Recommended Reading

Every episode of Arthur Lee’s Adventures is built on extensive research. These are the books I kept returning to while producing each documentary — organized by series so you can dive deeper into any topic that caught your attention.

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Corporate Autopsy

The business collapses covered in Corporate Autopsy often share patterns documented across multiple books. These are the essential reads for understanding how empires fall.

Enron

• The Smartest Guys in the Room (audiobook) — Free with Audible trial. 14 hours of jaw-dropping detail on how Enron fooled everyone.
• The Smartest Guys in the Room by McLean and Elkind — The definitive Enron account. If you only read one Enron book, make it this one.
• Power Failure by Mimi Swartz — Co-written with whistleblower Sherron Watkins. The insider view.
• Conspiracy of Fools by Kurt Eichenwald — A narrative masterpiece. Reads like a novel about the biggest fraud in history.

Lehman Brothers

• Too Big to Fail (audiobook) — Free with Audible trial. The inside story of the 2008 financial crisis, minute by minute.
• Too Big to Fail by Andrew Ross Sorkin — The definitive account of the 2008 crisis. Reads like a thriller.
• The Big Short by Michael Lewis — The other side of the story — the outsiders who saw it coming.
• When Genius Failed by Roger Lowenstein — The LTCM collapse that foreshadowed 2008. History repeating itself.

Theranos

• Bad Blood by John Carreyrou (audiobook) — Free with Audible trial. The definitive Theranos account.
• Bad Blood by John Carreyrou — If you only read one Theranos book, make it this one.
• The Inventor: Out for Blood (HBO Documentary) — The HBO documentary with rare footage and interviews.
• The Dropout (Hulu Series) — Amanda Seyfried’s Emmy-winning portrayal of Elizabeth Holmes.

Kodak

• The Innovator’s Dilemma (audiobook) — Free with Audible trial. The classic on why great companies fail at disruption.
• The Innovator’s Dilemma by Clayton Christensen — The book that explains exactly why Kodak’s failure was almost inevitable.
• How the Mighty Fall by Jim Collins — Five stages of corporate decline. You’ll see the Kodak pattern in every chapter.
• Creativity Inc by Ed Catmull — How Pixar embraced the digital revolution that Kodak couldn’t.

Blockbuster

• That Will Never Work (audiobook) — Free with Audible trial. Netflix co-founder Marc Randolph tells the origin story.
• That Will Never Work by Marc Randolph — The untold Netflix origin story, including that fateful Blockbuster meeting.
• No Rules Rules by Reed Hastings — How Netflix built the culture that crushed Blockbuster.
• Netflixed by Gina Keating — The full story of how Netflix outmaneuvered Blockbuster at every turn.

Sears

• The Everything Store (audiobook) — Free with Audible trial. How Amazon did what Sears couldn’t — reinvent retail.
• The Everything Store by Brad Stone — The Amazon story is the mirror image of the Sears story.
• How the Mighty Fall by Jim Collins — Five stages of decline. Sears hit every single one.
• Sam Walton: Made in America — How Walmart ate Sears’ lunch with a completely different playbook.

WeWork

• Billion Dollar Loser (audiobook) — Free with Audible trial. The wild ride of Adam Neumann and WeWork’s spectacular collapse.
• Billion Dollar Loser by Reeves Wiedeman — The definitive WeWork account. You won’t believe some of these scenes are real.
• The Cult of We by Eliot Brown — Wall Street Journal reporters dig into how WeWork fooled SoftBank.
• WeCrashed (Apple TV Series) — Jared Leto and Anne Hathaway bring the WeWork saga to life.

Bear Stearns

• House of Cards (audiobook) — Free with Audible trial. The inside story of Bear Stearns’ final 72 hours.
• House of Cards by William Cohan — The definitive Bear Stearns book. Based on 200+ interviews.
• Too Big to Fail by Andrew Ross Sorkin — The broader 2008 crisis story. Bear Stearns was the first domino.
• When Genius Failed by Roger Lowenstein — The LTCM collapse — Wall Street’s dress rehearsal for 2008.

