Here are 88 books that The Man Who Stole Portugal fans have personally recommended if you like
The Man Who Stole Portugal.
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There’s something clinical and yet human about big financial crises, especially those that involve some kind of trickery or fraud. I’ve always been fascinated by this dark side of the world of money, and have been fortunate enough in my career to have had ring-side seats at a few such events in rich and poor countries. Fraud is not at the heart of the “social contrivance of money” but the monetary system is built on an edifice of trust that can all too easily be abused by scammers. From these episodes, we can learn a lot about people, credit, and society’s ways of protecting itself.
From my reading of Frank Partnoy’s book, I get the impression that Swedish celebrity financier Ivar Kreuger did really start out as a skillful and legitimate businessman, negotiating exclusive rights to sell matches in a range of central and Eastern European countries in the 1920s and early 1930s.
But, as so often happens, when business became more difficult in the 1930s, his elaborate financial activities gradually morphed into recklessness and fraud.
At the height of the roaring '20s, Swedish emigre Ivar Kreuger made a fortune raising money in America and loaning it to Europe in exchange for matchstick monopolies. His enterprise was a rare success story throughout the Great Depression. Yet after his suicide in 1932, it became clear that Kreuger was not all he seemed: evidence surfaced of fudged accounting figures, off-balance-sheet accounting, even forgery. He created a raft of innovative financial products, many of them precursors to instruments wreaking havoc in today's markets. In this gripping financial biography, Frank Partnoy recasts the life story of a remarkable yet forgotten…
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…
There’s something clinical and yet human about big financial crises, especially those that involve some kind of trickery or fraud. I’ve always been fascinated by this dark side of the world of money, and have been fortunate enough in my career to have had ring-side seats at a few such events in rich and poor countries. Fraud is not at the heart of the “social contrivance of money” but the monetary system is built on an edifice of trust that can all too easily be abused by scammers. From these episodes, we can learn a lot about people, credit, and society’s ways of protecting itself.
I have always wondered whether John Law, the creator of the ill-fated Mississippi System that brought the financial system of France to its knees in 1720, a genius who understood money better than anyone before him, or a deluded fantasist who had learnt just enough to create a monetary weapon of mass destruction?
In his careful and well-researched account, Antoin Murphy leans towards the first interpretation, but he offers enough information to allow the reader to form their own conclusions.
John Law (1671-1729) left a remarkable legacy of economic concepts from a time when economic conceptualization was very much at an embryonic stage. Yet he is best known-and generally dismissed-today as a rake, duellist, and gambler. This intellectual biography offers a new approach to Law, one that shows him to have been a significant economic theorist with a vision that he attempted to implement as policy in early-eighteenth-century Europe.
Law's style, marked by a clarity and use of modern terminology, stands out starkly against the turgid prose of many of his contemporaries. His vision of a monetary and financial system…
There’s something clinical and yet human about big financial crises, especially those that involve some kind of trickery or fraud. I’ve always been fascinated by this dark side of the world of money, and have been fortunate enough in my career to have had ring-side seats at a few such events in rich and poor countries. Fraud is not at the heart of the “social contrivance of money” but the monetary system is built on an edifice of trust that can all too easily be abused by scammers. From these episodes, we can learn a lot about people, credit, and society’s ways of protecting itself.
I was an eye-witness as every single one of the banks serving the Irish economy effectively failed during the crisis of 2008-10.
Some were bailed out by their foreign shareholders, some by the Irish Government, which in turn had to be bailed out by the IMF and European Union. Worst of all, by a long distance, was Anglo Irish Bank, whose buccaneering executives lent billions to over-optimistic property developers, distorting economic activity and luring the other banks into unwise lending also.
Eventually, their desperate last-ditch attempts to save the bank and its shareholders led top management into illegal share support activities. Simon Carswell captures well the social dynamics involved.
As late as 2007, Anglo Irish Bank was a darling of the markets, internationally recognized as one of the fastest growing financial institutions in the world. By 2008, it was bust. The Irish government's hopeless attempts to save Anglo have led the state to ruin - culminating in a punitive IMF bailout in late 2010 and threatening the future of the euro.
Now, for the first time, the full story of the Anglo disaster is being told - by the journalist who has led the way in coverage of the bank and its many secrets. Drawing on his unmatched sources…
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 started writing about bitcoin and cryptocurrency for the funny dumb crook stories. It was ridiculous and arrogant in a particular way that needed and needs puncturing. Somehow this turned into a second job as a finance journalist specialising in the area. The crypto promoters are reprehensible, but their self-sabotaging foolishness makes their comeuppance extremely satisfying. I feel I’m making the world a better place with this.
