Person
Every book Matt Taibbi recommended on podcasts
Matt Taibbi's appearances on programs like The Joe Rogan Experience and The Megyn Kelly Show portray him as an investigative journalist and author whose reading life is deeply rooted in political critique, systemic corruption, and classical literature. Taibbi often invokes biting satirical works and historical non-fiction to contextualize modern media, government overreach, and institutional decay. Among his formative literary influences is Nikolai Gogol's classic Dead Souls, a childhood favorite about con artistry that mirrors his professional fascination with deceit and manipulation. To critique mainstream media conformity and institutional messaging, Taibbi has turned to Noam Chomsky and Edward S. Herman's Manufacturing Consent, alongside literary touchstones like Joseph Heller's play We Bombed in New Haven. His insights into investigative reporting and intelligence operations are informed by memoirs like Seymour Hersh's Reporter, while his commentary on contemporary political controversies includes references to Abigail Shrier's Irreversible Damage. Additionally, Taibbi's breadth spans demanding classics like Leo Tolstoy's Anna Karenina and his own co-written work, The Business Secrets of Drug Dealing. Through these varied references, Taibbi emerges as a media critic who reads widely to dissect power dynamics and human folly.
Books recommended by Matt Taibbi
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Anna Karenina
Anna Karenina is a monumental masterwork of Russian literature by graf Leo Tolstoy that explores themes of morality, society, and human passion in nineteenth-century Russia.
Discussed“it may be just as interesting but it just requires less work so the hardest thing to read is you know Anna Karenina or something like that right”
Where to get it
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Dead Souls
Discussed“my favorite book growing up was about a con man it was this book called dead souls uh by a russian writer named goggle and it's about it's it's about a guy who basically buys a bunch of dead serfs uh and mortgages them”
Where to get it
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Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas by Hunter S.
Discussed“well he so hundreds of this great thing he he he wrote about it it was it was kind of a spoof of campaign coverage because he he did this whole campaign diary and then he just kind of went into this deadpan recitation of what sounded like a breaking news story about him discovering Muskies secret relationship with a”
Where to get it
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Irreversible Damage
Irreversible Damage by Abigail Shrier is a nonfiction book that investigates the sudden, sharp rise in teenage girls identifying as transgender, framing the phenomenon largely through the lens of social contagion and peer influence.
Discussed“well abigail schreier is experiencing that in you know like the most hateful and aggressive way with uh her book i believe it's called irreversible damage right”
Where to get it
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Manufacturing consent
Manufacturing Consent by Edward S.
Discussed“believe it or not Nome Chomsky wrote about a million years ago in a book called manufacturing consent like you see coming up in the business”
Where to get it
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Minority Report
Minority Report is a science fiction work exploring futuristic surveillance, preemptive law enforcement, and advanced biometric identification.
Discussed“it's sort of like Minority Report right it's pre- crime”
Where to get it
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Papillon
Discussed“I love books that are written after the fact by people who were in crime you know like Papillon was one of my favorite books growing up”
Where to get it
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Reporter
Discussed“like it's a great story that that's like sort of apropos to all this is um in seymour hirsch's book uh it's his memoir reporter there's a story about how in the early 90s the cia wanted everybody to know that they had caught”
Where to get it
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The Business Secrets of Drug Dealing
Discussed“I co-wrote a book with a black author um called the business secrets of drug dealing”
Where to get it
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We Bombed in New Haven
Discussed“there was a great play by uh Joseph heler who was the author of catch22 called we bombed the New Haven and there was a character in it who says we're g to bomb Constantinople off the map”
Where to get it
Books Matt Taibbi wrote
Appearances
Other mentions (3: passing, ad reads, own books)
“there was a great play by uh Joseph heler who was the author of catch22 called we bombed the New Haven and there was a character in it who says we're g to bomb Constantinople off the map”
“I'm writing this book I spelled it too it's called the business secrets of drug dealing you can find it at business secrets of drug dealing calm and I'm serializing it”
“I'm writing this book I spelled it too It's called the business secrets of drug dealing You can find it at business secrets of drug dealing calm And I'm serializing it but basically somebody I knew for ages in a completely different capacity I sort of came out to me last year and said um you know I've been a”