Here are 45 books that Too Big to Fail fans have personally recommended if you like
Too Big to Fail.
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I’ve been fascinated by thrillers since I was first allowed to read them. My childhood bookcase was full of Hammond Innes, Alistair MacLean, and every Nevil Shute novel. Later, these were joined by many others, not least John Le Carré. Banking gave me an insight into the murky world of money, bringing with it real-life stories as compelling as those I love reading about. My obsession with the genre is not only with elegant, complex plots but also with what motivates the characters to take the extraordinary risks they do in such challenging environments. The five thrillers I’ve chosen are my absolute favorites. I hope you enjoy them.
Although this book is semi-autobiographical, it is still one of the best financial thrillers for me. I love the build-up of the characters working in the toxic mortgage and junk bond markets of the late 1980s.
I love, too, the way it depicts the moral bankruptcy of the major investment banks and exposes the culture of greed that ultimately led to the financial crash of the late ‘80s, which was to be replicated again many years later.
Michael Lewis was fresh out of Princeton and the London School of Economics when he landed a job at Salomon Brothers, one of Wall Street's premier investment firms. During the next three years, Lewis rose from callow trainee to bond salesman, raking in millions for the firm and cashing in on a modern-day gold rush. Liar's Poker is the culmination of those heady, frenzied years-a behind-the-scenes look at a unique and turbulent time in American business. From the frat-boy camaraderie of the forty-first-floor trading room to the killer instinct that made ambitious young men gamble everything on a high-stakes game…
I ended up in financial journalism by happenstance (it was pretty much the only corner of the media world that was still hiring when I graduated in the early 2000s). But I fell in love with it. To understand the world, you have to understand money. Whether you like it or not, it is the hidden wiring that binds us all together. I’ve found that reading history books on finance and economics has helped me better understand what is going on today, so I hope the books on this list will help you do the same.
A history of hedge funds might seem like a weird recommendation by someone who has written a paean to passive investing.
But my favourite books use a subject to tell a much broader story, and Mallaby’s definitive book on the hedge industry manages to show how even the most illustrious investing careers can fizzle out as market regimes ebb and flow.
The first book of its kind: a fascinating and entertaining examination of hedge funds today
Shortlisted for the Financial Times/Goldman Sachs Business Book of the Year Award
'An enormously satisfying book: a gripping chronicle of the cutting edge of the financial markets and a fascinating perspective on what was going on in these shadowy institutions as the crash hit' Observer
Wealthy, powerful, and potentially dangerous, hedge-find managers have emerged as the stars of twenty-first century capitalism. Based on unprecedented access to the industry, More Money Than God provides the first authoritative history of hedge funds. This is the inside story…
I was always interested in American history and studied at Brown University under an outstanding professor of American economic history, James Blaine Hedges. During my career at the mutual fund association I often approached issues from an historical perspective. For example: Why did Congress draft legislation in a particular way? How would past events likely affect a regulator’s decisions today? As a lawyer I had been trained to write carefully and precisely. As a lobbyist I learned the need to pre
The book does an outstanding job in describing the people and events that produced the October 1929 stock market crash in a highly entertaining style. Galbraith wrote more like a witty and insightful journalist than the award-winning economist that he was. This is a must-read for anyone who wants to learn about American financial history. The book is a model for writers who want to educate non-experts about public policy issues.
'One of the most engrossing books I have ever read' Daily Telegraph
John Kenneth Galbraith's now-classic account of the 1929 stock market collapse remains the definitive book on the most disastrous cycle of boom and bust in modern times.
Vividly depicting the causes, effects, aftermath and long-term consequences of financial meltdown, Galbraith also describes the people and the corporations who were affected by the catastrophe. With its depiction of the 'gold-rush fantasy' ingrained in America's psychology, The Great Crash 1929 remains a penetrating study of human greed and folly.
Early observations of power and privilege came from growing up around my Pulitzer Prize-winning father, Richard Eberhart, and his circle of iconic literary friends. During my long career advising top executives, I came to understand the dynamics of male power and privilege and its fit with individual personality. In their corner suites, I listened to CEOs interpret their pasts and envision their futures while the best of them uncovered their real fears and vulnerabilities. As these (mostly) men confronted their own mythologies and legacies, I, too, got to examine mine—recognizing that the best way to change our companies and our lives is to change ourselves.
This book held my hands to a high bar while accumulating, through good storytelling, the truths of a company, both clear and nuanced, as I searched for them in the early George A. Hormel & Company.
