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Summer is a good season for reading, with all that time on the beach and being stuck in traffic on the way to the beach. But your book selection does not have to only be easy beach reading. A far better option is to get an early jump on the fall movie season by reading the source material for all the literary adaptations coming out in the Serious Movie months. That way you can be the smug person who says "Well, that's not how it happens in the book..." all autumn long! Think of this as a summer reading list that will prepare you for the prestige fare of autumn.
The Wolf of Wall Street by Jordan Belfort
Who doesn't want to read more about the disasters of financial wheeling and dealing? Martin Scorsese's high-profile adaptation, starring Leonardo DiCaprio, is based on a memoir by Jordan Belfort, a formerly hard-partying, lavish-living stockbroker who was convicted of massive securities fraud in the late '90s. His having been a "white collar" crime, Belfort only served two years and has since become a motivational speaker and author. Oh, and Leonardo DiCaprio is playing him in the movie. So there's some injustice there that could rankle, this sense that he's being rewarded for his $200 million fraud, but that doesn't change the fact that Belfort's book could be a fascinating glimpse into the high-stakes, morally dubious world that, some ten years after Belfort's crimes, kinda ruined the global economy. And if you really like the book, there's a sequel called Catching the Wolf of Wall Street. Spend your summer learning all about awful people working in finance! What could be better? In theaters Nov. 15