The Best Books on Deception And Bullshit?

On Bullshit
  • Title: On Bullshit
  • Author(s): Harry Frankfurt
  • First Published: 1986

One of the most salient features of our culture is that there is so much bullshit. Everyone knows this. Each of us contributes his share. But we tend to take the situation for granted


Calling Bullshit
  • Title: Calling Bullshit
  • Author(s): Carl T. Bergstrom, Jevin West
  • First Published: 2020

Bullshit isn’t what it used to be. Now, two science professors give us the tools to dismantle misinformation and think clearly in a world of fake news and bad data.


Why We Lie
  • Title: Why We Lie: The Evolutionary Roots of Deception and the Unconscious Mind
  • Author(s): David Livingstone Smith
  • First Published: 2004

David Livingstone Smith elucidates the essential role that deception and self-deception have played in human – and animal – evolution and shows that the very structure of our minds has been shaped from our earliest beginnings by the need to deceive.


Self-Deception
  • Title: Self-Deception
  • Author(s): Herbert Fingarette
  • First Published: 1969

The idea of deception is easy for most people to understand. It is not a puzzle that some people are able to deceive others. It is not difficult to think of many reasons why they would do so. But why self-deception?


The Folly of Fools

Whether it’s in a cockpit at takeoff or the planning of an offensive war, a romantic relationship or a dispute at the office, there are many opportunities to lie and self-deceive—but deceit and self-deception carry the costs of being alienated from reality and can lead to disaster. So why does deception play such a prominent role in our everyday lives?


Spy the Lie

Title: Spy the Lie: Three Former CIA Officers Reveal Their Secrets to Uncloaking Deception
Author(s): Philip Houston, Mike Floyd, Susan Carnicero, Don Tennant, Michael Floyd
First Published: 2012

Three former CIA officers – among the world’s foremost authorities on recognizing deceptive behavior – share their proven techniques for uncovering a lie.


The Art of Worldly Wisdom

Title: The Art of Worldly Wisdom
Author(s): Baltasar Gracián
First Published: 1647

The remarkable best-seller – a long-lost, 300-year-old book of wisdom on how to live successfully yet responsibly in a society governed by self-interest – as acute as Machiavelli yet as humanistic and scrupulously moral as Marcus Aurelius.


The Art of Deception

Title: The Art of Deception
Author(s): Kevin D. Mitnick, William L. Simon, Steve Wozniak (Foreword)
First Published: 2001

The world’s most infamous hacker offers an insider’s view of the low-tech threats to high-tech security.


How to Lie with Statistics

Title: How to Lie with Statistics
Author(s): Darrell Huff, Irving Geis
First Published: 1954

Darrell Huff runs the gamut of every popularly used type of statistic, probes such things as the sample study, the tabulation method, the interview technique, or the way the results are derived from the figures, and points up the countless number of dodges which are used to fool rather than to inform.


The Art of Intrusion

Title: The Art of Intrusion: The Real Stories Behind the Exploits of Hackers, Intruders and Deceivers
Author(s): Kevin D. Mitnick, William L. Simon
First Published: 2005

Hacker extraordinaire Kevin Mitnick delivers the explosive encore to his bestselling The Art of Deception.


The Prince

Title: The Prince
Author(s): Machiavelli
First Published: 2005

The Prince is an extended analysis of how to acquire and maintain political power.


The 48 Laws of Power

Title: The 48 Laws of Power
Author(s): Robert Greene
First Published: 1998

The 48 Laws of Power by Robert Greene is a book about pragmatism. Greene doesn’t attempt to indoctrinate his readers into believing a fixed philosophy, in fact, he does the opposite.

Summary


“Yellow Kid” Weil

Title: “Yellow Kid” Weil: The Autobiography of America’s Master Swindler
Author(s): J.R. Weil, Bruno Ruhland
First Published: 2004

Bilked bankers, grifted gamblers, and swindled spinsters: welcome to the world of confidence men.


