Here are 100 books that Fool's Gold fans have personally recommended if you like
Fool's Gold.
Shepherd is a community of 12,000+ authors and super readers sharing their favorite books with the world.
I used to be a reporter at The Wall Street Journal, where I covered markets and economics. I had a front-row seat for the dot-com boom, the financial crisis, the rise of bitcoin and cryptocurrencies, and the 2020 crash. I was immersed in money and the culture of money, and how it drives and distorts society. I regularly talked to brokers, analysts, executives, investors, politicians, and entrepreneurs. I had billionaires’ phone numbers. And being around all that made me wonder, what is money, and why do we value it so? Why is the pursuit of wealth seen as a virtue? So I started studying our culture of money.
I started working for Dow Jones Newswires during the dot-com boom and saw how greed could drive markets. I worked through the housing boom in the Aughts and the financial crisis, and then started covering bitcoin around 2013. So by the time I got to Lewis’s book, I had a good understanding of how people can become obsessed with money.
But Lewis is just such a good writer, and has such insights into how markets work, that a book about bond buyers in the 1980s still feels like it’s about people trading so many other things today.
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…
It is April 1st, 2038. Day 60 of China's blockade of the rebel island of Taiwan.
The US government has agreed to provide Taiwan with a weapons system so advanced that it can disrupt the balance of power in the region. But what pilot would be crazy enough to run…
I’ve loved learning about history since childhood, as attested by my bookshelves full of American Girl series, Laura Ingalls Wilder, and The Royal Diaries (Cleopatra was my favorite). After writing my first book about reenactors pretending to be French explorers, I worked as a history writer for Smithsonian Magazine. I especially love the philosophical and political questions of how we still interact with the past and how history is presented. I hope you’ll enjoy thinking about that and learning some history from these books!
I read this book while working on my own because Horwitz is a master of weaving a story with many characters about a complicated piece of the past. He provides ample detail about the lengths to which reenactors will go for their performances—and some of the methods are outright gross.
But I love that even when Horwitz is grappling with ways that modern interpretations can obscure the actual past, he never resorts to mockery when talking about his subjects. He might disagree with their perspective about the Civil War, but he listens and reports what they tell him. I recommend this for anyone trying to understand how the Civil War still plays such a prominent role in our world nearly two centuries later.
NATIONAL BESTSELLER • A Pulitzer Prize-winning war correspondent takes us on an explosive adventure into the soul of the unvanquished South, where Civil War reenactors, battlefield visitors, and fans of history resurrect the ghosts of the Lost Cause through ritual and remembrance.
"The freshest book about divisiveness in America that I have read in some time. This splendid commemoration of the war and its legacy ... is an eyes–open, humorously no–nonsense survey of complicated Americans." —The New York Times Book Review
For all who remain intrigued by the legacy of the Civil War—reenactors, battlefield visitors, Confederate descendants and other Southerners,…
I’m a nerd about all things museums and archives, which I teach and write about. I was trained as an anthropologist, and got really interested in using anthropology’s methods (namely ethnography) to do long-term, embedded, deep-dive fieldwork in bureaucratic settings, like big museums. I love reading books by journalists, economists, historians, and others who do ethnography and really embed themselves in different communities, places, and cultures.
This was the first book I read that was kind of an embedded object biography back when I was an undergraduate student in my second-ever anthropology class. I was totally hooked on the genre. This book follows t-shirts, from where cotton is picked, to where t-shirts are manufactured, printed, sold and distributed, to their disposal—including second lives on the used clothing market. “Who made your t-shirt?” as a great first starting question.
