Unique Writings
American author Ben Mezrich is best known for his non-fiction books. In a career spanning nineteen years (so far), Mezrich has written twenty-four books that have gone on to become bestsellers worldwide. He is quite a special and unique author, as some would say that he’s created his own genre. While Mezrich’s work is considered non-fiction, he writes cinematic and true stories about young geniuses who are determined to succeed no matter the cost but have to figure out the grey area between right and wrong. This is not a genre you will see very often, and I think many people will be surprised by how much they enjoy it!
Successful Stories
If you think you have never heard of any of Ben Mezrich’s best novels, then think again! If you have seen the movies 21 and The Social Network, then you have had a taste of what his work is all about. These movies were based off of two of his most successful books. Mezrich creates fascinating stories that are based on truth, and I promise you they will have you hooked. He has another book being made into a movie that will be out soon called Dumb Money, and he was a writer on the TV show Billions. If you have seen any of these movies or shows, then stick around – Ben Mezrich is the author for you!
Best Ben Mezrich Books
Bringing Down the House
Counting Cards
Let’s kick things off with Ben Mezrich’s best-selling book that was made into the movie, 21. It is widely known that card counting isn’t considered cheating because it doesn’t change the outcome of the game, but it is frowned upon, especially by casinos. They choose to deal with it in their own way.
Enter this group of six MIT students that was formed by Micky Rosa. They’re all highly intelligent individuals who decided to try their hand at card counting. Rosa is the one who took it all one step further, creating the blackjack team that would soon give Vegas a run for its money.
Behind The Scenes
The MIT blackjack team won so often that they started getting perks at many casinos, rubbing elbows with the rich and famous. These students hid their double lives from their families for years, studying during the week, and making millions on the weekends. But, just like everything in life, something has got to give. The house of cards is bound to come crashing down.
What I thought was so cool about this book was learning the behind-the-scenes of casinos and card games, which is something I’m not very familiar with. Card counting may sound easy, but they didn’t just simply learn how to count cards – they learn the art of it. This book is truly brilliant and reads like a fictional thriller. What’s even crazier is that it’s a true story!
The Accidental Billionaires
Creating Facebook
I am sure this is a story we are all familiar with: the story of how Facebook was founded (if not, then either read this book or go watch The Social Network). It is no surprise that this ended up becoming one of Ben Mezrich’s most popular books! It’s the tale of two socially awkward teenagers trying to increase their chances with girls which results in the creation of Facebook.
Harvard undergraduates and best friends Mark Zuckerberg and Eduardo Saverin felt like outsiders their whole lives. While both were brilliant students, they were not quite as good with women. While Eduardo was more concerned with what the alpha males on campus thought of him, Mark put his computer hacking skills to work.
How It Started
Cracking the university’s computer system, which was fairly easy for a genius like Mark, presented a more direct route to social stardom. He decided to create a database on the university network where you could rate all the female students on campus. Mark ended up crashing the system and almost getting kicked out.
And that is how the framework for Facebook was born. Of course, there is more about how it came to be a worldwide phenomenon. It’s a fascinating story and a very good read for anyone wanting to learn. This highly-ranked Ben Mezrich book will keep you entranced with this absolutely crazy story!
Bitcoin Billionaires
Buying Bitcoin
If you have any interest in the world of cryptocurrency, then you are definitely going to want to read this best-rated Ben Mezrich book. It’s the story of how two brothers became the first bitcoin billionaires. They initially started off wanting to become venture capitalists, but soon realized that no one would take their money after a fallout with Mark Zuckerberg.
While recouping in Ibiza, they have a chance run in with an eccentric man who tells them all about cryptocurrency. Having no idea what this is, the brothers start to immerse themselves in what was, at the time, an unknown world that could be profitable but equally as sinister.
Take The Risk
Realizing that crypto is either going to be the next big hit or complete and utter nonsense, the brothers decide to hedge their bets. They manage to get their hands on bitcoin and in November of 2017, the Winklevoss brothers became the first ever bitcoin billionaires. This is a wild ride and an inside look into the bitcoin that we all know today.
If you want some insight into the financial world of crypto, then do yourself a favor and add this book to your Ben Mezrich TBR list. You dive into this new technology and all the radical characters and major players involved. It also gives a bit of background on the beef between Zuckerberg and the Winklevoss brothers.