The Confidence Game

Title: The Confidence Game
Author(s): Maria Konnikova
First Published: 2015

From the New York Times bestselling author of Mastermind, a compelling investigation into the minds, motives, and methods of con artists—and the people who fall for their cons over and over again


The Book of the Courtier

Title: The Book of the Courtier
Author(s): Baldassare Castiglione
First Published: 1528

Widely acknowledged as the sixteenth century’s most significant handbook on leadership, The Book of the Courtier offers an insider’s view of court life and culture during the Renaissance.


The Honest Truth About Dishonesty

Title: The Honest Truth About Dishonesty: How We Lie to Everyone – Especially Ourselves
Author(s): Dan Ariely
First Published: 2012

The New York Times bestselling author of Predictably Irrational and The Upside of Irrationality returns with thought-provoking work to challenge our preconceptions about dishonesty and urge us to take an honest look at ourselves.


The Little, Brown Book of Anecdotes Armenian Folk-tales and Fables

Title: The Little, Brown Book of Anecdotes Armenian Folk-tales and Fables
Author(s): Charles Downing
First Published: 1972

These folk-tales were told by simple people–vine-dressers, farm-laborers, millers–and were preserved by word of mouth, to be repeated for entertainment in the coffee-house, or at home during the long, hard winters


A Book of Five Rings

Title: A Book of Five Rings
Author(s): Miyamoto Musashi
First Published: 1645

Written over three centuries ago by a Samurai warrior, the book has been hailed as a limitless source of psychological insight for businessmen-or anyone who relies on strategy and tactics for outwitting the competition.


Amoral Politics

Title: Amoral Politics: The Persistent Truth of Machiavellism
Author(s): Ben-Ami Scharfstein
First Published: 1993

This is a study of how and why politics is amoral. It deals especially with what the author terms Machiavellism–the disregard of moral scruples for political ends that leads to the justification and use of deception and force in all aspects of political life.


Tales of the Dervishes

Title: Tales of the Dervishes: Teaching Stories of the Sufi Masters Over the Past Thousand Years
Author(s): Idries Shah
First Published: 1967

Dervish tales are more than fable, legend, or folklore. For centuries dervish masters have instructed their disciples by means of these teaching stories, which are said to increase perception and knowledge and provide a better understanding of man and the world


Caravan of Dreams

Title: Caravan of Dreams
Author(s): Idries Shah
First Published: 1968

Caravan of Dreams distills the essence of Eastern thought in a feast of stories, sayings, poems and allegories, collected by one of the world’s leading experts in Oriental philosophy.


The Craft of Power

Title: The Craft of Power
Author(s): R.G.H. Siu, Ralph G. H. Siu
First Published: 1979

A comprehensive guide to gaining, maintaining, and expanding personal power. Presents basic techniques for the management of people and organizations. Guidelines are presented in a “how to” fashion, illustrated by real-life examples.


The Great Imposter

Title: The Great Imposter
Author(s): Robert Crichton
First Published: 1959

This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it.


Tricky Vic

Title: Tricky Vic: The Impossibly True Story of the Man Who Sold the Eiffel Tower
Author(s): Greg Pizzoli
First Published: 2015

In the early 1900s, Robert Miller, a.k.a. “Count Victor Lustig,” moved to Paris hoping to be an artist. A con artist, that is. He used his ingenious scams on unsuspecting marks all over the world, from the Czech Republic, to Atlantic ocean liners, and across America.


Trust Me, I’m Lying

Title: Trust Me, I’m Lying: Confessions of a Media Manipulator
Author(s): Ryan Holiday
First Published: 2012

You’ve seen it all before. A malicious online rumor costs a company millions. A political sideshow derails the national news cycle and destroys a candidate. Some product or celebrity zooms from total obscurity to viral sensation. What you don’t know is that someone is responsible for all this. Usually, someone like me.


