[nikcub]

A toss between 'The Big Short' by Michael Lewis and 'Too Big To Fail' by Andrew Ross Sorkin.

Both books are about the financial crisis on Wall Street. They provide excellent insight into how smart people made very bad decisions that had repercussions around the entire world. The last time I remember getting such an insight into this important industry was Lewis' own 'Liars Poker'.

I think it is important for people to understand what went wrong with the most recent financial crisis, and these two books do an excellent job of informing us from an insiders perspective.

[tptacek]

I liked both of these books --- "The Big Short" maybe a little more than "Too Big To Fail", because Lewis is just crazy!good about pacing and character development --- but had serious concerns about how accurate/unbiased they were. Particularly Sorkin's book, which I've heard negative things about.

I'm about 2/3 of the way through _All The Devils Are Here_ by Joe Nocera and feel like it's doing a brilliant job of addressing the shortcomings for Sorkin's book, which I felt maybe sacrificed some accuracy for the sake of building an enjoyable narrative. _Devils_ also has an interesting structure, different than the others; it's a catalog of sketches of the different people/forces/companies that went into the mess, so you get a chapter on the guy who started Ameriquest, and a chapter on Fannie's struggles against the Bush administration, and a chapter on how Goldman's IPO and Merrill's cultural mismatch to trading culture caused them to screw up the market. It's great reading.

[gruseom]

I've found Nocera's commentaries on NPR to be unusually frank. Perhaps I'll check out his book.

Speaking of documents of the financial crisis (though it's not a book), I went to see Inside Job last night, partly because I'm interested in the subject and partly because a weird sort of hey-he's-a-startup-guy-too loyalty inclines me to patronize Charles Ferguson's movies. It's an overview that falls a little short as a movie, i.e. it doesn't quite structurally hold up to the level of outrage it's going for. The most interesting thing, though, is how Ferguson devotes the last quarter of the movie to ripping academic economists a new one for their shoddy work and gaping conflicts of interest. Given that he started out as a policy wonk on the Ivy League/DC circuit, it seems clear that this is where his heart is. I felt very uncomfortable watching those segments (Ali G makes me squirm too) but it seemed like it needed to be done.

Edit: Also, Nouriel Roubini, on whom the film relies heavily, turns out to be surprisingly good onscreen.