The keys to global business success, as taught by a T-shirt's journey
The Travels of a T-Shirt in the Global Economy is a critically-acclaimed narrative that illuminates the globalization debates and reveals the key factors to success in global business. Tracing a T-shirt's life story from a Texas cotton field to a Chinese factory and back to a U.S. storefront before arriving at the used clothing market in Africa, the book uncovers the political and economic forces at work in the global economy. Along the way, this fascinating exploration addresses a wealth of compelling questions about politics, trade, economics, ethics,…
A Duke with rigid opinions, a Lady whose beliefs conflict with his, a long disputed parcel of land, a conniving neighbour, a desperate collaboration, a failure of trust, a love found despite it all.
Alexander Cavendish, Duke of Ravensworth, returned from war to find that his father and brother had…
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.
I’m a nerd about all things museums and archives, which I teach and write about. I was trained as an anthropologist, and got really interested in using anthropology’s methods (namely ethnography) to do long-term, embedded, deep-dive fieldwork in bureaucratic settings, like big museums. I love reading books by journalists, economists, historians, and others who do ethnography and really embed themselves in different communities, places, and cultures.
This is an academic book, but it's beautifully written, and not too, too jargony. Tsing does a kind of commodity ethnography, embedding herself in multiple parts of the lifecycle of the Matsutake Mushroom trade, while depicting the worlds of pickers, restauranteurs, mushroom traders and auctioneers, nature guides, and more. She also weaves in a critique of capitalist markets in which these kinds of natural entities now are embedded, which I dig!
What a rare mushroom can teach us about sustaining life on a fragile planet
Matsutake is the most valuable mushroom in the world-and a weed that grows in human-disturbed forests across the Northern Hemisphere. Anna Lowenhaupt Tsing's account of these sought-after fungi offers insights into areas far beyond just mushrooms and addresses a crucial question: What manages to live in the ruins we have made? The Mushroom at the End of the World explores the unexpected corners of matsutake commerce, where we encounter Japanese gourmets, capitalist traders, Hmong jungle fighters, Finnish nature guides, and more. These companions lead us into…
I’m a historian who is endlessly curious about the past lives of the things that I love. My fondness for wine began when I lived in Paris after finishing my PhD, and it deepened when I taught in Cambridge and sampled my college’s vast cellar. My first books were on imperial history and this perspective made me wonder: was it a coincidence that New World wine producers are former European colonies? I spent a decade researching Imperial Wine, consulting archives in five countries, and proved that wine was an arm of colonial strategy. I’m a Professor of History at Trinity College in Connecticut, USA, and I love teaching wine and history.
This book sucked me into the world of wine sommeliers and soon had me practicing my spittoon skills in the shower. I’m a wine historian who’d worked in restaurants, but I knew little about serving fine wine professionally. Bianca Bosker started with even less knowledge and embarked on a successful year-long crash course in wine.
She shadows sommeliers, learning their memory hacks and sharing their tasting tips, writing with empathy and humor. This book made me feel like I was lurking behind a sommelier on the floor of a Michelin-starred restaurant, except it was a lot funnier and had more swearing.
INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER AND A NEW YORK TIMES CRITICS' PICK
"Thrilling . . . [told] with gonzo elan . . . When the sommelier and blogger Madeline Puckette writes that this book is the Kitchen Confidential of the wine world, she's not wrong, though Bill Buford's Heat is probably a shade closer." -Jennifer Senior, The New York Times
Professional journalist and amateur drinker Bianca Bosker didn't know much about wine-until she discovered an alternate universe where taste reigns supreme, a world of elite sommeliers who dedicate their lives to the pursuit of flavor. Astounded by their fervor and…
The Duke's Christmas Redemption
by
Arietta Richmond,
A Duke who has rejected love, a Lady who dreams of a love match, an arranged marriage, a house full of secrets, a most unneighborly neighbor, a plot to destroy reputations, an unexpected love that redeems it all.
Lady Charlotte Wyndham, given in an arranged marriage to a man she…
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 informed my macroeconomic thinking on the way banks and companies have long been twined and the complex decisions that ultimately somebody—whether company boards or government regulators—need to make when they fail.
