When Genius Failed: The Rise and Fall of Long-Term Capital Management

A Colossal Failure of Common Sense: The Inside Story of the Collapse of Lehman Brothers

Lawrence G. McDonald, Patrick Robinson · 351 pages

One of the biggest questions of the financial crisis has not been answered until now. What happened at Lehman Brothers and why was it allowed to fail, with aftershocks that rocked the global economy? In this news-making, often astonishing book, a former Lehman Brothers Vice President gives us the straight answers--right from the belly of the beast.In A Colossal Failure of Common Sense, Larry McDo

Too Big to Fail: The Inside Story of How Wall Street and Washington Fought to Save the Financial System from Crisis — and Themselves

Andrew Ross Sorkin · 600 pages

A real-life thriller about the most tumultuous period in America's financial history by an acclaimed New York Times Reporter Andrew Ross Sorkin delivers the first true behind-the-scenes, moment-by-moment account of how the greatest financial crisis since the Great Depression developed into a global tsunami. From inside the corner office at Lehman Brothers to secret meetings in South Korea, and the

Flash Boys: A Wall Street Revolt

Michael Lewis · 320 pages

Argues that post-crisis Wall Street continues to be controlled by large banks and explains how a small, diverse group of Wall Street men have banded together to reform the financial markets.

More Money Than God: Hedge Funds and the Making of a New Elite

Sebastian Mallaby · 482 pages

Based on unprecedented access to the industry, including three hundred hours of interviews, economist/journalist Sebastian Mallaby tells the inside story of hedge funds, from their origins in the 1960s and 1970s to their role in the financial crisis of 2007-2009. Wealthy, powerful, and potentially dangerous, hedge fund moguls have become the It Boys of 21st century capitalism. Ken Griffin started

Crash of the Titans: Greed, Hubris, the Fall of Merrill Lynch, and the Near-Collapse of Bank of America

Greg Farrell · 471 pages

This book tells the intimate, fly-on-the wall tale of the decline and fall of an American icon. With one notable exception, the firms that make up what we know as Wall Street have always been part of an inbred, insular culture that most people only vaguely understand. The exception was Merrill Lynch, a firm that revolutionized the stock market by bringing Wall Street to Main Street, setting up off

The Quants: How a New Breed of Math Whizzes Conquered Wall Street and Nearly Destroyed It

Scott Patterson, Mike Chamberlain · 337 pages

"Beware of geeks bearing formulas." --Warren Buffett In March of 2006, the world's richest men sipped champagne in an opulent New York hotel. They were preparing to compete in a poker tournament with million-dollar stakes, but those numbers meant nothing to them. They were accustomed to risking billions. At the card table that night was Peter Muller, an eccentric, whip-smart whiz kid who'd

Fooling Some of the People All of the Time: A Long Short (and Now Complete) Story

David Einhorn · 426 pages

How far will some unscrupulous companies go to keep the truth about their dealings from the American investor? Farther than the eye can see, according to this account by Einhorn, the founder of Greenlight Capital, a long-short value-oriented hedge fund. Einhorn's firm has achieved greater than a 25 percent annualized net return for its investors since 1996, proof that Einhorn can literally put his

House of Cards: A Tale of Hubris and Wretched Excess on Wall Street

William D. Cohan · 468 pages

'House of Cards' is a narrative about corporate greed on a truly epic scale. Cohan relates how the lack of foresight and regulation in an uncertain economy forced the government and Wall Street to take increasingly desperate and unprecedented measures to stop the carnage before the entire economy melted down.

The Predators' Ball: The Inside Story of Drexel Burnham and the Rise of the Junk Bond Raiders

Connie Bruck · 385 pages

During the '80s, Michael Milken at Drexel Burnham created the corporate raiders. He was the billionaire Junk Bond King. But, in the corner stood the U.S. District Attorney waiting to file criminal and racketeering charges.

Traders, Guns & Money: Knowns and Unknowns in the Dazzling World of Derivatives

Satyajit Das · 343 pages

Confidence Men

Ron Suskind · 515 pages

Draws on hundreds of hours of interviews and in-depth research to relate the complete story of the nation's financial meltdown, from the trading floors of lower Manhattan to the power corridors inside the Beltway.

