Too Big To Not Read

Financial Times in its review called it a worthy successor to Barbarians at the Gates. Tom Wolfe called it an account of “the eyeless trying to march the clueless through Great Depression II.” Its launch party in New York featured more financial biggies than President Obama’s fundraising dinner the same night, including JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon, Morgan Stanley CEO John Mack and a pool-table sized telegram from Warrent Buffett.

Too Big to Fail: The Inside Story of How Wall Street and Washington Fought to Save the Financial System—and Themselves by New York Times’ star financial reporter Andrew Ross Sorkin is being seen by many as the definitive account of what really happened behind the scenes as the 2008 financial crisis unfolded. Though some critics fault it for being light on analysis and perspective, the book more than makes up by providing an intensely riveting and dramatic account of the main people, their motivations and actions that caused or, in some cases prevented, parts of the financial crisis.

The book gives readers details about significant events that haven’t been reported, like Hank Paulson’s secret, off-calendar meeting with the Goldman Sachs board in a Moscow hotel suite in June 2008, or Paulson’s directive to Lehman Brothers that it open up its books to Goldman Sachs for no obvious reason. The book also has its share of errors, like the one in which Sorkin says asset management firm BlackRock, instead of Merrill Lynch, was in danger of falling apart during the crisis.

It’s big (624 pages, hardcover) and expensive ($32.95), but can you afford not to read it?