Want to know what books Georgina Adam recommends on their reading list? We've researched interviews, social media posts, podcasts, and articles to build a comprehensive list of Georgina Adam's favorite book recommendations of all time.
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A groundbreaking examination of wealth disparity, income inequality, and the new global elite
There has always been some gap between rich and poor in this country, but recently what it means to be rich has changed dramatically. Forget the 1 percent—Plutocrats proves that it is the wealthiest 0.1 percent who are outpacing the rest of us at breakneck speed. Most of these new fortunes are not inherited, amassed instead by perceptive businesspeople who see themselves as deserving victors in a cutthroat international competition. With empathy and intelligence,... more A groundbreaking examination of wealth disparity, income inequality, and the new global elite
There has always been some gap between rich and poor in this country, but recently what it means to be rich has changed dramatically. Forget the 1 percent—Plutocrats proves that it is the wealthiest 0.1 percent who are outpacing the rest of us at breakneck speed. Most of these new fortunes are not inherited, amassed instead by perceptive businesspeople who see themselves as deserving victors in a cutthroat international competition. With empathy and intelligence, Plutocrats reveals the consequences of concentrating the world’s wealth into fewer and fewer hands. Propelled by fascinating original interviews with the plutocrats themselves, Plutocrats is a tour de force of social and economic history, the definitive examination of inequality in our time. less 
Georgina AdamChrystia Freeland’s book is a sobering account about why we should care about art market transactions in the modern world. (Source)
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2
The Art of Forgery: The Minds, Motives and Methods of the Master Forgers explores the stories, dramas and human intrigues surrounding the world's most famous forgeries - investigating the motivations of the artists and criminals who have faked great works of art, and in doing so conned the public and the art establishment alike. more The Art of Forgery: The Minds, Motives and Methods of the Master Forgers explores the stories, dramas and human intrigues surrounding the world's most famous forgeries - investigating the motivations of the artists and criminals who have faked great works of art, and in doing so conned the public and the art establishment alike. less Georgina AdamNoah Charney points out that though forgery is considered a victimless crime, it’s not. For a start, the victim is art history itself. (Source)
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3
Why would a smart New York investment banker pay $12 million for the decaying, stuffed carcass of a shark? By what alchemy does Jackson Pollock’s drip painting No. 5, 1948 sell for $140 million?
Intriguing and entertaining, The $12 Million Stuffed Shark is a Freakonomics approach to the economics and psychology of the contemporary art world. Why were record prices achieved at auction for works by 131 contemporary artists in 2006 alone, with astonishing new heights reached in 2007? Don Thompson explores the money, lust, and self-aggrandizement of the... more Why would a smart New York investment banker pay $12 million for the decaying, stuffed carcass of a shark? By what alchemy does Jackson Pollock’s drip painting No. 5, 1948 sell for $140 million?
Intriguing and entertaining, The $12 Million Stuffed Shark is a Freakonomics approach to the economics and psychology of the contemporary art world. Why were record prices achieved at auction for works by 131 contemporary artists in 2006 alone, with astonishing new heights reached in 2007? Don Thompson explores the money, lust, and self-aggrandizement of the art world in an attempt to determine what makes a particular work valuable while others are ignored.
This book is the first to look at the economics and the marketing strategies that enable the modern art market to generate such astronomical prices. Drawing on interviews with both past and present executives of auction houses and art dealerships, artists, and the buyers who move the market, Thompson launches the reader on a journey of discovery through the peculiar world of modern art. Surprising, passionate, gossipy, revelatory, The $12 Million Stuffed Shark reveals a great deal that even experienced auction purchasers do not know. less Georgina AdamThere’s more demand for contemporary art—no doubt about it. And that encourages more supply in the marketplace. However, in his book, Don Thompson points out that most contemporary art will not be resalable at any price. (Source)
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4
A behind-the-scenes look at a century of high art and high-stakes commerce, fluently narrated and spiced with backstage gossip. This captivating history brings to life the connoisseurs and market makers, artists and swindlers who have shaped our tastes and driven the price of masterpieces into the stratosphere. Photographs, caricatures, and pictures of famous paintings. more A behind-the-scenes look at a century of high art and high-stakes commerce, fluently narrated and spiced with backstage gossip. This captivating history brings to life the connoisseurs and market makers, artists and swindlers who have shaped our tastes and driven the price of masterpieces into the stratosphere. Photographs, caricatures, and pictures of famous paintings. less Georgina AdamManet to Manhattan tracks the conversion of the auction house from being a wholesale operation, and so an insider’s operation, rather secretive, to becoming a spectacle. (Source)
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5
Philip Hook takes the lid off the world of art dealing to reveal the brilliance, cunning, greed, and daring of its practitioners. In a richly anecdotal chronological narrative he describes the rise and occasional fall of the extraordinary men and women who over the centuries have made it their business to sell art to kings, merchants, nobles, entrepreneurs, and museums. From its beginnings in Antwerp, where paintings were sometimes sold by weight, to the rich hauteur of the contemporary gallery in New York, Paris, and London, art dealing has, he shows, been about identifying what is... more Philip Hook takes the lid off the world of art dealing to reveal the brilliance, cunning, greed, and daring of its practitioners. In a richly anecdotal chronological narrative he describes the rise and occasional fall of the extraordinary men and women who over the centuries have made it their business to sell art to kings, merchants, nobles, entrepreneurs, and museums. From its beginnings in Antwerp, where paintings were sometimes sold by weight, to the rich hauteur of the contemporary gallery in New York, Paris, and London, art dealing has, he shows, been about identifying what is intangible but infinitely desirable, and then finding clients for whom it is irresistible. Those who have purveyed art for a living range from tailors, spies, and the occasional anarchist to scholars, aristocrats, merchants, and connoisseurs, each variously motivated by greed, belief in their own vision of art and its history, or simply the will to win.
Philip Hook’s history is one of human folly, and greed—yet ingenuity and heroism. Rogues’ Gallery is learned, witty, and irresistibly readable.
less Georgina AdamThis book shows how Peter Watson took the auction houses from being somewhat grubby dens of art dealings and turned them into somewhere to see and be seen. (Source)
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