins. Perkins was an economic hitman, who at the instruction of US intelligence agencies and giant corporations cajoled and blackmailed other country leaders to serve US foreign policy and award lucrative contracts to American businesses (now that job has been transferred to the White House).
A Kim Jong – Il Production: The Extraordinary True Story of a Kidnapped Filmmaker, His Star Actress, and a Young Dictator’s Rise to Power by Paul Fischer. Say you want to make a big movie for your country. But there is no one in your country who can handle such an ambitious project. What do you do? Hire some talent from other country? But you’re Kim Jong – Il. Oh. Then you just kidnap them, and force them to make the glorious movie of yours. Read this book. It’s pretty absurd (the movie they eventually made for Kim was utter shit. The Room would look like Gone with the Wind compared to that abomination).
The Nuclear Jihadist: The True Story of the Man Who Sold the World’s Most Dangerous Secrets… And How We Could Have Stopped Him by Douglas Frantz, Catherine Collins. One day a man Abdul Qadeer Khan caught a plane to Pakistan from Europe. With him he had blueprints of the mechanism that could prepare weapons grade Uranium that he had stolen from the lab he worked at in the last 3 years. He would make the first atomic bomb for Pakistan with that information. Then he sold the tech to stable countries like Iran, North Korea and Libya. How can someone get away with stealing such powerful information? Read this book to find out.
Operation Paperclip: The Secret Intelligence Program that Brought Nazi Scientists to America by Annie Jacobsen. This is a pretty controversial topic that has only gained wider acknowledgement in recent decades. Read this book to know in detail how bogus the claims of justice being served to the perpetrators of the Holocaust were. Basically, if you were a scientist, you were very likely to be acquitted from any War Crimes allegations.
The Real Odessa: How Peron Brought the Nazi War Criminals to Argentina by Uki Goni. How did most of the Nazis who managed to escape from Germany ended up in South America? Read about the collusion of various entities and institutions that made it possible in this book.
The Spy Who Couldn’t Spell: A Dyslexic Traitor, an Unbreakable Code, and the FBI’s Hunt for America’s Stolen Secrets by Yudhijit Bhattacharjee. This is the true story of a mole in FBI, how he attempted to sell classified information and how FBI tried to track him down.
ROBBERIES, HEISTS.
Ballad of the Whiskey Robber: A True Story of Bank Heists, Ice Hockey, Transylvanian Pelt Smuggling, Moonlighting Detectives, and Broken Hearts by Julian Rubinstein. If there is one thief in this list that I admire, it is without a doubt, Attila Ambrus. Ambrus was known as a gentleman thief, who would ask – no, request - the teller to fill his bag with money. If you read this book, it would be hard for you to dislike Attila even though he was a thief.
Confessions of a Master Jewel Thief by Bill Mason, Lee Gruenfeld. Bill Mason looted many famous personalities in his long career as a jewel thief. In this book he tells how he did it.
The Feather Thief: Beauty, Obsession, and the Natural History Heist of the Century by Kirk W. Johnson. Do you know there are people whose hobby is fly tying? The feathery thing that you attach to the hook to catch fish? But these are not your average fly tiers. They use feathers from exotic birds to create different ties whose total cost could run in thousands of dollars. Moreover, many of the most coveted birds are either protected or extinct. So one night a man named Edwin Rist broke into Tring museum and took hundreds of bird skins, some that belonged to Darwin, to fuel his hobby and even getting rich by selling precious feathers to other tiers. Don’t miss this book.
Finders Keepers: The Story of a Man Who Found $1 Million by Mark Bowden. Who hasn’t dreamt of finding a big bag of money? It couldn’t have happened to a more clueless person. Joey Coyle, to be exact.
Flawless: Inside the Largest Diamond Heist in History by Scott Andrew Selby. The theft from Antwerp that still raises many questions.
Go Down Together: The True, Untold Story of Bonnie and Clyde by Jeff Guinn. The truth is not that romantic.
The Great Pearl Heist: London’s Greatest Thief and Scotland Yard’s Hunt for the World’s Most Valuable Necklace by Molly Caldwell Crosby. Pearls, more valuable than the Hope Diamond, are stolen by thieves in Edwardian London.
The Great Train Robbery by Michael Crichton. My favorite Crichton book. Stealing gold from a running train! Watch the movie too that stars the great Sean Connery.
Heist: The Oddball Crew Behind the $17 Million Loomis Fargo Theft by Jeff Diamant. How easy is it to steal 17 million dollars? As far as these thieves were concerned, not much. Getting away with it was another thing altogether. The movie was pretty average, I think.
Into the Blast: The True Story of DB Cooper by Skipp Porteous, Robert Blevins. Is Tommy Wiseau DB Cooper? If only that was true. Read the book but don’t expect any clear-cut answers (I think most people would agree that the clumsy bastard died after he jumped from the plane).
A Pickpocket’s Tale: The Underworld of Nineteenth-Century New York by Timothy J. Gilfoyle. True story of George Appo, a pickpocket living in nineteenth-century New York.
Sex on the Moon: The Amazing Story Behind the Most Audacious Heist in History by Ben Mezrich. A guy steals moon rocks from NASA and then had sex on them with his girlfriend (how the hell is that comfortable?)
