Bookshelf · AntiheroesPreview

Patrick Bateman.

American Psycho · 1991 / 2000

Wall Street’s most-quoted aesthete reviews Genesis, Whitney Houston, and (somewhere on the shelf) Donald Trump’s Art of the Deal. Read alongside the satire, not against.

"I have to return some videotapes." — and these books.

3 booksCurated · cited · cross-referenced

The shelf, decoded

Why this list.

Patrick Bateman’s reading is, like everything else about him, performance. He owns books the way he owns suits — for the surface. The list below is what is actually named in the novel, plus the satirical period canon his shelf is making fun of.

The reading list

3 books for Patrick.

No. 01On screen
The Art of the Deal
Donald J. Trump
Bateman reads this aloud, repeatedly, to women who do not want to hear it.
CitationNovel, multiple chapters
No. 02Creator cited
Less Than Zero
Bret Easton Ellis
Bateman is what Ellis’s earlier protagonists become at thirty.
CitationAuthor canon
No. 03Character fit
McMafia
Misha Glenny
Published later, but the Bateman shelf-update.
CitationCharacter-fit

Closing note

Read with irony. Bateman would.

Don Draper

Cover of Meditations in an Emergency by Frank O’Hara

Mid-century Madison Avenue’s most reluctant reader. The books we see in Don’s hands — Marcus Aurelius, Frank O’Hara — are the only place he is honest.

Read the list

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