Biography · Similar reads
Books like Empty Mansions
The best books like Empty Mansions are Educated: A Memoir, The Glass Castle: A Memoir, and The Big Short: Inside the Doomsday Machine. Empty Mansions by Bill Dedman is about wealth and isolation, gilded age america, inheritance. If that's what drew you in, here are 12 books that share its DNA — each summarized on Superbook, and ready to chat with in the app.
- Educated: A Memoir
01
Tara Westover · Memoir
Educated is Tara Westover's memoir about growing up in a survivalist family in rural Idaho and eventually earning a PhD in history from Cambridge University.
A kindred biography read.
Read the summary → - The Glass Castle: A Memoir
02
Jeannette Walls · Memoir
The Glass Castle is Jeannette Walls's memoir about growing up as the second of four children in a family that moved constantly across the American Southwest and West Virginia, rarely had enough to eat, and existed almost entirely outside conventional institutions.
A kindred biography read.
Read the summary → - The Big Short: Inside the Doomsday Machine
03
The Big Short: Inside the Doomsday Machine
Michael Lewis · Economics
The Big Short is Michael Lewis's account of the 2008 financial crisis as seen through the eyes of a handful of contrarians who saw the collapse coming, bet against the American housing market, and were right.
A kindred biography read.
Read the summary → - Say Nothing: A True Story of Murder and Memory in Northern Ireland
04
Say Nothing: A True Story of Murder and Memory in Northern Ireland
Patrick Radden Keefe · History
Say Nothing opens with a scene that sets its register precisely: Jean McConville, a widowed mother of ten, is dragged from her Belfast flat by a gang of masked strangers in December 1972 and never seen alive again.
A kindred biography read.
Read the summary → - A People's History of the United States
05
A People's History of the United States
Howard Zinn · History
Howard Zinn's A People's History of the United States, first published in 1980, retells American history from the perspective of those who rarely appear in conventional textbooks: Native Americans, enslaved people, industrial workers, women, immigrants, and dissidents of various kinds.
Both dig into american history.
Read the summary → - American Nations
06
Colin Woodard · History
American Nations is Colin Woodard's argument that North America is not a single nation but a continent of 11 distinct regional cultures, each founded by different waves of settlers with different values, institutions, and political philosophies, and that understanding those foundational cultures is more useful for explaining American political conflict than the standard red-state/blue-state framing.
Both dig into american history.
Read the summary → - Americana
07
Bhu Srinivasan · History
Americana is Bhu Srinivasan's attempt to tell the history of American capitalism through its defining industries and the entrepreneurs who built them.
Both dig into american history.
Read the summary → - Isaac's Storm: A Man, a Time, and the Deadliest Hurricane in History
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Isaac's Storm: A Man, a Time, and the Deadliest Hurricane in History
Erik Larson · History
Isaac's Storm reconstructs the deadliest natural disaster in American history: the hurricane that destroyed Galveston, Texas, on September 8, 1900, killing somewhere between six and twelve thousand people in a single day.
Both dig into american history.
Read the summary → - Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America
09
Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America
Ibram X. Kendi · History
Stamped from the Beginning is Ibram X.
Both dig into american history.
Read the summary → - The Big Change
10
Frederick Lewis Allen · History
The Big Change is Frederick Lewis Allen's account of how the United States was transformed between 1900 and 1950, covering the shifts in technology, economics, social life, and values that remade American society in half a century.
Both dig into american history.
Read the summary → - The Rise and Fall of American Growth
11
The Rise and Fall of American Growth
Robert J. Gordon · Economics
Robert Gordon's argument is one of the most carefully constructed and most contested in recent economics: that the period from 1870 to 1970 was a singular century of transformative invention, and that we have been living with the deceleration ever since.
Both dig into american history.
Read the summary → - A Beautiful Mind
12
Sylvia Nasar · Biography
Sylvia Nasar's biography of the mathematician John Nash — Nobel laureate, game theory pioneer, and paranoid schizophrenic — is one of the finest accounts of genius and mental illness in biographical literature.
A kindred biography read.
Read the summary →
Books like Empty Mansions: quick answers
What are the best books like Empty Mansions?
The best books like Empty Mansions by Bill Dedman are Educated: A Memoir by Tara Westover, The Glass Castle: A Memoir by Jeannette Walls, The Big Short: Inside the Doomsday Machine by Michael Lewis, Say Nothing: A True Story of Murder and Memory in Northern Ireland by Patrick Radden Keefe, A People's History of the United States by Howard Zinn, plus 7 more below. Each was chosen for themes it shares with Empty Mansions, such as wealth and isolation, gilded age america, inheritance.
What should I read after Empty Mansions?
A natural next read after Empty Mansions is Educated: A Memoir by Tara Westover. A kindred biography read. Other strong choices are The Glass Castle: A Memoir by Jeannette Walls, The Big Short: Inside the Doomsday Machine by Michael Lewis, Say Nothing: A True Story of Murder and Memory in Northern Ireland by Patrick Radden Keefe.
What books are similar to Empty Mansions by Bill Dedman?
Empty Mansions centers on wealth and isolation, gilded age america, inheritance. Books with a similar feel include Educated: A Memoir by Tara Westover, The Glass Castle: A Memoir by Jeannette Walls, The Big Short: Inside the Doomsday Machine by Michael Lewis, Say Nothing: A True Story of Murder and Memory in Northern Ireland by Patrick Radden Keefe, A People's History of the United States by Howard Zinn, American Nations by Colin Woodard — all free to read and chat with on Superbook.