A Treasury of Deception

Title: A Treasury of Deception: Liars, Misleaders, Hoodwinkers, and the Extraordinary True Stories of History’s Greatest Hoaxes, Fakes, and Frauds
Author(s): Michael Farquhar
First Published: 2005

We may say that honesty is the best policy, but history–to say nothing of business, politics, and the media–suggests otherwise. In this infinitely citable book, the author of two bestselling treasuries of scandal recounts some of the greatest deceptions of all time.


Other Books

  • Duped: Truth-Default Theory and the Social Science of Lying and Deception
  • Telling Lies: Clues to Deceit in the Marketplace, Politics, and Marriage
  • Hoax: A History of Deception: 5,000 Years of Fakes, Forgeries, and Fallacies
  • Bunk: The Rise of Hoaxes, Humbug, Plagiarists, Phonies, Post-Facts, and Fake News
  • The Big Book of Hoaxes: True Tales of the Greatest Lies Ever Told!
  • Hype: A Doctor’s Guide to Medical Myths, Exaggerated Claims, and Bad Advice – How to Tell What’s Real and What’s Not
  • Bad Science
  • Bad Advice: Or Why Celebrities, Politicians, and Activists Aren’t Your Best Source of Health Information
  • Do You Believe in Magic?: The Sense and Nonsense of Alternative Medicine
  • The Skeptics’ Guide to the Universe: How to Know What’s Really Real in a World Increasingly Full of Fake
  • Why People Believe Weird Things: Pseudoscience, Superstition, and Other Confusions of Our Time
  • Bad Astronomy
  • Unweaving the Rainbow: Science, Delusion and the Appetite for Wonder
  • The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark
  • Mistakes Were Made (But Not By Me): Why We Justify Foolish Beliefs, Bad Decisions, and Hurtful Acts
  • Innumeracy: Mathematical Illteracy and Its Consequences
  • The Mask of Nostradamus
  • The Draunkard’s Walk: How Randomness Rules Our Lives
  • Fooled by Randomness
  • The Black Swan
  • Skin in the Game
  • Anti-fragility
  • Nonesense on Stilts: How to Tell Science from Bunk
  • Fads and Fallacies in the Name of Science
  • Science Matters: Achieving Scientific Literacy
  • Why We Make Mistakes: How We Look Without Seeing, Forget Things in Seconds, and Are All Pretty Sure We Are Way Above Average
  • Being Wrong: Adventures in the Margin of Error
  • Predictably Irrational: The Hidden Forces That Shape Our Decisions
  • The Invisible Gorilla: And Other Ways Our Intuitions Deceive Us
  • You Are Not So Smart: Why You Have Too Many Friends on Facebook, Why Your Memory Is Mostly Fiction, and 46 Other Ways You’re Deluding Yourself
  • How to Become a Professional Con Artist
  • The Art of the Steal: How to Protect Yourself and Your Business from Fraud, America’s #1 Crime
  • The Big Con: The Story of the Confidence Man
  • Ponzi’s Scheme: The True Story of a Financial Legend
  • The Art of the Con: The Most Notorious Fakes, Frauds, and Forgeries in the Art World
  • My Adventures with Your Money: George Graham Rice and the Golden Age of the Con Artist
  • Counter Hack Reloaded: A Step-By-Step Guide to Computer Attacks and Effective Defenses
  • The Santa Claus Man: The Rise and Fall of a Jazz Age Con Man and the Invention of Christmas in New York
  • Social Engineering: The Art of Human Hacking
  • The Woman Who Fooled the World: Belle Gibson’s Cancer Con, and the Darkness at the Heart of the Wellness Industry
  • A Deal with the Devil: The Dark and Twisted True Story of One of the Biggest Cons in History
  • Empire of Deception: The Incredible Story of a Master Swindler Who Seduced a City and Captivated the Nation
  • Conman: A Master Swindlers Own Story
  • A Disposition to Be Rich: Ferdinand Ward, the Greatest Swindler of the Gilded Age
  • Going Clear: Scientology, Hollywood, and the Prison of Belief

"A gilded No is more satisfactory than a dry yes" - Gracian