Reading List

Authors Like Shane Bauer

In December 2014 Shane Bauer started work as a guard at Winn Correctional Center in Louisiana, a prison run by the Corrections Corporation of America, for nine dollars an hour. He used his real name. Four months later he quit, and the article he wrote for Mother Jones became American Prison (2018), which sets his shifts against two centuries of Americans making money from prisoners. He had been on the other side of the bars before: arrested near the Iraq–Iran border while hiking in 2009, he was held in Tehran's Evin prison for twenty-six months, the story of A Sliver of Light (2014). The ten below were chosen on two counts: each went inside an institution or a life most readers never see, and each set what they found against the history that produced it.

By Lisanne Swart · 10 authors · Undercover journalism · Prisons and power · Updated October 2026

Quick answer

If you love Shane Bauer's American Prison, the closest match is Ted Conover: Newjack is a year as a guard at Sing Sing. For the inventor of the method, read Günter Wallraff; for low-wage work from the inside, Barbara Ehrenreich; for the legal side of American punishment, Bryan Stevenson; and for where it began, Nellie Bly. Janet Malcolm questions the bargain all of them make. Each entry below says how they got inside and what history they found.

Every book by Shane Bauer →

Where to start if you loved Shane Bauer

If you want the closest match, read Ted Conover.

Newjack. A year as a guard at Sing Sing.

If you want the inventor of the method, read Günter Wallraff.

Ganz unten. Two years as a Turkish labourer in West Germany.

If you want the legal side, read Bryan Stevenson.

Just Mercy. Death row, from the lawyer's table.

If you want where it began, read Nellie Bly.

Ten Days in a Mad-House. A New York asylum from the inside, 1887.

If you want the case against, read Janet Malcolm.

The Journalist and the Murderer. What a writer owes their subjects.

If you want more reporting like this

My list of the best investigative journalism books has the rest.

10 authors like Shane Bauer

01
The same job, a different prison · Closest match

Ted Conover

American · Rolling Nowhere (1984), Newjack (2000)

Conover rode freight trains with hobos for Rolling Nowhere and, after the New York prison system refused him access as a reporter, spent a year working as a corrections officer at Sing Sing for Newjack, which won the National Book Critics Circle Award.

Inside:A year as a corrections officer at Sing Sing, after the state refused him access as a reporter.

History:The prison's past since its opening in 1826, woven through his shifts.

Newjack is the book American Prison most resembles: a reporter takes the guard's job because the front door was closed, and finds the job changing him. Bauer's prison is private and his history is about profit, but the moment each writer notices himself hardening is the same.

— Lisanne

Every book by Ted Conover →

Authors like Ted Conover →

02
Not American · The inventor of the method

Günter Wallraff

German · Ganz unten (1985; in English Lowest of the Low)

Wallraff spent two years disguised as a Turkish labourer called Ali, taking the dirtiest and most dangerous jobs in West Germany, including at a steelworks and as a test subject for drugs. Ganz unten became one of the best-selling non-fiction books in post-war Germany and caused a national scandal.

Inside:Two years disguised as a Turkish labourer called Ali.

History:West Germany's guest-worker system, from inside its worst jobs.

Wallraff is the founder of undercover journalism as Bauer practises it, and Ganz unten caused a national scandal. His disguise went much further and his methods were more theatrical; Bauer used his own name, which changes the ethics in his favour.

— Lisanne

Every book by Günter Wallraff →

Authors like Günter Wallraff →

03
The same method, applied to wages

Barbara Ehrenreich

American · Nickel and Dimed (2001), Bright-Sided (2009)

For Nickel and Dimed Ehrenreich worked as a waitress, hotel maid, house cleaner, nursing-home aide and Walmart associate in Florida, Maine and Minnesota between 1998 and 2000, and tried to live on what she earned. The book became a standard text on low-wage America. She died in 2022.

Inside:Low-wage jobs in Florida, Maine and Minnesota.

History:The minimum wage set against the price of rent.

Ehrenreich works the jobs to prove that the numbers do not add up, as Bauer works the prison to show where the money goes. Hers is the lighter book in tone and the obvious next read.

— Lisanne

Every book by Barbara Ehrenreich →

Authors like Barbara Ehrenreich →

04
Older than the genre

Nellie Bly

American · Ten Days in a Mad-House (1887)

Bly feigned insanity to be committed to the women's asylum on Blackwell's Island in New York for the New York World, and her reports led to reforms. In 1889 and 1890 she travelled around the world in seventy-two days.

Inside:Ten days committed to the women's asylum on Blackwell's Island in 1887.

History:None to speak of: pure eyewitness, published as a newspaper series.

Bly feigned madness to get inside a New York asylum, and her reports led to reforms; she is the origin of what Bauer did at Winn. Her book is short and still shocking.

— Lisanne

Every book by Nellie Bly →

Authors like Nellie Bly →

05
The courtroom half of the story

Bryan Stevenson

American · Just Mercy (2014)

Stevenson is the lawyer who founded the Equal Justice Initiative in Montgomery, Alabama, which represents people on death row and documents the history of lynching. Just Mercy centres on his defence of Walter McMillian, sentenced to death for a murder he did not commit.

Inside:Decades as a lawyer for prisoners on Alabama's death row.

History:Lynching and convict leasing as the roots of modern punishment.

Stevenson writes from inside the system as a lawyer rather than a guard, and Just Mercy builds on the same history Bauer digs up, the convict leasing that followed the Civil War. Read it for the courtroom side of what American Prison shows from the cellblock.

