Here are 100 books that The Creature from Jekyll Island fans have personally recommended if you like
The Creature from Jekyll Island.
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I’m a huge thriller fan, and I love finance. In fact, I worked in the industry for over twenty years. I have an MBA from Duke and have been the CEO of three different SEC/FINRA-registered broker-dealers. Unfortunately, I’ve found myself deep into a thriller with a financial component that turns out to be implausible, overly simplistic, or both. It breaks the narrative for me. With these books, that’s not a concern. Financial thriller aficionados unite!
Grisham is one of the greats, and The Firm might just be his best. Money laundering, finance, postal laws, and the quirky world of 1990s Memphis all come to life with this Grisham great.
While more of a legal thriller than a financial one, I found that as far as finance-related fiction goes, it’s tough to beat The Firm.Not only a look inside at off-shore banking and shady deals, Grisham offers here a compelling narrative that excites and captures the reader.
**THE BOOK THAT MADE JOHN GRISHAM A HOUSEHOLD NAME** Featuring an exclusive introduction from the author. _______________________________________
He thought it was his dream job. Until it turned into his worst nightmare...
When Mitch McDeere qualified third in his class at Harvard, offers poured in from every law firm in America. Bendini, Lambert and Locke were a small, well-respected firm, but their offer exceeded Mitch's wildest expectations: a fantastic salary, a new home, and the keys to a brand new BMW.
Except for the mysterious deaths of previous lawyers with the firm. And the FBI investigations. And the secret files.
I believed the Internet would be as colorful a cultural phenomenon as LSD. But before I was even able to convince people that something wonderful was on the horizon, big business swooped in and recontextualized the digital renaissance as a business revolution and the Silicon Valley mindset was born: Companies should grow exponentially forever! Any tech problem can be solved with more tech! Humans on Earth are just larvae–maggots–while wealthy tech bros will get to Mars or upload their minds to the cloud. This list of books is meant to show how these guys think and why they’re taking us in the wrong direction.
This book is about the ultimate pyramid scheme, written largely from the perspective of someone who fell for it. Michael Lewis tells a story like nobody else. It is about Sam Bankman Fried, the crypto billionaire who is now in jail for defrauding everybody.
Only it was written before Fried was convicted, and some reviewers felt Lewis had himself been charmed and hoodwinked by Fried. But that’s precisely the reason I love this book: the author falls under the spell of a Silicon Valley accelerationist and techno-utopian.
We get to experience the logic of “effective altruism” and the cult of exponential growth from the inside rather than the cynicism of how it all turned out.
When Michael Lewis first met him, Sam Bankman-Fried was the world's youngest billionaire and crypto's Gatsby. CEOs, celebrities, and leaders of small countries all vied for his time and cash after he catapulted, practically overnight, onto the Forbes billionaire list. Who was this rumpled guy in cargo shorts and limp white socks, whose eyes twitched across Zoom meetings as he played video games on the side?
In Going Infinite Lewis sets out to answer this question, taking readers into the mind of Bankman-Fried, whose rise and fall offers an education in high-frequency trading, cryptocurrencies, philanthropy, bankruptcy, and the justice system.…
I’m a huge thriller fan, and I love finance. In fact, I worked in the industry for over twenty years. I have an MBA from Duke and have been the CEO of three different SEC/FINRA-registered broker-dealers. Unfortunately, I’ve found myself deep into a thriller with a financial component that turns out to be implausible, overly simplistic, or both. It breaks the narrative for me. With these books, that’s not a concern. Financial thriller aficionados unite!
As a finance guy, I had always heard of the BIS or Bank for International Settlements, but I had no idea what it did, how it worked, or its history.
Adam LeBor expertly explains in the Tower of Basel not only what and who the BIS is, but how they have manipulated and influenced the global economy for generations. Despite the bank's strong connections to the Third Reich during the 1930s, the BIS continues to dominate global finance today as the central bank for central banks.
Every two months, leaders from the most powerful central banks in the world including the Federal Reserve meet in Basil to chart a course for the world economy under a cloak of secrecy. Tower of Basel rips the veil from this clandestine organization and exposes dark forces few are aware of.
Tower of Basel is the first investigative history of the world's most secretive global financial institution. Based on extensive archival research in Switzerland, Britain, and the United States, and in-depth interviews with key decision-makers,including Paul Volcker, the former chairman of the US Federal Reserve Sir Mervyn King, governor of the Bank of England and former senior Bank for International Settlements managers and officials,Tower of Basel tells the inside story of the Bank for International Settlements (BIS): the central bankers' own bank.Created by the governors of the Bank of England and the Reichsbank in 1930, and protected by an international treaty,…
I’m a huge thriller fan, and I love finance. In fact, I worked in the industry for over twenty years. I have an MBA from Duke and have been the CEO of three different SEC/FINRA-registered broker-dealers. Unfortunately, I’ve found myself deep into a thriller with a financial component that turns out to be implausible, overly simplistic, or both. It breaks the narrative for me. With these books, that’s not a concern. Financial thriller aficionados unite!
