Misc: Marketplace recommends the year’s best business books

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Marketplace recommends the year’s best business books “For a whole lot of completely obvious reasons, 2009 was the year of the business book. There were guides to the financial crisis—what happened and who’s to blame. There were how-to books and some quirky titles, too. So we asked some of our regular Marketplace commentators for a couple of their favorites from this wild year of finance.” ~Kai Ryssdal, host of American Public Media’s Marketplace, public radio’s daily magazine of business and economics. The recommendations below are selected from a December 18 Marketplace feature, The Best Business Books of 2009, in which Kai invited guests to choose their favorite book from the year and to which he then added several of his own.

		Recommended by Kai Ryssdal The Myth of the Rational Market: A History of Risk, Reward, and Delusion on Wall Street By Justin Fox “Ever wonder why Alan Greenspan believed so strongly in the power of the market to work things out by itself? Ever wonder why and how deregulation got so popular in this country during the last parts of the 20th century? Meet the Rational Market theory. Fox explains how academic economists came to believe the market always knows best, and what happens when they’re proved wrong. Great perspective on both historical and current events.” ~Kai Ryssdal Listen to Kai Ryssdal’s interview with Justin Fox List Price: $27.99 * Price: $18.47 *

		Recommended by Kai Ryssdal The Great Depression: A Diary By Benjamin Roth “This book, edited by Roth’s son Daniel and James Ledbetter from Slate’s The Big Money, is a real-time walk down the streets of Youngstown, Ohio, as the Great Depression rolled across the country. What’s amazing is how much of what Roth wrote resonates today. It’s fascinating and scary at the same time.” ~Kai Ryssdal Listen to Kai Ryssdal’s interview with Daniel Roth and James Ledbetter List Price: $24.95 * Price: $16.47 *

		Recommended by Kai Ryssdal Bailout Nation By Barry Ritholtz “Years from now, when you hear the word ‘bailout,’ you're probably going to think of this particular moment in economic time and all the money that the government has given to banks and automakers and insurance companies. Even the porn industry asked for a handout, although they didn’t get it.” ~Kai Ryssdal Listen to Kai Ryssdal’s interview with Barry Ritholtz List Price: $24.95 * Price: $16.47 *

		Recommended by John Carney, editor of Clusterstock.com The Sellout: How Three Decades of Wall Street Greed and Government Mismanagement Destroyed the Global Financial System By Charlie Gasparino The definitive book on Wall Street’s stunning collapse along with a detailed account and investigation of how the financial meltdown occurred. “I think it’s a great, great take on exactly how these guys got addicted to risk-taking.” ~John Carney List Price: $27.99 * Price: $18.47 *

		Recommended by Kai Ryssdal and Felix Salmon of Reuters Too Big To Fail: The Inside Story of how Wall Street and Washington Fought To Save the Financial System – and Themselves By Andrew Ross Sorkin “If you want to know who did what to whom as the financial crisis was unfolding, this is the book to read. A friend of mine who knows Sorkin says Sorkin told him he set out to find 100 great scenes to string together into a narrative of the crazy days of late 2008 – and he’s done exactly that. He puts you in the room as the key decisions are made.” ~Kai Ryssdal “It’s not always the easiest or most exciting read, but it is by far the most detailed and comprehensive look at exactly what happened over the course of the worst days and weeks of the financial crisis.” ~Felix Salmon Listen to Kai Ryssdal’s interview with Andrew Ross Sorkin List Price: $32.95 * Price: $13.00 *

		Recommended by Kai Ryssdal and Paul Kedrosky, editor of Infectious Greed This Time Is Different: Eight Centuries of Financial Folly By Carmen Reinhart and Ken Rogoff “In their introduction, Rogoff and Reinhart tell the story of how they came upon the title of the book. A colleague pointed out that in the history of the world, more money had been lost due to four little words than because of any hedge fund or Ponzi scheme: This. Time. Is. Different. Our inability to learn the lessons of 800 years of financial crises will, inevitably, bring us to the brink of another one. Rogoff and Reinhart explain how that history developed.” ~Kai Ryssdal “[The book] does a really, really nice job of putting it all in context and actually giving you a sense of what might come next.” ~Paul Kedrosky Listen to Kai Ryssdal’s interview with Ken Rogoff List Price: $35.00 * Price: $19.97 *

		Recommended by Justin Fox, Time Magazine columnist Lords of Finance: The Bankers Who Broke the World By Liaquat Ahamed “I’m learning so much from it, because it’s this history of the central bankers, from the U.S., Germany, the United Kingdom and France in the 1920s and the early ’30s. … The basic story is that these guys at some level screwed up and launched the world into the Great Depression.” ~Justin Fox List Price: $32.95 * Price: $19.77 *

		Recommended by Angela Glover Blackwell, founder and CEO of PolicyLink This Could Be the Start of Something Big: How Social Movements for Regional Equity Are Reshaping Metropolitan America By Manuel Pastor Jr., Chris Benner & Martha Matsuoka “Pastor’s book turns our old economy on its head. It shows that when we invest in all people in the region, the region becomes a magnet for new jobs and investments. In a year filled with pessimism and economic unease, Manuel’s book gave me hope that we can have a stronger, more equitable future.” ~Angela Glover Blackwell List Price: $19.95 * Price: $17.05 *

		Recommended Katie Benner, writer for Fortune magazine Bad Girls Go Everywhere: The Life of Helen Gurley Brown By Jennifer Scanlon “People would not think of this as a business book, however, what is overlooked—and what Scanlon brings out—is the fact that Helen Gurley Brown was so adamant about personal finance, savings and financial independence for women. … She might be the precursor to a Carrie Bradshaw, but [she also] was an early Suze Orman.” ~Katie Benner List Price: $27.95 * Price: $18.45 *

Electronics

		Sony DVP-SR200P DVD Player Sony’s DVP-SR200P is a versatile DVD player with many features at an affordable price. It delivers excellent picture and sound quality so you get the most out of your movies. The Precision Drive 3 system allows you to play back some DVDs that may have been damaged or warped without a degradation of picture quality. It also plays music CDs or MP3s from a CD-ROM disc. For gatherings, use it to share photos with friends and families. You cannot go wrong with this stylish home-theater-sized DVD player; it is a perfect complement to your TV. List Price: $39.99 * Price: $37.00 *

		Coby TFDVD7008 7-Inch Portable DVD/CD/MP3 Player Coby TFDVD7008 7-Inch Portable DVD/CD/MP3 Player, 7-Inch widescreen TFT LCD color display, DVD, DVD±R/RW, CD, CD-R/RW, JPEG, and MP3 compatible, compact portable design with antiskip circuitry, Dolby digital decoding, AV outputs for use with home theater systems, integrated stereo speakers, headphone jack for private listening, multiple language, subtitle, and camera angle support, parental lock controls, black. List Price: $89.99 * Price: $66.10 *

		Panasonic DMP-BD60 Blu-ray Disc Player The Panasonic DMP-BD60 Blu-ray Disc Player combines high-quality images with enhanced networking functions. Continuing its commitment to producing products that stress ease of use, the 2009 line of Blu-ray Disc players continue to incorporate VIERA Link, allowing the consumer to operate their audio/video components, via HDMI, with one remote. And, in keeping with Panasonic’s pledge to reduce the planet’s carbon footprint, the new Blu-ray players have been designed to reduce power consumption. List Price: $199.95 * Price: $126.99 *

* Price as listed by Amazon.com at time of this mailing and subject to change.

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