Books › The Bonfire of the Vanities › Books like it
If you loved
Books like The Bonfire of the Vanities
A sprawling, cynical rollercoaster ride through the greed and grit of the 1980s, watching a self-proclaimed Master of the Universe spectacularly unravel. These 12 books are the closest matches in mood, pace and themes, with what each one shares with The Bonfire of the Vanities.
- frenetic
- chaotic
- claustrophobic
- cynical
- 01
A Man in Full
Tom Wolfe · 1998
A sprawling, high-octane satire that skewers the fragile egos, racial tensions, and financial house of cards of the New South.
- 02
Liar's Poker
Michael M. Lewis · 1989
A wickedly funny, front-row ticket to the chaotic, testosterone-fueled circus of 1980s Wall Street.
- 03
Cosmopolis
Don DeLillo · 2003
A surreal, claustrophobic crawl through a hyper-capitalist apocalypse from the backseat of a soundproof stretch limousine.
- 04
Money
Martin Amis · 1984
A manic, filthy, and hilariously grotesque joyride through the neon-lit excesses of the 1980s.
- 05
Faggots
Larry Kramer · 1978
A frantic, sweat-soaked descent into 1970s gay hedonism that masks a desperate, aching plea for true love.
- 06
The Golden House
Salman Rushdie
A feverish, maximalist tragedy that skewers the excesses and anxieties of contemporary America through the lens of a doomed, wealthy family.
- 07
Rules of Civility
Amor Towles
A sparkling, martini-dry plunge into 1930s Manhattan society, where ambition and chance collide in a haze of jazz and cigarette smoke.
- 08
Bright lights, big city
Jay McInerney · 1992
A frantic, second-person plunge into the neon-lit exhaustion of urban excess and addiction.
- 09
The Street Lawyer
John Grisham
A high-stakes legal thriller that trades corporate boardrooms for gritty city streets in a tense fight for moral redemption.
- 10
Breakfast of Champions
Kurt Vonnegut
A wildly absurd, darkly hilarious road trip through the broken heart of American consumerism, complete with felt-tip pen doodles.
- 11
The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test
Tom Wolfe · 1968
A kaleidoscopic, hyperkinetic road trip through the birth of the 1960s counterculture that reads like a literary hallucination.
- 12
The Rubber Band
Rex Stout · 1936
A delightfully sharp and witty plunge into 1930s New York, where a sedentary genius and his wisecracking legman untangle a deadly web of old promises.