Davies’ Lying For Money lays out a taxonomy of fraud, illustrated with amazing stories of real-life frauds.
Per Davies: “A long firm makes you question whether you can trust anyone. A counterfeit makes you question the evidence of your eyes. A control fraud makes you question your trust in the institutions of society and a market crime makes you question society itself.”
Davies’ key trick to spotting a fraud: look at something that’s growing unusually quickly, and examine it in some way it hasn’t been examined before.
Only the second chapter is about cryptocurrency specifically, but understanding how frauds think is fabulously useful in understanding how crypto works. Not even crypto’s frauds are new.
Davies used different stories in the UK and US editions of the book – so get both.
Financial crime seems horribly complicated but there are only so many ways you can con someone out of what's theirs. In fact, there are four. A veteran regulatory economist and market analyst, Dan Davies has years of experience picking the bones out of some of the most famous frauds of the modern age. Now he reveals the big picture that emerges from their labyrinths of deceit.
Along the way you'll find out how to fake a gold mine with a wedding ring, a file and a shotgun. You'll see how close Charles Ponzi, the king of pyramid schemes, came to…
Alyson Sheldrake is the author of the award-winning Algarve Blog, and she is also a feature writer for the Tomorrow Magazine in the Algarve. She is an accomplished and sought-after artist working alongside her husband Dave, a professional photographer. She has published three books about their Algarve Adventures: Living the Dream – in the Algarve, Portugal, Living the Quieter Algarve Dream, and her latest book is a new anthology of expat stories entitled A New Life in the Algarve, Portugal. When she is not painting or writing, you can find her walking their rescued Spanish Water Dog called Kat along the riverbank in Aljezur.
This is a great book to help you learn some basic Portuguese words quickly. It is also in European Portuguese, unlike many other books that cover the Brazilian language (always something to watch out for when you are looking to learn Portuguese). This is a nicely illustrated book with labelled pictures and scenes that help you start to construct basic sentences – and you have the fun of trying to spot the hidden duck on every page too! I have struggled with learning and recalling Portuguese words, but the basics in this book are easy to remember and cover most everyday situations.
There are 1000 Portuguese words to learn in this classic word book, great for sharing with young language learners. Each busy scene features the wonderful illustrations of Stephen Cartwright, alongside items to spot, each labelled with their Portuguese name. A fun way to build key Portuguese vocubulary, specially revised and updated to celebrate the 40th anniversary of Usborne Publishing in 2013. Readers can listen to every word read by a native Portuguese speaker at the Usborne Quicklinks Website. Don't forget to spot the Little Yellow Duck on every page!
Wendy Lee Hermance was heard on National Public Radio (NPR) stations with her Missouri Folklore series in the 1980s. She earned a journalism degree from Stephens College, served as Editor and Features Writer for Midwestern and Southern university and regional publications, then settled into writing real estate contracts. In 2012 she attended University of Sydney, earning a master’s degree by research thesis. Her books include Where I’m Going with this Poem, a memoir in poetry and prose. Weird Foods of Portugal: Adventures of an Expatmarks her return to feature writing as collections of narrative non-fiction stories.
One of few books I could get my hands on to decide whether I wanted to live in Portugal was this diary written by a young Canadian observer of the 1974 revolution that toppled Salazar´s regime. Cookbooks and tour guides were not going to help, and have you tried reading Saramago? Published in 1976 by Black Rose Books the reportage as it was unfolding has a breathless quality. The glossary of stakeholders´ acronyms is helpful. I learned 1) revolutions are probably never linear, 2) they require “strange bedfellows” to set aside differences, and 3) the Portuguese might be a peaceful, amenable, cohesive bunch. They are.
After the military coup in Portugal on April 25th, 1974, the overthrow of almost fifty years of Fascist rule, and the end of three colonial wars, there followed eighteen months of intense, democratic social transformation which challenged every aspect of Portuguese society. What started as a military coup turned into a profound attempt at social change from the bottom up and became headlines on a daily basis in the world media. This was due to the intensity of the struggle as well as the fact that in 1974–75 the right-wing moribund Francoist regime was still in power in neighboring Spain…
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…
Louise Ross is a non-fiction and fiction writer, speaker, and podcaster. Originally from Australia, she moved abroad in the mid-'80s, living in the UK, France, the US, and since 2014, Portugal. Her book, Women Who Walk: How 20 women from 16 countries came to live in Portugal, (2019), is a collection of mini-memoirs. In 2020, she released the sequel and comparative read, The Winding Road to Portugal: 20 Men from 11 Countries Share Their Stories. Louise lives on the Estoril coastline where she continues to interview women living in Portugal, and around the world, for her podcast, Women Who Walk.
