Wednesday, December 8, 2010

Best Books on the Financial Crisis

According to Reddit:

http://www.reddit.com/r/economy/related/ahkcb/years_best_books_on_financial_crisis/

Murder of Lehman Brothers Receives Best Lehman Book Review From The Deal

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE(Free-Press-Release.com)

November 13, 2009 --The award-winning Editor-in-chief of The Deal magazine reviewed all three books that focus exclusively or primarily on Lehman Brothers and the aftermath of it's bankruptcy. "The Murder of Lehman" received the most uniformly positive review
The books:

-Murder of Lehman, Joseph Tibman (veteran insider)

-Colossal Failure of Common Sense, Lawrence McDonald (4-year insider) w/ Patrick Robinson (thriller author)

-Too Big To Fail: Andrew Ross Sorkin (journalist)


The Deal Said the following of the three books:


"He [Tibman] presents a... nuanced portrait of the firm, its leadership, particularly CEO Richard Fuld, and the rank and file."


"[McDonlad's} book is far more about himself than it is about Lehman.


"Despite [Sorkin's] elaborate apparatus, it's difficult to tell how accurate this long narrative of anecdote and dialogue really is..."

*

"Tibman presents a more complex and shifting judgment, which is one of the strengths of the book."


"Sorkin constructs a deceptively smooth surface over more complicated depths."


"McDonald argues that Paulson turned on Fuld after a spat over dinner. This is comically simplistic."

"McDonald argues time after time that his little group was the only ones that really knew what was going on; that seems a stretch."

*

All this is not to say Sorkin hasn't produced a fascinating narrative...Sorkin offers little overt interpretation. He creates characters by accumulating details."


"What {The Murder of Lehman Brothers} does better than anything else is humanize a firm and its employees in a way that's been rare of late."


"With his guns trained on Fuld, McDonald is willing to let nearly every one of the 25,000 Lehman employees off the hook. There were 24,992 good people, he says."


Read the full reviews for yourself and be the judge.


Murder of Lehman (& Colossal):http://urlPass.com/4dja

Too Big To Fail: http://urlPass.com/4fb4

Colossal Fialure: http://urlPass.com/4fb6 & http://urlPass.com/4fb7

Monday, August 2, 2010

The Best Books on the Financial Crisis -- Seeking Alpha

From Michael Shulman's Blog: The Best Books on the Financial Crisis -- Seeking Alpha
The Two Trillion Dollar Meltdown - By far the most powerful book on the crisis because it was written before the real meltdowns rushed to market.








Too Big To Fail 
- Almost too big too read, this will probably be viewed as the standard treatment of the crisis due to the clarity of the writing and the objective stance of the writer, New York Times reporter Andrew Ross Sorkin.





















House of Cards














Fool's Gold - Gillian Tett, a brilliant columnist with the Financial Times, wrote this book on the financial engineers who blew up the financial world with their invention, the CDO or credit derivative obligation and what we now call credit default swaps.







In Fed We Trust - The second best or must-read by a Wall Street Journal reporter, David Wessel










On the Brink - Hank Paulson is what the nation now lacks - a hard nosed, savvy, center right Republican leader who views ideology as an impediment to getting things done.

Chain of Blame - This was the most fun book - an inside look at the birth through death of the subprime mortgage industry.

A Colossal Failure of Common Sense - Authors Lawrence G. McDonald and Patrick Robinson do to a bang up job describing the almost surreal behavior of Lehman Brothers executives as the firm melted down.



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