— Lisanne
06
Not American · The same method at work

James Bloodworth

British · The Myth of Meritocracy (2016), Hired (2018), Lost Boys (2025)

For Hired Bloodworth spent six months in low-paid jobs across Britain: an Amazon warehouse in Rugeley, home care in Blackpool, a call centre in south Wales, and driving for Uber in London. His earlier book argued that working-class children still end up in working-class jobs.

Inside:Six months in low-paid jobs across Britain.

History:The decline of the industrial towns behind each job.

Bloodworth's Hired applies the same method to work rather than punishment, in Britain. It shares Bauer's willingness to describe the people in charge without caricature.

— Lisanne

Every book by James Bloodworth →

Authors like James Bloodworth →

07
Embedded rather than undercover

Jessica Bruder

American · Nomadland (2017), Snowden's Box (2020)

Bruder spent three years with older Americans living in vans and following seasonal work across the West, from Amazon's CamperForce warehouses to the sugar-beet harvest, and bought a van to live in herself. Nomadland was adapted into the film that won three Oscars in 2021.

Inside:Three years beside older Americans living in vans, including shifts in an Amazon warehouse.

History:The end of pensions and the cost of housing.

Bruder also worked the jobs she describes, though openly. Nomadland is the gentler book, about a system that fails people rather than one that profits from locking them up.

— Lisanne

Every book by Jessica Bruder →

Authors like Jessica Bruder →

08
Not American · Under her own name

Florence Aubenas

French · The Night Cleaner (Le Quai de Ouistreham, 2010)

Aubenas, a well-known French reporter who had been held hostage in Iraq in 2005, registered at a job centre in Caen as an unemployed woman with no qualifications and spent six months in cleaning jobs, including on the cross-Channel ferries at Ouistreham. The book was filmed in 2021 with Juliette Binoche.

Inside:Six months as a cleaner in Caen, registered as unemployed.

History:The French job-centre system and the work it hands out.

Aubenas, already well known in France, went undercover under her own name and was barely recognised. Like Bauer, she keeps the attention on her co-workers rather than on her own courage.

— Lisanne

Every book by Florence Aubenas →

Authors like Florence Aubenas →

09
Older than the genre · The most argued-over

John Howard Griffin

American · Black Like Me (1961)

In 1959 Griffin, a white writer from Texas, darkened his skin with medication and dye and travelled for six weeks through the segregated Deep South, first reporting it for Sepia magazine. The book has been both celebrated and questioned ever since for the same reason: what it means for a white man to tell that story.

Inside:Six weeks in the Deep South in 1959, his skin darkened with medication.

History:Segregation lived rather than described.

Black Like Me is the most famous undercover book in America, and the questions it raises about who gets to tell such a story apply to Bauer too. It also shows how much the method depends on the reporter being able to leave.

— Lisanne
10
The argument against

Janet Malcolm

Czech-born American · In the Freud Archives (1984), The Journalist and the Murderer (1990)

The Journalist and the Murderer examines the relationship between the writer Joe McGinniss and Jeffrey MacDonald, the convicted murderer who sued him after reading the book McGinniss wrote about him. Its opening argues that journalism rests on a kind of betrayal of the people who talk to journalists. Malcolm wrote for The New Yorker for decades and died in 2021.

Inside:A single case: a writer who befriended a convicted murderer to write about him.

History:Journalism's bargain with its subjects.

Malcolm argues that every journalist is in some sense betraying the people who talk to them, which is the trust undercover reporting relies on. Bauer never pretended to be anything but a guard, and reading Malcolm shows why that choice matters.

— Lisanne

Every book by Janet Malcolm →

Frequently asked questions about authors like Shane Bauer

Who should I read if I love Shane Bauer?

Ted Conover is the closest match: Newjack is a year as a guard at Sing Sing. Günter Wallraff and Nellie Bly invented the undercover method, Barbara Ehrenreich, James Bloodworth, Jessica Bruder and Florence Aubenas applied it to work, Bryan Stevenson writes the legal side of American punishment, John Howard Griffin raised the questions about it, and Janet Malcolm argues against the bargain all of them make.

What books are similar to American Prison?

Newjack by Ted Conover (2000) is the closest. After it come Just Mercy by Bryan Stevenson (2014), Nickel and Dimed by Barbara Ehrenreich (2001) and, from Germany, Ganz unten by Günter Wallraff (1985).

Was Shane Bauer really a prison guard?

Yes. He worked as a guard at Winn Correctional Center in Louisiana, run by the Corrections Corporation of America, for four months from December 2014, under his own name, for nine dollars an hour. His article appeared in Mother Jones in 2016 and grew into American Prison.

Why was Shane Bauer imprisoned in Iran?

In July 2009 Bauer, Sarah Shourd and Joshua Fattal were arrested by Iranian forces while hiking near the border in Iraqi Kurdistan and accused of espionage. Shourd was released in 2010; Bauer and Fattal were held for twenty-six months, until September 2011. The three wrote A Sliver of Light (2014) about it.

How many books has Shane Bauer written?

Two: A Sliver of Light (2014), with Sarah Shourd and Joshua Fattal, and American Prison (2018). My guide to both Shane Bauer books covers each one.

Nothing here was suggested by a machine. I picked these ten myself, and the reasons are on the page.

Written by Lisanne Swart, who has curated reading lists and author guides at lisanneswart.com since 2021. See more on her personal bookshelf.

More from the shelf

Author guide

Books Written by Shane Bauer

Both books, in order.

Reading list

Authors Like Ted Conover

More undercover reporting.

Reading list

Authors Like Barbara Ehrenreich

More work from the inside.

Reading list

Best Investigative Journalism Books

Reporting that changed what we know.

From the bookshelf

“Striving to treat everyone as human takes too much energy.”

— Shane Bauer, American Prison (2018)

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