Why am I passionate about this?

Frank Partnoy is the Adrian A. Kragen Professor of Law at UC Berkeley, where he co-runs an annual conference on financial fraud and teaches business law. He has written four trade press books (WAITThe Match KingInfectious Greed, and F.I.A.S.C.O.), dozens of scholarly publications, and multiple articles each for The AtlanticThe New York Review of BooksHarvard Business Review, and The Wall Street Journal, as well as more than fifty opinion pieces for The New York Times and the Financial Times. Partnoy has appeared on 60 Minutes and The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, and has testified as an expert before both houses of Congress. He is a member of the Financial Economists Roundtable and has been an international research fellow at Oxford University since 2010.


I wrote

Book cover of The Match King: Ivar Kreuger, the Financial Genius Behind a Century of Wall Street Scandals

What is my book about?

At the height of the roaring '20s, Swedish emigre Ivar Kreuger made a fortune raising money in America and loaning…

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The books I picked & why

Book cover of J R

Frank Partnoy Why did I love this book?

I read J R the first time in college, and it was the ideal combination of challenging, cynical, illuminating – and hilarious. The novel is a cult classic among well-read Wall Street types, but be warned: it’s 726 pages of almost entirely dialogue, with not much to guide you about who is speaking or where. Once you figure out what Gaddis is up to, the writing becomes immersive and you join a wild ride with the eponymous sixth-grader, who uses the school’s payphone between classes to trade surplus picnic forks, free catalog samples, and eventually controlling stakes in major companies. J R is one of those books you’ll be proud to finish, and never forget.

By William Gaddis,

Why should I read it?

2 authors picked J R as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

A National Book Award-winning satire about the unchecked power of American capitalism, written more than three decades before the 2008 financial crisis.

At the center of J R is J R Vansant, a very average sixth grader from Long Island with torn sneakers, a runny nose, and a juvenile fascination with junk-mail get-rich-quick offers. Responding to one, he sees a small return; soon, he is running a paper empire out of a phone booth in the school hallway. Everyone from the school staff to the municipal government to the squabbling heirs of a player-piano company to the titans of Wall…


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Book cover of The Festival of Sin: and other tales of fantasy

The Festival of Sin By J.M. Unrue,

The Festival of Sin is a three-story light sci-fi arc about a young boy rescued in 6000 BCE and taken to the home planet of the Hudra. Parts two and three are exploratory excursions. It's a fish-out-of-water series. More than fish-out-of-water. Fish-on-another-planet.

Plus, there are two fantasy stories dealing with…

Book cover of The Smartest Guys in the Room: The Amazing Rise and Scandalous Fall of Enron

Frank Partnoy Why did I love this book?

We shouldn’t forget about the collapse of Enron, and this is the definitive book on the company, the one that has survived the test of time. All of the living Enron executives who were sentenced to prison are now out, so it’s a good time to take a look at them, not only to realize how gripping their stories still are, but to see how much they parallel some shenanigans in the markets today. Many companies continue to use accounting schemes that are similar to Enron’s, so it’s worth going back inside Enron, even if all you want is a how-to lesson. The book was adapted into a documentary film, but so you can read the book first, and then see the movie.

By Peter Elkind, Bethany McLean,

Why should I read it?

3 authors picked The Smartest Guys in the Room as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

What went wrong with American business at the end of the 20th century?

Until the spring of 2001, Enron epitomized the triumph of the New Economy. Feared by rivals, worshipped by investors, Enron seemingly could do no wrong. Its profits rose every year; its stock price surged ever upward; its leaders were hailed as visionaries.

Then a young Fortune writer, Bethany McLean, wrote an article posing a simple question - how, exactly, does Enron make its money?

Within a year Enron was facing humiliation and bankruptcy, the largest in US history, which caused Americans to lose faith in a system…


Book cover of The Wizard of Lies: Bernie Madoff and the Death of Trust

Frank Partnoy Why did I love this book?

This book also was made into a film, a feature with Robert De Nirro starring as Bernie Madoff. It also is definitive, a meticulously researched account of what is still, in dollar terms, the largest pyramid scheme in modern history. Henriques interviewed Madoff in person, and she skillfully tells his story, along with truly stunning details about how he pulled off the scheme, and for so long. When you finish reading, you likely will want Madoff to spend even more than 100 years in prison, the sentence he received for harming thousands of investors in an epic multi-billion dollar fraud.

By Diana B. Henriques,

Why should I read it?

2 authors picked The Wizard of Lies as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Who is Bernie Madoff, and how did he pull off the biggest Ponzi scheme in history? In "The Wizard of Lies", Diana B. Henriques of "The New York Times" - who has led the paper's coverage of the Madoff scandal since the day the story broke - has written the definitive book on the man and his scheme, drawing on unprecedented access and more than one hundred interviews with people at all levels and on all sides of the crime, including Madoff's first interviews for publication since his arrest. Henriques also provides vivid details from the various lawsuits, government investigations,…


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Book cover of American Daredevil: Comics, Communism, and the Battles of Lev Gleason

American Daredevil By Brett Dakin,

Meet Lev Gleason, a real-life comics superhero! Gleason was a titan among Golden Age comics publishers who fought back against the censorship campaigns and paranoia of the Red Scare. After dropping out of Harvard to fight in World War I in France, Gleason moved to New York City and eventually…

Book cover of Once in Golconda: The Great Crash of 1929 and its aftershocks

Frank Partnoy Why did I love this book?

There should be at least one book about the 1920s on this list, and this one deserves mention because it elegantly brings to life several of the most interesting characters from that era. There are some dubious ones, such as Jesse Livermore, the “Boy Plunger” who operated bucket shops, shady financial firms that manipulated stocks with fake news. And there are more legitimate leaders of the era: Pierpont Morgan’s son, Jack, and his brainier partner, Tom Lamont, and the power brokers of Kuhn Loeb. Brooks vividly skewers all of them. He misspelled “Golkonda,” but the essence of his story nails the excesses of the era, and is an apt reminder of how much wealth and economic inequality can result from the Federal Reserve going wild with loose monetary policy.

By John Brooks,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Once in Golconda as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Once in Golconda "In this book, John Brooks-who was one of the most elegant of all business writers-perfectly catches the flavor of one of history's best-known financial dramas: the 1929 crash and its aftershocks. It's packed with parallels and parables for the modern reader."

Once in Golconda is a dramatic chronicle of the breathtaking rise, devastating fall, and painstaking rebirth of Wall Street in the years between the wars. Focusing on the lives and fortunes of some of the era's most memorable traders, bankers, boosters, and frauds, John Brooks brings to vivid life all the ruthlessness, greed, and reckless euphoria…


Explore my book 😀

Book cover of The Match King: Ivar Kreuger, the Financial Genius Behind a Century of Wall Street Scandals

What is my book about?

At the height of the roaring '20s, Swedish emigre Ivar Kreuger made a fortune raising money in America and loaning it to Europe in exchange for matchstick monopolies. His enterprise was a rare success story throughout the Great Depression. Yet after his suicide in 1932, it became clear that Kreuger was not all he seemed: evidence surfaced of fudged accounting figures, off-balance-sheet accounting, even forgery. He created a raft of innovative financial products-- many of them precursors to instruments wreaking havoc in today's markets. In this gripping financial biography, Frank Partnoy recasts the life story of a remarkable yet forgotten genius in ways that force us to re-think our ideas about the wisdom of crowds, the invisible hand, and the free and unfettered market.

Book cover of J R
Book cover of Memoirs Of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds
Book cover of The Smartest Guys in the Room: The Amazing Rise and Scandalous Fall of Enron

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