“The Great Gatsby” dives into the dark side of the American dream. Gatsby, a mysterious millionaire, throws extravagant parties hoping his wealth will win back Daisy Buchanan.
Fitzgerald shows how money shapes lives, relationships, and moral values, especially in the lavish yet hollow world of 1920s America. Wealth here isn’t just about comfort and luxury—it becomes an obsession.
Fitzgerald highlights how the pursuit and misuse of money can consume people, even at the cost of true fulfillment.
In “Great Expectations,” Dickens tells the story of Pip, a poor orphan whose dreams of wealth come true through an anonymous benefactor. The novel explores the illusions and realities money brings, illustrating how sudden fortune affects character, morality, and relationships.
Pip soon learns wealth doesn’t automatically lead to happiness, and instead creates new pressures and expectations. Dickens questions the values society places on wealth, guiding the reader to consider whether having money is worth sacrificing personal integrity and happiness.
“The Bonfire of the Vanities” is a satirical portrayal of 1980s Wall Street greed, where wealth is celebrated and morality takes second place.
Sherman McCoy, a wealthy bond trader, enjoys the privileges of affluence until his comfortable life quickly unravels after a hit-and-run accident. Wolfe sharply satirizes the extreme wealth, power struggles, and corruption of financial elites.
The novel highlights how money breeds arrogance and entitlement, causing the powerful to believe they’re above the consequences faced by everyday people.
Ellis’s “American Psycho” follows Patrick Bateman, a wealthy Wall Street investment banker in the late 1980s whose life revolves around luxury, status symbols, and appearances. He’s obsessed with consumer brands, designer clothing, and high-end restaurants.
But his carefully cultivated veneer of success hides a disturbing secret: a violent and psychopathic inner self. Ellis critiques shallow consumerism, showing a disturbing connection between extreme wealth, moral emptiness, and brutal behavior.
“The Wolf of Wall Street” is Jordan Belfort’s dramatic and controversial memoir of his career in high-stakes finance. Belfort makes millions through bold, questionable, and often illegal trades.
His lifestyle becomes an endless spectacle of excess, drugs, and parties—until it crashes dramatically.
Amazingly candid, aggressive, and colorful, this memoir reveals the relationship between greed, ambition, and corruption, highlighting how easily wealth and power can erode moral boundaries.
John Lanchester’s “Capital” revolves around the residents of Pepys Road, a seemingly ordinary street in South London where skyrocketing housing prices illustrate the impact of money on daily life.
The novel provides insightful glimpses into diverse families as their lives intersect around looming financial anxieties, driven by the pressures of urbanization and property speculation.
By turning money into a central character, Lanchester vividly portrays how city dwellers grow fascinated, challenged, or sometimes damaged by their financial situations.
In “Rich Dad Poor Dad,” Kiyosaki shares his experiences growing up influenced by two distinctly different mindsets about money.
His biological father grasps conventional wisdom about work and financial security, while his friend’s dad imparts ideas related to investing, entrepreneurship, and financial freedom.
By contrasting these two father figures, Kiyosaki teaches straightforward yet impactful lessons about money and demonstrates how perceptions and behaviors towards money directly impact wealth-building possibilities.
“The Millionaire Next Door” challenges traditional assumptions about what wealthy individuals actually look like.
Stanley and Danko conducted research revealing a surprising profile: most American millionaires quietly build wealth through frugality, savings, and disciplined spending.
Contrary to flashy lifestyles commonly portrayed, these average-seeming people have achieved substantial wealth without extravagant consumption. The authors showcase how financial prudence and careful spending habits truly shape long-term wealth and stability.
Anthony Trollope’s “The Way We Live Now” addresses Victorian society’s obsession with wealth, status, and financial speculation.
Augustus Melmotte arrives in England with questionable origins but substantial riches, quickly gaining social acceptance because of his apparent fortune. Yet behind appearances lie deceitful schemes and empty promises.
Money, Trollope demonstrates, can blur distinctions between honesty and fraud, and ambition blinds society to corruption. The book exposes the hypocrisy of a wealth-focused world.
In “Atlas Shrugged,” Rand examines money through various lenses: philosophical, political, and moral. The novel presents powerful industrialists striving against a backdrop of economic collapse, government control, and societal decay.
Money, as Rand sees it, represents individual achievement, productive capability, and personal liberation; wealth is proudly defended as a reward for innovation and ambition.
The struggle between personal liberty and collectivist interference shows how society’s attitudes towards money deeply shape culture and progress.
This modern-day romantic comedy shows the extreme levels of wealth and status obsession across Singapore’s wealthiest social circles.
Kevin Kwan’s “Crazy Rich Asians” introduces Rachel Chu, who realizes—upon meeting her boyfriend’s ultra-rich family—that money isn’t only about personal comfort. Family expectations, ancestry, and hidden social rules dictate relationships.
Filled with extravagant events and fascinating details about the everyday luxury of the superrich, Kwan humorously reveals the complexities around how money connects and separates people.
“The Financier” offers an intense exploration of wealth, ambition, and power through the life of Frank Cowperwood, a businessman obsessed with finance and success.
Dreiser vividly presents Cowperwood as driven and intelligent, maneuvered by a relentless determination to amass great wealth and influence. But the pursuit of riches also brings controversy, legal battles, and personal loss.
Dreiser portrays money as an irresistible force that shapes destiny, influences morality, and profoundly alters human character.
Dickens again tackles the theme of money in “Bleak House,” centered on the endless inheritance dispute of the Jarndyce versus Jarndyce lawsuit.
As characters await the case’s resolution, their lives fall into disarray, illustrating how wealth—and even the promise or hope of wealth—can dominate someone’s life.
Dickens critiques a legal system clogged by greed and the destructive allure of unearned money, drawing attention to inheritance as both a blessing and curse.
In “Howards End,” Forster explores wealth through social class interactions among three families: the wealthy Wilcoxes, the idealistic Schlegels, and the struggling Leonard Bast. Property and money deeply affect how characters interact and influence one another.
Forster raises nuanced questions about wealth’s impact on personal choices, morality, and empathy. By contrasting financial privilege with poverty, the novel vividly depicts the suspicion, prejudice, and misunderstandings that wealth disparities can foster.
Though mostly a photographic narrative, “Material World: A Global Family Portrait” powerfully illustrates how money—and lack thereof—affects the everyday lives of families worldwide.
Peter Menzel travels the world, visually documenting families posing with all their material possessions. What emerges is a unique insight into global inequalities and the tremendously different lifestyles shaped by finances.
The pictures reveal wealth’s profound impacts on culture, health, and daily existence, making the reader reflect deeply on global economic disparity.