Looking for a touch of fiction with your finance: The Millionaires is not only fun, it’s a great look at how easy (and tempting) it can be when working in finance to cross the line and act for personal gain.
As someone who has worked in the finance industry for decades, I’ve become all too accustomed to moving millions, sometimes tens of millions with the touch of a button. What happens when an average guy has that authority? What if that average guy is actually innocent?
Read The Millionaires for an entertaining look at the possibilities.
Two brothers who are desperately chasing success get more than they bargained for in this suspenseful cat-and-mouse thriller of wealth, crime, and social climbing.
Two brothers. Three secret service agents. And millions for the taking.
Charlie and Oliver Caruso are brothers who work at Greene and Greene, a private bank so exclusive there's a $2 million minimum to be a client. But when the door of success slams in their faces, the brothers are presented with an offer they can't refuse: $3 million in an abandoned account that can't be traced. It's the perfect victimless crime. Charlie and Oliver opt…
Selwyn Parker is an award-winning journalist, author, speaker and pianist. In journalism he focuses on transformational contemporary issues like the new era in energy, the upheaval in banking, the revolution in transportation and the fast-moving world of investment. However most of his dozen books – novels and non-fiction -- are rooted in landmark historical events whose effects still register today.
Apart from revealing and sometimes dismaying insights into the workings of the White House, this legendary chairman of the US Federal Reserve presents a tour d’horizon of the economic thought that underpins the creation of wealth. As such, it should be obligatory reading for anybody interested in how nations prosper (or don’t), how governments routinely make disastrous interventions even if they aim to act for the right reasons, why Adam Smith continues to influence our lives (even though we don’t know it), and why capitalism is so foolishly demonised by banner-waving grandstanders.
Alan Greenspan's The Age of Turbulence is the essential guide to what is happening in the world, and where we're heading, from the ultimate expert.
Alan Greenspan wielded more power than the presidents he worked for, from Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton to George Bush and his son. He was in the command room of the world economy for longer than any other single figure. One word from him could send markets into freefall.
Now Alan Greenspan, the legendary former chairman of the Federal Reserve, gives us a unique insider's view of the world over his lifetime, from stock market…
Long before I studied economics, I remember being told in church that “money is the root of all evil.” Much later, when I was interviewing for my first professor-level position, I remember one of the interviewers saying, “I suppose everyone is interested in money.” We are not talking here about a fixation on accumulating money, but rather understanding the profound impact monetary policy has upon everyone in society. These readings show how pervasive the effects of bad monetary policy can be and how important it is to keep track of what is going on. Start with the first two chapters of Friedman’s Money Mischief and see if you can stop!
This book not only offers an authoritative account of what the Federal Reserve has been up to since its founding in 1913 but also the rationale for why they did what they did.
One particularly telling observation is made with respect to Arthur Burns, who was the Federal Reserve Chair during 1970-1978: “Burns always attributed [inflation] to nonmonetary sources.” Paul Volcker’s actions during 1979-1987 demonstrated how the restoration of monetary stability was a sine quo non for ending the 1970s inflationary spiral. No matter how necessary the Federal Reserve’s later massive 2020 monetary expansion may have been, it was imperative that this bulge in money also be unwound.
A worrying element, however, is that, in the midst of all this, none of today’s Federal Reserve policymakers “ever mentions money.”
An illuminating history of the Fed from its founding through the tumult of 2020.
In The Federal Reserve: A New History, Robert L. Hetzel draws on more than forty years of experience as an economist in the central bank to trace the influences of the Fed on the American economy. Comparing periods in which the Fed stabilized the economy to those when it did the opposite, Hetzel tells the story of a century-long pursuit of monetary rules capable of providing for economic stability.
Recast through this lens and enriched with archival materials, Hetzel's sweeping history offers a new understanding of…
My passion is to prepare clients' investments for the impending debt crisis. That is why I started Pento Portfolio Strategies and created the Inflation/Deflation and Economic Cycle Model. The US faces an entirely new paradigm – due to onerous debt, central banks are forced to either massively monetize the nation's debt or allow a cathartic deflationary depression to reset the economy. Our government is now compelled to seek a condition of perpetual inflation to maintain the illusion of prosperity and solvency. Our central bank is now walking the economy on a tightrope between inflation and deflation. This will require a vastly different and active investment strategy to fit the new dynamic.
This book explains the unchecked power of the Federal Reserve.
Perfect for those who don't have the time to read the 608-page The Creature From Jekyll Island. In this book, Paul explains in very simple terms that the Federal Reserve has been given absolute power over the most essential element of our economy – the price and supply of money.