The Antisocial Network
Bringing It Down
This book was an absolutely wild ride! It’s all about the loosely affiliated subreddit group called WallStreetBeets, which consisted of private investors and internet trolls. This group single-handedly took down one of Wall Street’s largest hedge funds, the first shot fired in a battle that flipped Wall Street on its head.
You will be treated to a behind-the-scenes look from all angles at how a populist movement used social media to bring down this hedge fund. The whole concept of WallStreetBeets started off as a joke. It was a place where people could share memes, give investment tips, and laugh.
Battle Ready
It was all fun and games until some subreddit members saw a golden opportunity – and rode that wave to millions of dollars. Mezrich goes into the heart of the battle which even featured GameStop. It all comes to a head in the clash between the hedge fund, Melvin Capital, and a group of amateur traders, internet trolls, and video game enthusiasts.
Before going into this Ben Mezrich book, I would recommend you read the reviews, especially if this whole debacle is something you are not overly familiar with. There are some great explanations there which Mezrich’s book builds on. This one is just as exciting and almost unbelievable as the others and looks at the people involved and how they recovered.
The Midnight Ride
Three Strangers
Contrary to popular belief, Ben Mezrich does, in fact, also write top fiction books. There are three strangers who are on the cusp of something incredible – but someone is willing to kill to keep it hidden. Hailey Gordon is counting cards at casinos, trying to make some extra money to pay off her tuition.
When she gets caught, Hailey takes her winnings and runs. With the guards closing in, her only escape is an unlocked room… with a dead body inside. Nick Patterson is an ex-con, recently released from prison. Entering a hotel room, he finds that the person he was supposed to meet there is dead. Instead, there is a young and frightened girl.
Best Kept Secret
Adrian Jensen is an American history professor who discovers his professional nemesis has been killed the day after he receives all of his research. Adrian is skeptical, and about to delete everything when he notices one, tiny detail. These three strangers have no idea that they are about to uncover the secret connection between the Gardner Museum heist and one of the biggest secrets to come out of the Revolutionary War.
Ben Mezrich definitely knows how to write the best books that would play out well on the big screen. It felt like I was watching a movie the whole time I was reading. Anyone that is a fan of thrillers and adventure novels would enjoy this story. There are plenty of twists and turns!
Ugly Americans
Based On A True Story
This is the true story of a man named John Malcolm, a young Princeton graduate who traveled across the world searching for the American dream. He ended up pulling off a trade that is considered to be the biggest deal in the financial markets in history.
When Malcolm received a phone call offering the opportunity of a lifetime in a foreign land, he packed up his bags and headed to Japan. Not able to speak a word of Japanese, Malcolm was thrown into the world of expat trading, but he quickly learned what it takes to survive in such a cutthroat environment.
Biggest In History
Starting off as an assistant, Malcolm worked his way up and rubbed elbows with some of the biggest players ever known to the financial market. He also fell in love with the daughter of a gangster and came head-to-head with violent mobsters. He and his ivy League colleagues decided to come up with their own economic theory – Armitage with a Battle Axe.
Together, they rode the waves of the crashing Asian markets to pull off the biggest deal in history. Like all the best books by Ben Mezrich, this one reads like fiction. He latches on to every bit of greed and drama and details a fast-paced and compelling true story, giving insight into the dark side of the financial markets.
Once Upon A Time in Russia
Billionaires
In one of his latest books, Ben Mezrich offers up the untold true story of the billionaire oligarchs who rode the waves of privatization to secure their riches after the fall of the Soviet Union. The two main players were Boris Berezovsky, also known as the “Godfather of the Kremlin” and his protégé, Roman Abramovich.
Locked into a Russian partnership, Berezovsky and Abramovich fought their way through the Wild East that was Russia at the time, with Berezovsky acting as his protégé’s protector. This story depicts how these two men managed to obtain obscene wealth and power in a way that you do not often see.
Lessons In Politics
Under Berezovsky’s wing, Abramovich built up one of the largest oil companies to ever come out of Russia, in only a year. But their relationship with President Vladimir Putin was under strain after Berezovsky attacked him in the media, and then had to flee to the UK. While Abramovich prospered, Berezovsky had dead bodies following him, and he was later found dead of an apparent suicide.