The Stranger in the Woods: The Extraordinary Story of the Last True Hermit by Michael Finkel. The last hermit was not a hermit in true sense. He didn’t rely on land to feed himself. He stole from the nearby community. Before someone says I have spoiled the book for them, it is revealed in the first chapter that he is a thief.
WHITE COLLAR CRIMES.
Bad Blood: Secrets and Lies in a Silicon Valley Startup by John Carreyrou. The Steve Jobs impersonator, Elizabeth Holmes, CEO of Theranos, and her old boyfriend, Sunny, are some of the most vile people that I have come across while reading about corporate crime. This is one of the best books that I have read this year.
Den of Thieves by James B. Stewart. This is probably the most famous book written about those Wall Street scoundrels.
Empire of Deception: The Incredible Story of a Master Swindler Who Seduced a City and Captivated the Nation by Dean Jobb. The story of Leo Koretz, who created one of the longest running Ponzi scheme in the 1920s Chicago.
The Informant by Kurt Eichenwald. Mark Whitacre becomes an FBI informant against his own corporation. But as time goes by, the FBI starts to realize that Mark is not as truthful as he seems to be, and he has his own agenda (they made a movie with Matt Damon).
Octopus: Sam Israel, the Secret Market, and Wall Street’s Wildest Con by Guy Lawson. Sam Israel’s hedge fund was making heavy losses. So naturally, he fabricated fake returns to fool the investors. Then he heard about a secret market from where he could convert his millions into billions. That’s how he lost the last 150 million dollars of his invertors’ money.
Red Notice: A True Story of High Finance, Murder, and One Man’s Fight for Justice by Bill Browder. Only thing you are going to learn from this book is don’t do business in Russia.
The Smartest Guys in the Room: The Amazing Rise and Scandalous Fall of Enron by Bethany McLean, Peter Elkind. Bethany McLean asked one simple question in her article when everyone else was going gaga over Enron. “What does Enron actually do?” Nobody knew. Even Enron couldn’t give a specific answer. They were not just committing accounting fraud; they were looting ordinary people by creating fake shortage of electricity and driving the prices high. The documentary is worth watching too.
Stung: The Incredible Obsession of Brian Molony by Gary Stephen Ross. The guy Molony debited huge amounts of money from the bank he worked at to feed his gambling addiction. Oh, and he took the money in other people’s name who held huge accounts there. This is one of the best true-crime books that I have ever read.
Three Cups of Deceit: How Greg Mortenson, Humanitarian Hero, Lost His Way by Jon Krakauer. You know the man who builds schools in remote regions of Afghanistan and Pakistan? Great guy, right? Krakauer doesn’t think so. And he’ll tell you why in this short book.
The Wizard of Lies: Bernie Madoff and the Death of Trust by Diana B. Henriques. 65 billion dollars. That’s the amount that Madoff swindled from people through decades of fraud. I think I can buy a small island country with this much money. The idiot is in jail though. I don’t know, maybe after a couple of billion, skip to a country with no extradition treaty and live the rest of your life without the fear of being getting caught? But then, these types of people don’t know when to stop.
OTHER.
American Roulette: How I Turned the Odds Upside Down --- My Wild Twenty-Five-Year Ride Ripping Off World’s Casinos by Richard Marcus. The guy ripped-off casinos all over the world by stealing gaming chips while maintaining an illusion of a highroller to lend his eventual take required legitimacy.
Breaking the Rock: The Great Escape from Alcatraz by Jolene Babyak. Written by the daughter of a guard at Alcatraz, this book tells the story of the infamous escape from the prison island. Don’t forget to watch the classic movie too.
Bringing Down the House: The Inside Story of Six MIT Students Who Took Vegas for Millions by Ben Mezrich. The movie 21 was based on this book. But if you want to know the real story, without the whitewashing, you have no choice but to read this book.
Disposable People: New Slavery in the Global Economy by Kevin Bales. Kevin Bales estimates that there are 27 million people worldwide who live as slaves, right now. And yes, slavery still exists in United States of America in case you were wondering. This is a depressing book.
Fish: A Memoir of a Boy in a Man’s Prison by T. J. Parsell. Rape in prison is absolutely overlooked almost everywhere. Read this book if you can endure reading about helplessness page after page.
Hotel K: The Shocking Inside Story of Bali’s Most Notorious Jail by Kathryn Bonella. Prison systems in developing world differ from the developed one in one regard that the guards and officials there are more corrupt and hence are likely to look the other way when something bad is going down amongst the inmates. Kerobokan Jail in Bali is one of the worst among those.
The Hot House: Life Inside Leavenworth Prison by Pete Earley. The author interviewed inmates from Leavenworth Prison for two years. The book is the result of that labor.
The Laundrymen: Inside the World’s Third Largest Business by Jeffrey Robinson. I have a perfect idea to launder money. Laser Tag! Robinson looks at the third largest business in the world. The book was published a while ago, but still hasn’t lost most of its relevancy.
Missoula: Rape and the Justice System in a College Town by Jon Krakauer. Jon releases the Krakauer on one of the most relevant subjects of today. Rapes in colleges. These institutes would do anything to sweep things under the rug to maintain the illusion of clean image in the public eye.
Newjack: Guarding Sing Sing by Ted Conover. The author worked as a prison guard for a year at one of the most notorious prisons of the United States. This book is about his experience.