4 ms·

The book is wonderful as well.

• hudibras 9y ago
  I picked the book up for a dollar at a used bookstore, not expecting much. I then proceeded to tear through it in less than a day. It's a phenomenal story. The book includes everything in the movie, of course, plus a lot of fine details of how he pulled off his scams (I think a lot of HN users would like these; very hacker-like), PLUS an extraordinary section expanding on his time in French and Swedish prisons. The French prison is mentioned in the movie, but they, if anything, downplayed what it was like. I've since learned that maybe much of it was embellished, but I still recommend it. BONUS Frank Abagnale story-slash-rumor: I heard from a friend of a friend that, soon after the movie came out, Courtney Love was tripping out on "something" and started screaming that she needed to speak with Frank Abagnale--somebody who she had never spoken to nor had ever mentioned before. Her agent called somebody, who called somebody else, who called somebody else, and within 30 minutes Frank was on the phone having a long conversation with Courtney, calming her down. No real point to this story, other than it's neat how the six-degrees-of-separation works in show business circles.
• shoover 9y ago
  I first heard of Frank Abagnale when adjunct professor Edward Amoroso told my information security class at Stevens that Catch Me If You Can was the best book he ever read. A few weeks later he jokingly berated the class when a quick poll showed no one had yet read it. “I said it’s the best book I ever read and no one reads it?!” I had queued it and later read it. I couldn’t agree it was the best I ever read but I did thoroughly enjoy it. Incidentally Amoroso was the most compelling speaker of all my professors at Stevens. It was a shame he only taught the one course.