Big business, big stories: Go behind scenes of Wall Street, Silicon Valley

Fellows has delved deep into his own career to create this satirical novel about Giles Goodenough, hedge fund manager. With a dash of humor, he offers an insider’s take on exactly what life is like behind the doors of multi-billion dollar companies. This book also breaks down the hype of working in tech and seeks to warn others about stepping into this bizarre industry. Fellows writes a cautionary tale of the thinly veiled true characters he spent his days surrounded by and how each helped him realize that his own life was becoming devoid of meaning outside of his work.

After Jerry Klein is promoted from his robotlike routine as a minter to managing director of a major New York City bank, he quickly discovers a company culture characterized by violations of federal law and a massive insider trading scandal. From here, he is forced to confront the reality of his career choice and decide if it’s worth it to risk it all for a shot at reaping the rewards of a multi-million dollar scheme.

This novel documents protagonist Warren Hament’s entry into the world of corporate finance in the early 1980s. He experiences the glamorous life of the Wall Street elite and receives a promotion early on in his career. While this may sound like an ideal situation, his promotion comes with a major caveat — Warren is replacing his recently murdered mentor. Simultaneously, he takes on his new role and finds himself at the epicenter of a double murder investigation, seeking justice in the deaths of two Wall Street magnates.

“The Circle” is the world’s premier internet company, boasting immense power and nearly impossible-to-land positions. When Mae Holland is offered a role in the company, her dream come true rapidly turns into a living nightmare. The story takes a tragic turn when Mae realizes that her entire life is far more public than she ever intended for it to become.

Wiener’s extraordinary memoir about navigating Silicon Valley during the height of a cultural shift provides a glimpse behind the curtain of the companies that claim to be building the future. This book paints a portrait of the misogyny, disillusionment and quest for progress at any cost that live at the core of Silicon Valley.

Karen Ho channels Isaac Newton in her Wall Street commentary, “Liquidated.” In this book, she seamlessly combines her knowledge of market systems with a sociological approach to the Wall Street workplace. If you have ever wanted to understand nearly everything there is to know about Wall Street, this is the read for you.

“Flash Boys” is the ultimate Wall Street expose. This bestseller follows a squad of skeptics as they seek to reveal how market systems are rigged to benefit those involved most closely in their practices. They give up their high-paying jobs and luxurious lifestyles in order to launch a massive investigation into the strange, and oftentimes illegal, methods that Wall Street uses to generate billions of dollars for its most valued investors.

Martinez uncovers some of the little-known mysteries about our favorite apps in his book, “Chaos Monkeys.” The author recounts his experiences as the CEO of his own company, working for Facebook’s advertising team and how he was forced out when monetization strategy disputes lead to a warlike office environment. After settling into a role at Twitter, Martinez recounts his experiences in this humorous narrative on social media, online marketing and how the tech industry is taking over our world.

Theranos has consistently made headlines over the past few years for its failed attempts at revolutionizing medical technology. The company was valued at $9 billion, quickly making its founder, Elizabeth Holmes, a billionaire. The issue arose, though, when multiple clinical trials revealed that the blood-testing system did not actually work. This Silicon Valley screw-up led to thousands of misdiagnoses and unnecessary treatments.“Bad Blood” tells the full tale of the entrepreneur’s inability to swallow her pride, putting droves of Americans in danger.

Fans of true crime, Harper Lee’s work and/or well-written narrative nonfiction will devour this book.

Casey Cep examines Lee’s attempts, in the later years of her career, to report on and write a book about a notorious Alabama serial killer in 1970s Alabama. “Furious Hours,” taking us into atmospheric courtrooms in the Deep South, reads like a novel, and you leave it thinking that the story of the accused killer, the Reverend Willie Maxwell, would make a hell of a movie.

Walter Mosley, author of the excellent Easy Rawlins mystery series, offers this follow-up to his 2007 writer’s guide “This Year You Write Your Novel.”

The new book, wrote Kirkus Reviews, “provides guidance and tough-minded encouragement to writers at any stage of development ... As with other manuals, this one doesn’t shirk from emphasizing the difficulty of writing, but Mosley’s spirited generosity helps make it less daunting.”

Musician/author/poet Patti Smith’s third volume of her memoirs — the first, “Just Kids,” won the National Book Award in 2010 — takes us through her life in her 70th year, in “a hybrid narrative that’s part travel journal, part reflexive essay on our times, and part meditation on existence at the edge of a new decade of life,” wrote an NPR reviewer, describing the book as “a beautifully realized and unique memoir that chronicles a transformative year in the life of one of our most multi-talented creative voices.”

