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The World's Greatest Hoaxes
The Exploits of Ingenious Hoaxers, cunning Impostors and their Gullible victims.
446 pages, Hardcover
Published January 1, 2006
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July 7, 2008
I bought this book on a whim when it was on clearance. You get what you pay for.
Now don't get me wrong -- I enjoyed the subject matter. This book is chock full of accounts of hoaxes, con artists, impostors and other entertaining mischief. Each account is from one to five pages in length. Some of them are well-known: for example, if you've seen Catch Me If You Can with Leonardo DiCaprio, you'll recognize the story of Frank Abagnale Jr. Most of the stories, though, were new to me.
The writing is rather flat, so while the situations are amusing and sometimes appalling, there's no life in the telling. Also, the author seems to be fond of letting us know how each particular impostor or con artist died, even when it's irrelevant. So, all too often, a fun little tale of imposture ends with a quick fast forward to the person's death years in the future. Thud.
Here, though, is what really bugged me about the book. Toward the end of it, I got to the story of someone who actually went to my high school, a kid who started his own business early on, and became a local success story until it was discovered that he was cooking the books in a big way. First, there was a factual error in the story having to do with Los Angeles geography. The author didn't do his homework, and it made me wonder what else he was careless about. Second, and worse, let me quote the following passage from that story:
"The other kids thought he was mad, but to Minkow running a business was second nature. After all, he was Jewish."
This is one of those innocuous-seeming comments that may have been tongue-in-cheek, but there's a lot of ugliness behind it. Kind of ruined the whole book for me.
I recommend this book, frankly, for bathroom reading. It's not good for much else except small doses of stories that deserve to be told by a better writer. By all means, don't waste your money on a new copy. Find a used one or check it out from the library.
Now don't get me wrong -- I enjoyed the subject matter. This book is chock full of accounts of hoaxes, con artists, impostors and other entertaining mischief. Each account is from one to five pages in length. Some of them are well-known: for example, if you've seen Catch Me If You Can with Leonardo DiCaprio, you'll recognize the story of Frank Abagnale Jr. Most of the stories, though, were new to me.
The writing is rather flat, so while the situations are amusing and sometimes appalling, there's no life in the telling. Also, the author seems to be fond of letting us know how each particular impostor or con artist died, even when it's irrelevant. So, all too often, a fun little tale of imposture ends with a quick fast forward to the person's death years in the future. Thud.
Here, though, is what really bugged me about the book. Toward the end of it, I got to the story of someone who actually went to my high school, a kid who started his own business early on, and became a local success story until it was discovered that he was cooking the books in a big way. First, there was a factual error in the story having to do with Los Angeles geography. The author didn't do his homework, and it made me wonder what else he was careless about. Second, and worse, let me quote the following passage from that story:
"The other kids thought he was mad, but to Minkow running a business was second nature. After all, he was Jewish."
This is one of those innocuous-seeming comments that may have been tongue-in-cheek, but there's a lot of ugliness behind it. Kind of ruined the whole book for me.
I recommend this book, frankly, for bathroom reading. It's not good for much else except small doses of stories that deserve to be told by a better writer. By all means, don't waste your money on a new copy. Find a used one or check it out from the library.
Displaying 1 of 1 review