Is This Luigi Mangione’s Goodreads Account?
On Monday, police in Altoona, Pennsylvania, detained a man in connection with the killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson. The man, who Mayor Eric Adams referred to as a “strong person of interest” in the case, has been identified as 26-year-old Luigi Mangione. Once his name was released to the public, it was a mad dash to comb through what might be the shooter’s digital footprint. A man with the same name (and similarly strong eyebrows as seen in the security-camera photos) as the suspected gunman has accounts on X, Instagram, and, most interestingly, Goodreads.
The New York Times reported that Mangione was carrying a handwritten manifesto that “criticized health-care companies for putting profits above care” when he was arrested on gun charges. Over on Goodreads, the Luigi Mangione account positively reviewed the work of another man with a penchant for manifestos: Ted Kaczynski, a.k.a. the Unabomber.
the suspected ceo shooter's goodreads page... who says there aren't any literary men left pic.twitter.com/kgoGtqGj2C
— jenny (@jennygzhang) December 9, 2024
“He was a violent individual — rightfully imprisoned — who maimed innocent people,” Mangione wrote in his four-star review of Kaczynski’s Industrial Society and Its Future. “While these actions tend to be characterized as those of a crazy luddite, however, they are more accurately seen as those of an extreme political revolutionary.” He also included a long quote from a Reddit user, who wrote that Kaczynski “had the balls to recognize that peaceful protest has gotten us absolutely nowhere and at the end of the day, he’s probably right.”
Mangione had not updated his Goodreads account recently, but toward the beginning of the year he did add Infinite Jest, Atlas Shrugged, and American Prometheus (the biography that Oppenheimer was based on) to his “Want to Read” list.
and they said we should be worried about the disappearance of literary men pic.twitter.com/vguXhtqdLr
— Alex Shephard (@alex_shephard) December 9, 2024
His favorites list is full of the kind of nonfiction favorites that right-leaning libertarian types love to peddle. Atomic Habits, The 4-Hour Work Week, and Sapiens all make the list, along with a biography of Elon Musk (not the Walter Isaacson one) and The Lorax. He was less taken with J.D. Vance’s Hillbilly Elegy, to which he gave only three stars.
In 2022, Mangione read two books about suffering with back pain. Mangione’s header photo on X shows an X-ray of someone’s back with four screws in the lower spine.
Goodreads account that appears to belong to the suspect police are questioning in connection with health insurance CEO shooting includes the Unabomber's manifesto but also books about chronic back pain: pic.twitter.com/hghbhtrO4j
— Pod Damn America (@youwouldntpost) December 9, 2024
Mangione has not yet been charged with any crimes relating to the UHC shooting. For all we know, this Goodreads account could belong to an unrelated guy who just so happens to suffer from chronic pain and thinks that direct action is a more worthwhile endeavor than peaceful protesting. Obviously, there will be a lot of questions in Mangione’s future, but maybe just one of them could be if he ever finished The Book Thief. Did he like it?
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