Toys R Us

• How the Mighty Fall (audiobook) — Free with Audible trial. Jim Collins explains why seemingly invincible companies collapse.
• The Innovator’s Dilemma by Clayton Christensen — Why dominant retailers fail to adapt. The Toys R Us pattern exactly.
• The Everything Store by Brad Stone — How Amazon reshaped retail while Toys R Us stood still.
• Barbarians at the Gate by Burrough and Helyar — The classic leveraged buyout story. The same debt playbook that sank Toys R Us.

Pan Am

• Skygods: The Fall of Pan Am (audiobook) — Free with Audible trial. A pilot and author captures Pan Am’s glory and collapse.
• Skygods: The Fall of Pan Am by Robert Gandt — The definitive Pan Am book. Written by someone who lived it.
• Turbulence by Peter Robison — How deregulation and corporate hubris destroyed the airline industry.
• Come Fly With Me by Rich Cohen — The glamorous golden age of aviation that Pan Am defined.

What Happened To…

RadioShack

• The Innovator’s Dilemma (audiobook) — Free with Audible trial. The classic on why dominant companies fail to adapt.
• The Innovator’s Dilemma by Clayton Christensen — Explains exactly why RadioShack’s strengths became fatal weaknesses.
• The Everything Store by Brad Stone — How online retail killed the corner electronics store.
• How the Mighty Fall by Jim Collins — Five stages of corporate decline. RadioShack hit every single one.

Borders Books

• The Everything Store (audiobook) — Free with Audible trial. How Amazon built the machine that made bookstores obsolete.
• The Everything Store by Brad Stone — The Amazon story is the mirror image of the Borders story.
• How the Mighty Fall by Jim Collins — Five stages of corporate decline. Borders followed the playbook step by step.
• The Innovator’s Dilemma by Clayton Christensen — Why dominant retailers fail to adapt. The Borders pattern exactly.

BlackBerry

• Losing the Signal (audiobook) — Free with Audible trial. The definitive BlackBerry story, from Waterloo to Wall Street.
• Losing the Signal by Jacquie McNish — The definitive BlackBerry account. How two engineers built and lost a smartphone empire.
• The One Device by Brian Merchant — The secret history of the iPhone. The device that killed BlackBerry.
• Haunted Empire by Yukari Kane — Apple after Steve Jobs. The company that won the smartphone war.

Tower Records

• How Music Got Free (audiobook) — Free with Audible trial. How digital piracy destroyed the music industry and stores like Tower.
• How Music Got Free by Stephen Witt — The riveting true story of how the MP3 killed CDs and everything Tower stood for.
• Appetite for Self-Destruction by Steve Knopper — The music industry’s suicidal decisions that doomed record stores.
• The Innovator’s Dilemma by Clayton Christensen — Why dominant companies fail when technology shifts.

State Documentaries

Each state episode draws from regional histories, academic sources, and local archives. These are starting points for further exploration.

Texas

• Empire of the Summer Moon (audiobook) — Free with Audible trial. The epic Comanche story and the making of Texas.
• Empire of the Summer Moon by S.C. Gwynne — Pulitzer finalist. The Comanche empire and the frontier that shaped America.
• Isaac’s Storm by Erik Larson — The 1900 Galveston hurricane told as a gripping narrative.
• Lone Star Nation by H.W. Brands — How Texas went from Mexican province to republic to statehood.

California

• The Dreamt Land (audiobook) — Free with Audible trial. California’s epic water wars and agricultural obsession.
• The Dreamt Land by Mark Arax — The definitive California story. Water, land, and the making of the Golden State.
• The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck — The American classic. Still devastatingly relevant to California’s story.
• Cadillac Desert by Marc Reisner — The water wars that built the West. Essential California reading.

New York

• The Power Broker (audiobook) — Free with Audible trial. Robert Caro’s masterpiece on Robert Moses and the shaping of New York.
• The Power Broker by Robert Caro — The Pulitzer-winning epic. How one man built and destroyed neighborhoods across New York.
• Gotham by Edwin Burrows and Mike Wallace — The definitive history of New York City from its founding to 1898. Pulitzer winner.
• The Island at the Center of the World by Russell Shorto — New Amsterdam to New York. The Dutch origins that shaped America’s greatest city.

