Book Reviews Page 5

Chain of Blame: How Wall Street Caused the Mortgage and Credit Crisis by Paul Muolo
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

The title is a little misleading in the fact that most of the book is spent examining the non-bank financial institutions (i.e. Countrywide and Ameriquest) that generated the loans that Wall Street investment banks would make into bonds not Wall Street itself. But this is a rich area to study and is not as covered in literature as much as their more glamorous Wall Street partners. This book filled a hole in my understanding or the crisis and it did connect a lot of dots. The book does leave out the first and last chains in the process to a large degree (home buyers/loan brokers, Wall Street/Bond Buyers) which keeps this book from giving you a one stop place to read about the whole crisis. But a worthy addition to the bookshelf for anyone studying the meltdown.

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Worm: The First Digital World War by Mark Bowden
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Mark Bowden's book about a small group of techies battling against the Conficker Computer Worm in 2009 was more educational than thrilling to me. While the true life cyber battle is the focus of the book it suffers the messiness of real life. But I found his explanations of how the internet works very enlightening (if not a bit too technical.) He uses a very tiresome device of associating the team with the X-men and I was tempted to remove a star just because of it. If you are not interested in the subject I would skip it but if you are it is an interesting and at times fun read.

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The Big Short: Inside the Doomsday Machine by Michael Lewis
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Michael Lewis' look at the financial crisis from the vantage point of the short sellers is a great way to get a handle on the events of the last decade. He uses his tried and true method of following the stories of individuals to explore a larger topic. This is more wonkish than his book on the sovereign debt crisis (Boomerang) but it is necessary. It is odd to have the short sellers as protagonists since they are usually the villains. You won't leave this book understanding the full scope of the causes of the crisis but you will have learned a lot.

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Boomerang: Travels in the New Third World by Michael Lewis
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Michael Lewis takes his popular method of anecdotal non-fiction to the sovereign debt crisis. He focuses on Iceland, Greece, Ireland, Germany and the US (primarily California)in five entertaining sections. There is no heavy economic lifting here just the stories of leaders and other like-interested parties from these countries about the European debt crisis. It sounds boring but it's not. If you want more insight to the crisis definitely pick up this very quick read.

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The Twelve by Justin Cronin
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

A very good sequel that got a little bogged down in the details and the ending battle was a little too much for the writer to handle. But I still can't wait for the third book.

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