This was a perfect study for my own research into the near collapse of the early Hormel company and the reason why it still exists today; Sorkin’s chosen title would apply. Companies have an impact, both good and sometimes bad, and our regional and national economies often suffer from their hubris and greed.
Sorkin’s master storytelling kept me riveted and mesmerized all the way through six hundred and forty pages.
They were masters of the financial universe, flying in private jets and raking in billions. They thought they were too big to fail. Yet they would bring the world to its knees.
Andrew Ross Sorkin, the news-breaking New York Times journalist, delivers the first true in-the-room account of the most powerful men and women at the eye of the financial storm - from reviled Lehman Brothers CEO Dick 'the gorilla' Fuld, to banking whiz Jamie Dimon, from bullish Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson to AIG's Joseph Cassano, dubbed 'The Man Who Crashed the…
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’m a pragmatist and a problem-solver. As a student of innovation, I draw inspiration from a risk-taker’s approach to attacking a problem. I’ve changed my life drastically from a farmland kid to a global technology CEO and then author. Along the way, I’ve had opportunities to struggle. I’ve found conventional wisdom seldom fixes the problem, so I’ve refined the ability to look for unique paths. I believe women provide the best examples to learn from because they don’t walk into the room bluffing their way to the solution. They credit the resources they tapped for their solution and bring others along in the journey to raise the education level.
I tip my hat to author Marie Benedict. Nearly every book she writes could be on this list. In The Personal Librarian, Belle Da Costa Greene shocks me with her strength to walk into a different world in order to follow her passion for books and art. I can’t imagine being forced to compartmentalize your identity to also be true to yourself.
She solves the problem that blocks blacks from holding professional positions beyond white people’s expectations. She also breaks the role barrier for women as J P Morgan’s Personal Librarian. I’m inspired by Belle’s tenacity and determination for excellence. Alongside the story of an impressive woman, I enjoyed the peek into the process of the extreme wealthy’s acquisition of their collections.
The Instant New York Times Bestseller! A Good Morning America* Book Club Pick!
Named a Best Book of the Year by NPR! Named a Notable Book of the Year by the Washington Post!
“Historical fiction at its best!”*
A remarkable novel about J. P. Morgan’s personal librarian, Belle da Costa Greene, the Black American woman who was forced to hide her true identity and pass as white in order to leave a lasting legacy that enriched our nation, from New York Times bestselling authors Marie Benedict and Victoria Christopher Murray.
In her twenties, Belle da Costa Greene is hired by…
This book follows the journey of a writer in search of wisdom as he narrates encounters with 12 distinguished American men over 80, including Paul Volcker, the former head of the Federal Reserve, and Denton Cooley, the world’s most famous heart surgeon.
In these and other intimate conversations, the book…
I fell in love with understanding cities toward the end of my college studies. It was the late 1960s and urban issues were foremost in the nation’s consciousness. The times were difficult for cities and many of the problems, seemingly intractable. That drew me to graduate work in urban studies and afterward, teaching about real estate development and finance. My work on public/private partnerships and the political economy of city building has drawn a wide audience. In explaining how cities are built and redeveloped, my goal has been to de-mystify the politics and planning process surrounding large-scale development projects and how they impact the physical fabric of cities.
It’s near impossible not to fall for the lure of urban history when a skilled writer brings to light compelling stories of the men (atlas no women in this book) who transformed New York into an economic powerhouse, the capital of capitalism, in the late 19th century.
Their names are familiar but not so their complete stories: J.P. Morgan, Andrew Carnegie, John D. Rockefeller, Jay Gould, Samuel Gompers, Theodore Roosevelt. The writing is so good, it’s hard to put the book down.
Describes the emergence of post-Civil War New York City, as it evolved from a port city to metropolis via the birth of capitalism, and how such moguls as Rockefeller, Carnegie, and J. P. Morgan helped define the foundation of twentieth-century financial institutions. By the author of Fiorello H. LaGuardia and the Making of Modern New York.