In order to truly understand how interesting this story is, you’ll need to read Ben Mezrich’s book. It’s a lesson in political history but has the fast pacing of a thriller. Reading how these men obtained their wealth gives a more in depth look into how Russia came to be how it is today. Highly recommend this one if you are a lover of history!
Busting Vegas
How They Did It
Semyon Dukach is a name that is well-known in the gambling world of Las Vegas. He’s been referred to as the Darling of Las Vegas, even. Semyon became a legend at the tender age of twenty-one, a mathematical, high-rolling genius with a system that no casino was prepared for – or knew how to stop.
Semyon’s system has never been revealed – until now. And it’s not card counting or anything illegal. So, how did he do it? Semyon and his fellow MIT colleagues hit every place you could imagine: Vegas, London, Aruba, Atlantic City, Barcelona, and Monte Carlo. They owned the blackjack tables all while studying for exams.
Never Back Down
Despite the high stakes, being held at gunpoint, threatened, and banned, this group carried on. They were broke students who all had their own reasons for being there. While they may have been the geeks at school, they were the kings of the blackjack table, and they weren’t going to give that up for anyone, no matter how many threats they got.
Ben Mezrich opens this best novel with a scene that will instantly grab your attention. The story just gets more insane from there, to the point that you will find yourself questioning how it could possibly be real – but it is. It’s so fascinating to see how intelligent some people are and find ways to outsmart everyone else around them. Definitely one you are not going to want to miss out on!
Sex on the Moon
Big Plans
In this best book by Ben Mezrich, we meet Thad Roberts, a fellow in an esteemed NASA program – and he had an idea. A romantic, but crazy, idea. Thad decided that he was going to give his girlfriend the moon – literally. Thad came up with a plan, he just needed to convince his girlfriend and another NASA intern to get on board.
Thad’s plan was to break into the impenetrable laboratory at NASA. This means they had to get past security checkpoints, electronically locked doors, cipher security codes, and cameras in the hallways. Their goal? To steal one of the world’s most treasured objects: the moon rocks.
To The Moon
The question you might be asking is, what is someone supposed to do with an item so valuable, you cannot possibly try to sell it? It’s so precious, it’s illegal to even own. Is Thad Roberts really all he seems to be? Well, the only way to find out what was going on in the mind of this undeniably gifted young man, is to read the book!
Mezrich went super in depth with this one. He did a ton of research and included pages upon pages of court records, FBI transcripts, and NASA documents. He also interviewed as many people as he could. This book gave me Ocean’s Eleven vibes, so if you’re into heist stories then this is the one for you.
Rigged
The World of Trading
Finishing off this article on all the best novels by Ben Mezrich, we have the rags-to-riches story of a young Italian-American kid from Brooklyn who clawed his way into the wild world of oil exchange. This kid conquered Harvard Business School with ease, then entered the hallowed halls of Merc Exchange.
In case you don’t know, Merc Exchange is a place in lower Manhattan where billions of dollars trade hands every single day. Imagine a casino but on crack. A street sweeper can become a millionaire overnight and fistfights can break out at any moment, right on the trading floor.
Big Dreams
This kid decides to move to the luxurious Dubai, keeping the company of Saudi sheiks on the decks of their private yachts, surrounded by half-naked girls flown in from all over the world. But he’s also making dangerous deals in the back-alleys of Beijing. Merc Exchange is simply a starting place for the kid, because he has big dreams to revolutionize the oil trading industry.
The headlines from the events in this book dominated the world at the time, so it’s possible that the story may sound familiar to you. It also gives good insight into what’s happening in the energy markets today, so that was quite eye-opening. A really enjoyable read, especially if you are into commodity trading!
Final Thoughts
All in all, whether you’re a non-fiction lover or not, this is an author that you are not going to want to pass on. The stories are interesting, crazy, mind-blowing, and entertaining – and also true. The best part is that you will learn so much while reading and it won’t even feel like it took any effort.
Once you’re done reading the books, then go watch the movies too (if you haven’t already). They’re really good as well, and it’s always nice to see the words on the page come to life! It would seem that Ben Mezrich has a new book coming out in 2023, so make sure to keep your eyes peeled for it! It is sure to be a good one.
Michael Englert
Michael is a graduate of cultural studies and history. He enjoys a good bottle of wine and (surprise, surprise) reading. As a small-town librarian, he is currently relishing the silence and peaceful atmosphere that is prevailing.