Arsenault’s book upends many beliefs we hold about “good companies” that provide stable, long-term jobs to hundreds of employees, like this prominent and popular paper mill in Mexico, Maine, where Arsenault’s family worked through multiple generations. The long-term economic safety and security that employees had felt for years is upended by their numerous life-threatening, sometimes intractable, cancers.
I loved this book for its investigative environmental journalism, its exposure of truths the powerful did not want to be exposed, and its influence on my own research.
In Mill Town "[Kerri] Arsenault pays loving homage to her family's tight-knit Maine town even as she examines the cancers that have stricken so many residents."-The New York Times Book Review
"Mill Town is a powerful, blistering, devastating book. Kerri Arsenault is both a graceful writer and a grieving daughter in search of answers and ultimately, justice. In telling the story of the town where generations of her family have lived and died, she raises important and timely questions." -Dani Shapiro, author of Inheritance
Kerri Arsenault grew up in the rural working class town of Mexico, Maine. For over 100…
By the late nineties, I had lost faith in the industry where I had made a living for twenty years. Deregulation on Wall St and in the City had left investment banking with a business model riddled with conflict of interest. The rewards spiralled out of control and the businesses became too complicated for the regulators to supervise. I have a doctorate in history and had been a top-ranked investment analyst in several sectors. I took an idea to Penguin and my first book, The Death of Gentlemanly Capitalism, was published in 2001. I've since written six more, and contributed regularly to the Financial Times and BBC.
The Great Financial Crisis of 2008 might look like a storm that blew up out of nowhere but it had been brewing for a decade or more in the murky world of structured credit. Written by one of the first journalists to see the problem coming and skillfully unravelling complexity through the story of a small band of derivatives experts, Fool’s Gold shows the unintended consequences of financial innovation as it spun out of control.
From award-winning Financial Times journalist Gillian Tett, who enraged Wall Street leaders with her news-breaking warnings of a crisis more than a year ahead of the curve, Fool’s Gold tells the astonishing unknown story at the heart of the 2008 meltdown.
Drawing on exclusive access to J.P. Morgan CEO Jamie Dimon and a tightly bonded team of bankers known on Wall Street as the “Morgan Mafia,” as well as in-depth interviews with dozens of other key players, including Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, Tett brings to life in gripping detail how the Morgan team’s bold ideas for a whole new kind…
By the late nineties, I had lost faith in the industry where I had made a living for twenty years. Deregulation on Wall St and in the City had left investment banking with a business model riddled with conflict of interest. The rewards spiralled out of control and the businesses became too complicated for the regulators to supervise. I have a doctorate in history and had been a top-ranked investment analyst in several sectors. I took an idea to Penguin and my first book, The Death of Gentlemanly Capitalism, was published in 2001. I've since written six more, and contributed regularly to the Financial Times and BBC.
Discrete, mysterious, and powerful, Wall St’s great financial institutions shaped corporate America in the 20th century and none more so than Lazard Freres. But towards the end of the century, as competitors scaled up, Lazard was distracted by a power struggle involving hard-charging Wall St bankers and an inscrutable French billionaire. Who really played the winning hand? This book reveals all!
A grand and revelatory portrait of Wall Street’s most storied investment bank
Wall Street investment banks move trillions of dollars a year, make billions in fees, pay their executives in the tens of millions of dollars. But even among the most powerful firms, Lazard Frères & Co. stood apart. Discretion, secrecy, and subtle strategy were its weapons of choice. For more than a century, the mystique and reputation of the "Great Men" who worked there allowed the firm to garner unimaginable profits, social cachet, and outsized influence in the halls of power. But in the mid-1980s, their titanic egos started…
I’ve been interested in investing for over four decades since I started as a finance PhD student at Wharton. Since then my research has focused on understanding the stock market. Early on, I tried applying my research to my investing. For example, I was convinced that a recently listed stock called Google was way overvalued—was I ever wrong! That got me to reflect on my investment philosophy—what did I truly believe about how markets really behaved? That brought me back to understanding and appreciating the contributors to Modern Portfolio Theory, which led to a fun decade-long book project. Currently I enjoy writing about investing through my blog.
Peter Bernstein was one of the great investment writers.
This book is where I got my first taste into the great theorists whose works revolutionized Wall Street such as Harry Markowitz, Bill Sharpe, Myron Scholes, and Bob Merton, all of whom I later had the pleasure of getting to know. I had read about their theories, but hadn’t appreciated the impact they had on the investment industry. Bernstein showed how these luminaries changed the way we think about investments.
