Wall Street Tango
So Far, So Good The First 94 Years: Roy R Neuberger
At 94, Wall Streets oldest living legend still gets more done in office than some people half his age. Neuberger dropped out of college to work as a fabrics buyer, and returned to Manhattan to join a brokerage house just before the crash of 1929.
Two decades later, he opened his own firm. And six decades down the line, the firms still doing well in the securities business. This is his story, told with a panache that makes up for the occasional lack of depth.
Also Read
The Velocity of Money: Stephen Rhodes
Simon & Schuster, $24
Grisham has competition, and its about 20 points ahead of him on the IQ scale. Attorney Rick Hansen joins Wolcott Fulbright, an investment firm in Manhattan and gets curious about his predecessors suicide. But theres a nine-member cabal who control Wolcott and the derivatives market and engineer Freefall Friday, when the Dow Jones takes a one-session drop of seven per cent. Lots of tech and financial jargon, crackling dialogue, and a reasonable body count fuel this thriller. And lets not forget the plot to take over the worlds financial markets. Hitler reaches Wall Street.
Riding the Bull: Paul Stiles
Random House, Rs 568, 352 pages
After doing time at Harvard and in the US Navy, Stiles decided to make his fortune in the jungles of finance. He landed a job with the emerging-markets group at Merrill Lynch, and found himself dealing in esoteric Third World debt instruments. A year down the line came the exit interview, and so naturally onto this tell-all, bare-knuckled book. Stiles draws a fascinating picture of the battle zones of Wall Street, and turns this tale of greed, hubris and job dissatisfaction into a disturbing story of how morality becomes the first casualty of war.
*
pick of the week
The Difference Between God and Larry Ellison: Mike Wilson; William Morrow, $25, 478 pages
The life and times of Oracle Corps brash CEO makes just as wild reading as any of Trumps books, and Ellison is much more interesting than the Donald. This book takes you behind the scenes at Oracle, and behind the myths that surround its boss. Ellisons obsession with Bill Gates, his boats, women and celeb friends, and most extraordinarily, his reinvention of his past theyre all here.