As I’m writing this, thousands of people will be sitting down to watch the first episode of season 3 of Succession. If you’re not aware, Succession is a HBO show that follows the dysfunctional Roy family — owners of a global media and entertainment conglomerate called Waystar RoyCo — who are subject to the whims of the terrifying patriarch, Logan Roy.
While spending too much time watching the Roy family stab each other in the back over their morally dubious media empire tends to turn my stomach a little, I can’t deny the allure of such a show. (Nor the power of Shiv Roy’s immaculate wardrobe.) Fortunately, if there’s one thing the Western canon can be relied upon to produce, it’s a plethora of books about rich and powerful people doing terrible things.
If you’re a fan of Succession, this is the reading list for you, full of riveting non-fiction and scandalous fiction …
The Loudest Voice in the Room
by Gabriel Sherman
When Rupert Murdoch enlisted Roger Ailes to launch a cable news network in 1996, American politics and media changed forever. How did this man become the master strategist of our political landscape? In revelatory detail, Sherman chronicles the rise of Ailes, a frail kid from an Ohio factory town who, through sheer willpower, the flair of a showman, fierce corporate politicking, and a profound understanding of the priorities of middle America, built the most influential television news empire of our time.
Buy it here
The Rise and Rise of Kerry Packer (Uncut)
by Paul Barry
A classic piece of Australian non-fiction publishing. Originally released in 1993 when Packer was still alive, it has sold well over a quarter of a million copies and is widely seen as the definitive book on a man who throughout his remarkable life mystified, inspired and challenged those around him. Since Kerry Packer’s death Barry has unearthed a substantial amount of new testimony from those now prepared to come forward.
Buy it here
The Prince
by Niccolò Machiavelli
As a diplomat in turbulent fifteenth-century Florence, Niccolò Machiavelli knew how quickly political fortunes could rise and fall. The Prince, his tough-minded, pragmatic handbook on how power really works, made his name notorious and has remained controversial ever since. How can a leader be strong and decisive, yet still inspire loyalty in his followers? When is it necessary to break the rules? And is it better to be feared than loved?
Buy it here
King Lear
by William Shakespeare
‘How sharper than a serpent’s tooth it is To have a thankless child!‘
An ageing king rejects the young daughter who loves him and misplaces his trust in her malevolent sisters, who strip him of his power and condemn him to a wretched wasteland of horror and insanity. Set in a pitiless universe, Shakespeare’s bleak and brutal tragedy, written at the height of his powers, is a towering masterpiece of fierce poetry and vast imaginative scope.
Buy it here
The Godfather
by Mario Puzo
A modern masterpiece, The Godfather is a searing portrayal of the 1940s criminal underworld. It is also the intimate story of the Corleone family, at once drawn together and ripped apart by its unique position at the core of the American Mafia. Still shocking forty years after it was first published, this compelling tale of blackmail, murder and family values is a true classic.
Buy it here
The Line of Beauty
by Alan Hollinghurst
It is the summer of 1983, and young Nick Guest, an innocent in the matters of politics and money, has moved into an attic room in the Notting Hill home of the Feddens: Gerald, an ambitious new Tory MP, his wealthy wife Rachel, and their children Toby and Catherine. Nick had idolised Toby at Oxford, but in his London life it will be the troubled Catherine who becomes his friend and his uneasy responsibility. At the boom years of the mid-80s unfold, Nick becomes caught up in the Feddens’ world.
Buy it here
The Talented Mr Ripley
by Patricia Highsmith
‘He is using you for what you are worth.‘
Tom Ripley wants money, success, and the good life – and he’s willing to kill for it. Struggling to stay one step ahead of his creditors, and the law, Ripley leaps at the chance to start afresh on a free trip to Europe. But when his new-found happiness is threatened, his response is as swift as it is shocking.
Buy it here
Brideshead Revisited
by Evelyn Waugh
The most nostalgic and reflective of Evelyn Waugh’s novels, Brideshead Revisited looks back to the years before the Second World War. It tells the story of Charles Ryder’s infatuation with the Marchmains and the rapidly-disappearing world of privilege they inhabit. Enchanted first by Sebastian at Oxford, then by his doomed Catholic family, in particular his remote sister, Julia, Charles comes finally to recognize only his spiritual and social distance from them.
Buy it here
The Nest
by Cynthia D’Aprix Sweeney
When black sheep Leo has a costly car accident, the Plumb siblings’ much-anticipated inheritance is suddenly wiped out. His brother and sisters come together and form a plan to get back what is owed them – each grappling with their own financial and emotional turmoil from the fallout. As ‘the nest’ fades further from view, they must decide whether they will build their lives anew, or fight to regain the futures they had planned …
Buy it here
The Custom of the Country
by Edith Wharton
Edith Wharton’s novels of manners seem to grow in stature as time passes. Here she draws a beautiful social climber, Undine Sprague, who is a monster of selfishness and honestly doesn’t know it. Although the worlds she wants to conquer have vanished, Undine herself is amazingly recognisable. She marries well above herself twice and both times fails to recognise her husbands’ strengths of character or the weakness of her own, and it is they, not she, who pay the price.
Buy it here
—Season 3 of Succession is streaming now on Binge.
About the Contributor
Olivia Fricot
Olivia Fricot (she/her) is Booktopia's Senior Content Producer and editor of the Booktopian blog. She has too many plants and not enough bookshelves, and you can usually find her reading, baking, or talking to said plants. She is pro-Oxford comma.
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