Hawaii

• Unfamiliar Fishes (audiobook) — Free with Audible trial. Sarah Vowell’s witty, insightful take on Hawaii’s colonial history.
• Unfamiliar Fishes by Sarah Vowell — Funny and sharp. How missionaries and businessmen transformed Hawaii forever.
• Shoal of Time by Gavan Daws — The comprehensive Hawaiian history from first contact to statehood.
• Captive Paradise by James Haley — The overthrow of the Hawaiian kingdom told in gripping detail.

Louisiana

• Rising Tide (audiobook) — Free with Audible trial. The Great Mississippi Flood of 1927 and how it changed America.
• Rising Tide by John M. Barry — A masterpiece. How a flood reshaped American politics and race relations.
• A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole — The funniest novel ever set in New Orleans. A Louisiana essential.
• Zeitoun by Dave Eggers — Hurricane Katrina through one family’s harrowing experience.

Florida

• A Land Remembered (audiobook) — Free with Audible trial. Three generations of Florida history as a sweeping family saga.
• A Land Remembered by Patrick D. Smith — The most beloved Florida novel ever written. Spans 1858 to 1968.
• Weird Florida by Charlie Carlson — The strange, offbeat side of Florida history. Perfect companion to this episode.
• The Swamp by Michael Grunwald — The epic battle over the Everglades that shaped modern Florida.

Ohio

• The Wright Brothers (audiobook) — Free with Audible trial. David McCullough brings the Wright Brothers to life.
• The Wright Brothers by David McCullough — The Dayton bicycle mechanics who invented flight. Masterful storytelling.
• Ohio: A History by Walter Havighurst — The complete Ohio story from frontier territory to industrial powerhouse.
• Graveyard of the Atlantic by David Stick — The Outer Banks where the Wright Brothers made history.

Forgotten Disasters

General Slocum

• Ship Ablaze (audiobook) — Free with Audible trial. The definitive account of New York’s worst disaster before 9/11.
• Ship Ablaze by Edward O’Donnell — The definitive General Slocum account. A thousand lives lost on a church picnic.
• The Devil in the White City by Erik Larson — Another era, another disaster born of negligence. Larson’s masterwork.
• Triangle by David Von Drehle — The Triangle Shirtwaist fire. Same era, same pattern of criminal negligence.

Halifax Explosion

• The Great Halifax Explosion (audiobook) — Free with Audible trial. John U. Bacon’s gripping account of history’s deadliest accidental explosion.
• The Great Halifax Explosion by John U. Bacon — The definitive account. Treachery, tragedy, and extraordinary heroism on December 6, 1917.
• Dead Wake by Erik Larson — Another devastating WWI maritime catastrophe. Larson at his narrative best.
• Blizzard of Glass by Sally M. Walker — The Halifax Explosion through riveting eyewitness accounts.

Boston Molasses Flood

• Dark Tide (audiobook) — Free with Audible trial. The definitive account of the disaster that changed American safety law forever.
• Dark Tide by Stephen Puleo — The definitive Boston Molasses Flood book. Years of tracking down descendants and court records.
• The Devil in the White City by Erik Larson — Another era of unchecked industry and deadly negligence.
• Triangle by David Von Drehle — Same era, same corporate negligence, same immigrant victims.

The Invention That Changed Everything

Microwave Oven

• The Perfectionists (audiobook) — Free with Audible trial. How precision engineering changed the world.
• The Perfectionists by Simon Winchester — The story of engineering genius. Percy Spencer’s magnetron was precision incarnate.
• How We Got to Now by Steven Johnson — Six innovations that made the modern world.
• The Innovators by Walter Isaacson — How creative minds turn accidents into revolutions.

Penicillin

• The Mold in Dr. Florey’s Coat (audiobook) — Free with Audible trial. The untold story of how penicillin was actually mass-produced.
• The Mold in Dr. Florey’s Coat by Eric Lax — Fleming gets the credit, but Florey and Chain saved the world.
• The Demon Under the Microscope by Thomas Hager — The sulfa drug story that preceded penicillin. Medicine’s first miracle drug.
• Emperor of All Maladies by Siddhartha Mukherjee — Pulitzer winner. The history of medicine’s war on disease.