Capital Ideas traces the origins of modern Wall Street, from the pioneering work of early scholars and the development of new theories in risk, valuation, and investment returns, to the actual implementation of these theories in the real world of investment management. Bernstein brings to life a variety of brilliant academics who have contributed to modern investment theory over the years: Louis Bachelier, Harry Markowitz, William Sharpe, Fischer Black, Myron Scholes, Robert Merton, Franco Modigliani, and Merton Miller. Filled with in-depth insights and timeless advice, Capital Ideas reveals how the unique contributions of these talented individuals profoundly changed the practice…
I ended up in financial journalism by happenstance (it was pretty much the only corner of the media world that was still hiring when I graduated in the early 2000s). But I fell in love with it. To understand the world, you have to understand money. Whether you like it or not, it is the hidden wiring that binds us all together. I’ve found that reading history books on finance and economics has helped me better understand what is going on today, so I hope the books on this list will help you do the same.
Sometimes the obvious pick is still the right pick, and anyone interested in the history of financial shenanigans – outright frauds or merely weapons-grade idiocy – has to read Kindleberger.
There’s a reason why it remains a stone-cold classic that bears reading (and re-reading) almost half a century after it was first published.
In the Eighth Edition of this classic text on the financial history of bubbles and crashes, Robert McCauley joins with Robert Aliber in building on Charles Kindleberger's renowned work. McCauley draws on his central banking experience to introduce new chapters on cryptocurrency and the United States as the 21st Century global lender of last resort. He also updates the book's coverage of the recent property bubble in China, as well as providing new perspectives on the US housing bubble of 2003-2006, and the Japanese bubble of the late 1980s. And he gives new attention to the social psychology that leads…
After graduating from the University of Illinois in 1989 with an LAS degree in communications and a knack for artwork, I had no idea what I wanted to do. That was until my brother pulled me from my low-paid art job in Chicago to work as a clerk on the floor of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange. I eventually became a trader on that same floor, as well as an oil and gas dealer in New York. Screaming and yelling in the trading pits while money moved back and forth with a shout and a hand signal I learned more about investing, trading, and human nature through osmosis than I ever could in an MBA course.
Though not a book about trading per se, this chronicle of the craziness surrounding the 1986 leveraged buyout of RJR-Nabisco is certainly worth a read.
It centers around the machinations of RJR-Nabisco’s breezy CEO, F. Ross Johnson, and how, apparently, being the head of one of America’s great companies wasn’t enough. The book really is as much a study of greed and ego as it is about what was, at the time, the most expensive LBO in history.
One gets the feeling the company in play, and its employees wondering what would be the impact on their lives once the negotiations way up in the New York corporate high rises were completed, were ancillary concerns to the players involved—Ross Johnson, American Express CEO and power publicist Jim and Linda Robinson, Shearson-Lehman head Peter Cohen, buyout specialist and anti-junk bond crusader Ted Forstmann, and the coldly menacing Henry Kravis and…
“One of the finest, most compelling accounts of what happened to corporate America and Wall Street in the 1980’s.” —New York Times Book Review
A #1 New York Times bestseller and arguably the best business narrative ever written, Barbarians at the Gate is the classic account of the fall of RJR Nabisco. An enduring masterpiece of investigative journalism by Bryan Burrough and John Helyar, it includes a new afterword by the authors that brings this remarkable story of greed and double-dealings up to date twenty years after the famed deal. The Los Angeles Times calls Barbarians at the Gate, “Superlative.”…
We are the academic and creative directors at the Stanford d.school. Our students study design, but they really hope to navigate a world of unknowns and make their way to a better future. We believe the best way to do that is not to limit yourself to a single domain or area but to find new possibilities in the overlaps, patterns, and discoveries that linger between ideas. We love books that stretch us beyond the design domain and into new places of inspiration and investigation. The ones on our list have all delighted us with their ability to reframe our thinking about design, even though none are squarely about the topic.
This book is a work of fiction, but it lulls and twists you until you’re dizzy with reality. We love it because it brilliantly puts you through the same series of events but from a different character's perspective each time.
This is design–never forgetting that your lens is but one of many on the events in the surrounding world. And if you think reading fiction isn’t a great way to learn to design, stop thinking and start reading. Fiction is the ultimate tool for imagination.
Longlisted for the Booker Prize The Sunday Times Bestseller
Trust is a sweeping, unpredictable novel about power, wealth and truth, set against the backdrop of turbulent 1920s New York. Perfect for fans of Succession.
Can one person change the course of history?
A Wall Street tycoon takes a young woman as his wife. Together they rise to the top in an age of excess and speculation. But now a novelist is threatening to reveal the secrets behind their marriage, and this wealthy man's story - of greed, love and betrayal - is about to slip from his grasp.