Winner of this year’s Pulitzer Prize for biography, this hefty book (800-plus pages) examines the life of one of America’s best-known public intellectuals, Susan Sontag.

“An authoritatively constructed work told with pathos and grace,” wrote the Pulitzer committee, “that captures the writer’s genius and humanity alongside her addictions, sexual ambiguities and volatile enthusiasms.”

Another Pulitzer Prize-winning biography (as well as a National Book Award winner), Stewart’s book examines the life of Locke, the philosopher, writer and trailblazer of the Harlem Renaissance, whose protegees included Langston Hughes, Zora Neale Hurston and Jacob Lawrence.

A New York Times critic called the book — the title of which comes from a seminal 1925 essay by Locke — a “majestic biography” that “gives Locke the attention his life deserves.”

Gene Weingarten, a longtime Washington Post journalist and two-time Pulitzer winner, picked a date at random (Dec. 28, 1986) and found a multitude of real-life stories, from all over the country.

A Post reviewer wrote that the author “indulges his uncommon storytelling gifts on behalf of the (mostly) common man and woman. Weingarten takes immense pleasure in sifting through facts for meaning, then selecting the right language to draw readers close.”

Readers rejoice: It’s the most wonderful time of the year for book lovers — pandemic notwithstanding.

In fact, this year promises an even deeper bounty than usual, given publishers’ shuffling of release dates due to the novel coronavirus.

“Beautiful Ruins” author Jess Walter will release what appears to be another page-turner with “The Cold Millions.” Marilynne Robinson is back with “Jack,” a new installment in her “Gilead” novels. And Phil Klay, who won the 2014 National Book Award for his story collection “Redeployment,” is publishing his debut novel, “Missionaries.”

Read on for more best bets, presented in order of publication date. We can’t possibly get to them all, but given the strange way time bends these days, we hope you will.

Nonfiction

Nonfiction

‘Just Us: An American Conversation’ by Claudia Rankine

In “Just Us,” Claudia Rankine continues the urgent conversation about race she started with her National Book Award-winning poetry collection “Citizen: An American Lyric.” By combining poetry, essay, visual elements and other forms, Rankine finds language to excavate this nation’s deepest hurt. (Graywolf, 352 pages, $30, out now)

‘Zorro’s Shadow: How a Mexican Legend Became America’s First Superhero’ by Stephen J.C. Andes

Historian Stephen J.C. Andes argues the mark of Zorro brands even the most modern American superheroes as he traces the character’s sword-slashing roots to 1919 pulp fiction. Andes aims to reclaim the character’s Latinx roots as an avenger in Old Spanish California. (Chicago Review, 304 pages, $18.99, out now)

‘His Very Best: Jimmy Carter, A Life’ by Jonathan Alter

Jonathan Alter offers a sweeping biography of 95-year-old Jimmy Carter, from his farm-boy childhood in the 1920s through his single-term presidency and his innovative post-presidency as a champion for human rights. The biography promises to “change our understanding of perhaps the most misunderstood president in American history” — and one whose decency stands out in today’s political climate. (Simon & Schuster, 800 pages, $37.50, Sept. 29)

‘How to Write One Song: Loving the Things We Create and How They Love Us Back’ by Jeff Tweedy

Wilco frontman Jeff Tweedy offers a primer on the creative promise of songwriting. It works to both demystify the process of divining song, lyrics and the process of putting the two together while observing the wonder and joy in human artistic endeavor. (Dutton, 176 pages, $23, Oct. 13)

‘White Fright: The Sexual Panic at the Heart of America’s Racist History’ by Jane Dailey

Jane Dailey asserts that fear of interracial sex drove white supremacists to fight against civil rights for Black Americans. The book explores how anxiety surrounding sexuality influenced racial violence between Reconstruction and the U.S. Supreme Court’s verdict in Loving v. Virginia, which finally struck down bans on interracial marriage. (Basic, 368 pages, $30, Nov. 17)

‘One Life’ by Megan Rapinoe

Soccer star Megan Rapinoe’s book publishes the Tuesday after the 2020 U.S. presidential election, but it’s teased as “a thoughtful and unapologetic discussion of social justice and politics.” Rapinoe, an Olympic gold medalist and two-time World Cup champion, was raised in a conservative Northern California town but has since become an outspoken advocate for equal pay for women, LGBTQ rights and racial equality. (Penguin, 240 pages, $27, Nov. 10)

Fiction

And here are six more paperbacks worth checking out.