Formed by a small group of powerful bankers who argued a central bank would stabilize the currency, over the past century since its creation, the Fed has not only destabilized the currency but also created a series of wealth-destroying asset bubbles.
It has also led to a trenchant and destructive wealth gap between the rich and the poor.
During the 2008 presidential campaign over 4,000 students gathered at the University of Michigan to hear Republican candidate Ron Paul speak. As he began to address the topics of monetary policy and the coming depression, a chant came from the crowd, 'End the Fed! End the Fed!' As dollar bills were set on fire, it became clearer than ever that the real problem, one that nobody in the media was talking about, was the central bank - an unconstitutional entity and a political, economic and moral disaster. Most people think of the Federal Reserve as an institution that has always…
I was born just before the start of World War ll. My father served throughout the war in the RAF but before that he had been a professional singer. I was interested in the idea that the war had sent people along paths that they would never have otherwise explored and I decided to write about four young performing artists and their wartime experiences. The result was the four novels in my Follies series. It meant a lot of research, in the process of which I discovered the work of the Special Operations Executive. This has provided me with material for several more novels, of which Operation Lightning Bolt is the most recent.
This book plays into my own interest in the work of the Special Operations Executive during World War ll. But it is set some years after the war and deals with the legacy of secrecy and its effect on the men and women who served in SOE. It is a story of revenge and reconciliation, and the plot has many dramatic twists building up to a nail-biting climax and a bitter revelation.
My dear Elsa— You are grieving and I am sorry, but there are things you need to know… Because this is not only a confession. It is an accusation. So, in case you get no further, here is the bald fact.
I killed your grandfather.
War hides many secrets and some of them are better kept. But the secret of Hut Ten was never that kind: it could have been leaked and a life would have been saved. One man could have made that difference. He didn’t - and vengeance has taken forty years to catch up with him.
I love to read a good action-adventure story. I’ve also written a few. And I know that no matter how high the stakes, if there’s no heart in the characters then there’s very little engagement to make it any more memorable than a temporary thrill. I love thrills, but the stories that stick with you after the excitement of the moment is over, those are the true gems. Besides the fun of reading that type of book, maybe you even learn something about yourself or the world and come out a wee bit wiser than when you went in. And isn’t that a fantastic use of our imaginative powers?!
A visual and cinematic adventure that sweeps you through a pre-WWII version of Switzerland, this Frankenstein-inspired story is jam-packed with action and humor.
The primary characters are all idiosyncratic in a memorable way—Frances, who lost an ear in a car crash; Fritz, the monkey juiced up on intelligence serum; and Hobbes, the android tutor. Even the secondary characters are crafted with heart and colorfully distinct in their own respects.
The cliff-hangers and twists pushed the action along and I’m sure this will be a story kids read late into the night wanting to find out what happens next. I received an advance copy of this book in exchange for my honest opinion.
What would you do if you accidentally brought a monster to life and set him loose on your town?
Adventurous and charming, this middle grade twist on Frankenstein features a precocious main character who does just that. Perfect for fans of Serafina and the Black Cloak and the Greenglass House series.
Frances Stenzel was just trying to prove her scientific worth to her parents so they would take her with them to their scientific symposiums for once-instead, she reawakened her great-grandfather's secret and most terrible invention.
Before it can destroy the town, she sets off after it, with her pet…
I grew up in a secular Jewish household where Yiddish culture, history, and politics were a part of daily life. As a result, when I began reading (and eventually writing) science fiction and fantasy, I would take note if I found a novel or short story collection that reflected any of the many flavors of Judaism and Jewish culture. While it is not all I read or write about (I make my living as a tech journalist and I have very eclectic tastes in literature), I find that my curiosity is particularly piqued when confronted with a new book that covers both those genres.
Wandering Stars is a landmark anthology that should be the starting point for anyone interested in Jewish science fiction and fantasy. It contains a collection of incredible short stories; it’s nearly impossible to pick out the best. My own favorites include William Tenn’s “On Venus, Have We Got a Rabbi,” Avram Davidson’s “The Golem,” Harlan Ellison’s “I’m Looking for Kadak,” and Isaac Bashevitz Singer’s heartbreaking, “Jachid and Jechidah.”
Jewish science fiction and fantasy? Yes! The distinguished list of contributors includes: Bernard Malamud, Isaac Bashevis Singer, Isaac Asimov, Robert Silverberg, Harlan Ellison, Pamela Sargent, Avram Davidson, Geo. Alec Effinger, Horace L. Gold, Robert Sheckley, William Tenn, and Carol Carr.
William Tenn's futuristic story "On Venus, Have We Got A Rabbi" takes on the volatile issue of "Who is a Jew?"--a question certainly as timely in 1998 as he imagines it will be in 2533. Asimov's "Unto the Fourth Generation" takes on the issue of Jews as endangered species in America, a theme that is even more apparent today than…