Bailout Nation: How Greed and Easy Money Corrupted Wall Street and Shook the World Economy

Barry Ritholtz, Bill Fleckenstein, Aaron Task · 332 pages

An engaging look at what led to the financial turmoil we now find ourselves in Bailout Nation offers one of the clearest looks at the financial lenders, regulators, and politicians responsible for the financial crisis of 2008. Written by Barry Ritholtz, one of today's most popular economic bloggers and a well-established industry pundit, this book skillfully explores how the United States evolved

All the Devils are Here: The Hidden History of the Financial Crisis

Bethany McLean, Joe Nocera · 389 pages

According to the authors, both business journalists, no one has put all the pieces of the financial crisis together. This title explores the motivations of everyone from CEOs and politicians to anonymous lenders, borrowers and Wall Street traders. It goes back more than twenty years to reveal, how Wall Street, the mortgage industry, and the government conspired to change the way Americans bought t

The Spider Network: The Wild Story of a Math Genius, a Gang of Backstabbing Bankers, and One of the Greatest Scams in Financial History

David Enrich · 528 pages

The Snowball: Warren Buffett and the Business of Life

Alice Schroeder · 1,255 pages

Here is THE book recounting the life and times of one of the most respected men in the world, Warren Buffett. The legendary Omaha investor has never written a memoir, but now he has allowed one writer, Alice Schroeder, unprecedented access to explore directly with him and with those closest to him his work, opinions, struggles, triumphs, follies, and wisdom. The result is the personally revealing

Makers and Takers: The Rise of Finance and the Fall of American Business

Rana Foroohar · 388 pages

"Eight years on from the biggest market meltdown since the Great Depression, the key lessons of the crisis of 2008 still remain unlearned--and our financial system is just as vulnerable as ever. Many of us know that our government failed to fix the banking system after the subprime mortgage crisis. But what few of us realize is how the misguided financial practices and philosophies that nearly top

F.I.A.S.C.O.: Guns, Booze and Bloodlust - The Truth About High Finance

Frank Partnoy · 254 pages

F.I.A.S.C.O. is an insider's diary, a shocking education in the jungle of high finance in the 1990s from New York to Tokyo. It tracks the progress of a young Morgan Stanley salesman as he learns the ropes of this sophisticated jungle, where billions of dollars are lost in the creation and trading of securities so unlikely and so complicated that almost nobody - certainly not the unwary or underedu

The Missing Cryptoqueen: The Billion Dollar Cryptocurrency Con and the Woman Who Got Away with It

Jamie Bartlett · 320 pages

The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable

Nassim Nicholas Taleb · 400 pages

Bailout: An Inside Account of How Washington Abandoned Main Street While Rescuing Wall Street

Neil Barofsky · 279 pages

In this account of his stranger-than-fiction baptism into the corrupted ways of Washington, Neil Barofsky offers an irrefutable indictment, from an insider of the Bush and Obama administrations, of the mishandling of the $700 billion TARP bailout fund. In behind-the-scenes detail, he reveals proof of the extreme degree to which our government officials bent over backward to serve the interests of

Swimming With Sharks: My Journey into the World of the Bankers

Joris Luyendijk · 288 pages

The Wizard of Lies

Diana B. Henriques · 448 pages

The inside story of Bernie Madoff and his $65 billion Ponzi scheme, with surprising and shocking new details from Madoff himself. Who is Bernie Madoff, and how did he pull off the biggest Ponzi scheme in history? These questions have fascinated people ever since the news broke about the respected New York financier who swindled his friends, relatives, and other investors out of $65 billion through

Manias, Panics and Crashes: A History of Financial Crises

Robert Z. Aliber · 397 pages

Since its introduction in 1978, this book has charted and followed the volatile world of financial markets. Charles Kindleberger's brilliant, panoramic history revealed how financial crises follow a pattern. Events of recent years and the current Eurozone continue to dominate policy and headline debates around the globe. In this updated and expanded seventh edition, Robert Z. Aliber probes the mos

Goldman Sachs: The Culture of Success

Lisa Endlich · 336 pages