If you liked
Books like Empire of Pain
by Patrick Radden Keefe
Empire of Pain is Patrick Radden Keefe's investigation of the Sackler family across three generations and the operational mechanics of Purdue Pharma's OxyContin marketing strategy. The canonical contemporary investigative non-fiction book on the opioid crisis. If you finished it and needed another book in the same register, these are our picks.
The shortlist
What to read next
Demon Copperheadby Barbara Kingsolver
“Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver 2022 review. A Dickensian retelling of David Copperfield in the opioid-crisis Appalachia of the 1990s and 2000s. Pulitzer Prize and Women's Prize 2023 and Kingsolver's defining late-career novel.”
The Wagerby David Grann
“The Wager by David Grann 2023 review. The 1741 shipwreck of HMS Wager off Patagonia and the two contradictory mutiny narratives that returned to England. Grann's third major narrative non-fiction book and the canonical contemporary maritime-disaster story.”
The Devil in the White Cityby Erik Larson
“The Devil in the White City by Erik Larson 2003 review. The 1893 Chicago World's Fair and the serial killer H. H. Holmes, whose hotel operated three blocks from the fairgrounds. The narrative-nonfiction bestseller that defined the contemporary popular-history register.”
An Immense Worldby Ed Yong
“An Immense World by Ed Yong 2022 review. How animals sense the world: bat echolocation, electric eels, the magnetic compass of birds, the chemical world of moths. The most-cited contemporary popular science book on animal perception.”
Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankindby Yuval Noah Harari
“Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind by Yuval Noah Harari 2014 review. A single-volume history of Homo sapiens from cognitive revolution to the present. The popular-history bestseller that defined the 2010s book-club shelf, with the trade-offs that ambition requires.”
The Anxious Generationby Jonathan Haidt
“The Anxious Generation by Jonathan Haidt 2024 review. The smartphone-and-social-media-driven youth mental-health crisis and a four-point reform proposal. The most-cited contemporary book on adolescent psychology.”
FAQ
Common questions about Empire of Pain read-alikes
- What is the closest match for Empire of Pain?
- Demon Copperhead. Different form (novel vs investigative non-fiction) but the same operational subject — the OxyContin epidemic and the institutional structures that produced it. Read together, the two books are the canonical contemporary American treatment of the opioid crisis from both the producer and the survivor sides.
- I want more Patrick Radden Keefe.
- Say Nothing (2018, on the Belfast Troubles) is the obvious next read and is structurally Keefe's best book. Rogues (2022, the New Yorker collection) and The Snakehead (2009) are the other major works. None are reviewed here yet.
- I want more contemporary investigative non-fiction.
- The Wager (David Grann's maritime-disaster narrative non-fiction) and The Devil in the White City (Erik Larson's 1893 Chicago) are the closest matches in our catalog. Both are essential.
- I want non-fiction about systems and the people inside them.
- Sapiens (the species-scale argument). An Immense World (the animal-sensory science). The Anxious Generation (the contemporary youth mental-health argument). All three are doing the same kind of patient layering of empirical research into popular non-fiction prose.
The original