On the back cover, Hatton says that his purpose in writing The Portuguese – and this quote made me smile knowingly, and it’s why I bought the book – “is to describe the idiosyncrasies that make this lovely, and sometimes exasperating country unique and to search for explanations, surveying the historical path that drove the Portuguese to where they now stand.” Hatton succeeds beautifully in his endeavour, offering up 280 pages of an enlightening and scintillating read.
Portugal is an established member of the European Union, one of the founders of the euro currency and a founding member of NATO. Yet it is an inconspicuous and largely overlooked country on the continent’s southwest rim. Barry Hatton shines a light on this enigmatic corner of Europe by blending historical analysis with entertaining personal anecdotes. He describes the idiosyncrasies that make the Portuguese unique and surveys the eventful path that brought them to where they are today. Portugal, which claims Europe’s oldest fixed borders, measures just 561 by 218 kilometers. Within that space, however, it offers a patchwork of…
Alyson Sheldrake is the author of the award-winning Algarve Blog, and she is also a feature writer for the Tomorrow Magazine in the Algarve. She is an accomplished and sought-after artist working alongside her husband Dave, a professional photographer. She has published three books about their Algarve Adventures: Living the Dream – in the Algarve, Portugal, Living the Quieter Algarve Dream, and her latest book is a new anthology of expat stories entitled A New Life in the Algarve, Portugal. When she is not painting or writing, you can find her walking their rescued Spanish Water Dog called Kat along the riverbank in Aljezur.
This is a hard book to get hold of, but worth hunting down if you want to begin to speak the Portuguese language with some fluency. Sheila moved to live in Portugal in 1987 and found most of the language guidebooks were of little use to her as she tried to navigate her way around the day-to-day reality of living in the Algarve. This is a book for people who live and work here, rather than a phrasebook that would help you book a taxi or order food at a restaurant while you are on holiday. I have found Portuguese to be a difficult language, but it is worth persevering with, and the locals are friendly and will always help you.
I’ve been a history nerd all my life. Historical fiction chap books were my entrance to reading, and my copy of Little Womenfell apart from excessive re-reads. (It also taught me the word “abridged.” I was very upset to find out I hadn’t been given the full book!) I love how novels can pull you into a time on such a personal level. That immersion is part of what made me so interested in books set in lesser-known eras. I mean, I love a good Tudor court drama or WWII novel as much as the next reader. There is just something extra special about learning about a brand-new time.
I admit, Baltasar and Blimundais not the type of historical fiction I generally pick up (a more distanced narrative voice plus magical realism doesn’t tend to be my normal pick for pleasure reading) but I felt I needed to read at least one novel set in 18th century Portugal before trying to write my own set there. Something by a Portuguese author as well seemed entirely the way to go. So, I picked this up, and am really glad I did.
In eighteenth-century Portugal, fifty thousand laborers carry stones on their backs across mountains to build the king's convent, a heretical priest devises a magic flying machine--the Passarola--and two lovers' dream of flight sets them apart.
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…
Louise Ross is a non-fiction and fiction writer, speaker, and podcaster. Originally from Australia, she moved abroad in the mid-'80s, living in the UK, France, the US, and since 2014, Portugal. Her book, Women Who Walk: How 20 women from 16 countries came to live in Portugal, (2019), is a collection of mini-memoirs. In 2020, she released the sequel and comparative read, The Winding Road to Portugal: 20 Men from 11 Countries Share Their Stories. Louise lives on the Estoril coastline where she continues to interview women living in Portugal, and around the world, for her podcast, Women Who Walk.
Zimler is an award-winning American writer who has lived in Porto, Portugal’s second-largest city, since 1990. I admire Zimler’s historical fiction for its fact-based accuracy, and The Last Kabbalist is a beauty for that reason. His acclaimed novel details the Portuguese inquisition and the massacre of its Jews in 1506. Via his incisive research and great storytelling, Zimler sheds light on this period of history unknown to many Portuguese; as a result, there is now a Jewish Memorial Plaque in Rossio Square in Lisbon’s city center, honouring the two to five thousand Jews who were massacred.
Berekiah Zarco, a young manuscript illustrator, searches for the killer of his uncle Abraham, a renowned kabbalist discovered murdered in a secret synagogue, in a historical mystery set in sixteenthcentury Lisbon, Portugal. Reprint.