Dynamite

• The Merchant of Death (audiobook) — Free with Audible trial. Alfred Nobel’s journey from explosives mogul to peace prize creator.
• Alfred Nobel by Kenne Fant — The definitive Nobel biography. The man behind both dynamite and the peace prize.
• The Big Ones by Lucy Jones — How natural disasters shaped civilization. Nobel’s dynamite literally moved mountains.
• Boom by Eric Jay Dolin — America’s explosive history from dynamite to nitroglycerin.

Slinky

• Toy Wars (audiobook) — Free with Audible trial. The battle for America’s toy industry.
• Toy Wars by G. Wayne Miller — The inside story of the toy industry’s biggest battles.
• How the Mighty Fall by Jim Collins — Five stages of decline. Richard James’s personal collapse mirrors corporate ones.
• The Innovator’s Dilemma by Clayton Christensen — When success breeds complacency. Betty James saved the Slinky by doing what Richard wouldn’t.

Declassified

MKUltra

• Poisoner in Chief (audiobook) — Free with Audible trial. Sidney Gottlieb and the CIA’s search for mind control. Chilling.
• Poisoner in Chief by Stephen Kinzer — The definitive MKUltra account. Sidney Gottlieb’s twenty-year quest for mind control.
• A Terrible Mistake by H.P. Albarelli — The Frank Olson mystery. Deep dive into MKUltra’s darkest chapter.
• Legacy of Ashes by Tim Weiner — Pulitzer winner. The CIA’s secret history.

Manhattan Project

• The Making of the Atomic Bomb (audiobook) — Free with Audible trial. Pulitzer winner. The most comprehensive atomic bomb history ever written.
• The Making of the Atomic Bomb by Richard Rhodes — Pulitzer winner. Science, politics, and the people who built the bomb.
• The Girls of Atomic City by Denise Kiernan — The untold story of the women of Oak Ridge. They built the bomb without knowing it.
• American Prometheus by Kai Bird — The Oppenheimer biography. Pulitzer winner. The man who led Los Alamos.

Doomsday Bunkers

• Raven Rock (audiobook) — Free with Audible trial. The secret government bunkers built for nuclear war. Jaw-dropping.
• Raven Rock by Garrett Graff — The definitive account of America’s doomsday infrastructure.
• Command and Control by Eric Schlosser — Nuclear weapons accidents and near-misses.
• The Dead Hand by David Hoffman — Pulitzer winner. The Cold War arms race that made these bunkers necessary.

The City That Died

Pripyat

• Midnight in Chernobyl (audiobook) — Free with Audible trial. Adam Higginbotham spent over a decade on this book.
• Midnight in Chernobyl by Adam Higginbotham — The definitive Chernobyl book. Every hour of the disaster with forensic precision.
• Voices from Chernobyl by Svetlana Alexievich — Nobel Prize-winning oral history. Devastating and essential.
• Chernobyl: The History of a Nuclear Catastrophe by Serhii Plokhy — Harvard historian with access to newly declassified Soviet archives.

Centralia

• Fire Underground (audiobook) — Free with Audible trial. The definitive account of the fire that has burned since 1962.
• Fire Underground by David DeKok — How a town was set on fire and abandoned by its government.
• The Day the Earth Caved In by Joan Quigley — Centralia’s story through the families who lived it.
• The Control of Nature by John McPhee — When nature fights back against human ambition.

Times Beach

• Toms River (audiobook) — Free with Audible trial. Pulitzer winner. Industrial pollution destroys a community.
• Toms River by Dan Fagin — Pulitzer winner. A cancer cluster, a chemical company, and a town that fought back.
• A Civil Action by Jonathan Harr — Toxic contamination in Woburn, MA. Same pattern as Times Beach.
• The Control of Nature by John McPhee — When human ambition collides with consequences.

Want More?

Each episode’s companion page includes specific book recommendations with Arthur’s personal editorial comments. Browse the series pages to find recommendations for any topic.