The tsunami of cheap credit that rolled across the planet between 2002 and 2008 was more than a financial phenomenon: it was temptation, offering entire societies the chance to reveal aspects of their characters they could not normally afford to indulge. Icelanders wanted to stop fishing and become investment bankers. The Greeks wanted to turn their country into a piñata stuffed with cash and allow as many citizens as possible to take a whack at...

"Looks at the ways that current dramatic shifts in the domestic and global economy have their roots in the 2008 economic crisis and its aftermath, exploring novel themes in the way the crisis has played out for the past decade and will influence the future." --

Presents a moment-by-moment account of the recent financial collapse that documents state efforts to prevent an economic disaster, offering insight into the pivotal consequences of decisions made throughout the past decade.

"When Jende Jonga journeys to New York City from Cameroon in 2004 on a visitors' visa in hopes of obtaining a green card, he's sure his life will only improve. After saving up enough money to bring over Jende's wife, Neni, and six-year-old son, the family moves into an apartment in Harlem. Then Jende hits the jackpot in 2007 when he lands a job as a chauffeur for Clark Edwards, a wealthy Lehman Brothers executive. But working for the Edwardses isn't...

"In September 2008, beset by mounting losses on high-risk mortgages and mortgage securities, the Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation teetered on the brink of insolvency. Fearing that confidence in the housing market would collapse completely if Freddie Mac and its competitor Fannie Mae failed, the US government made the difficult decision to place the two firms into conservatorship, taking control away from shareholders. Although the taxpayer commitment...

"The financial meltdown from the perspective of a number of players: Michael Burry, a bizarre autistic-like stock-picking genius, and the first to realize that the market's housing boom is based on a 'house of cards' sham; Mark Baum, self-loathing fictional character whose firm picks up insider trading information from a wrong number phone call; Jared Vennet, a smart-aleck broker who confirms the ominous suspicion; and Charlie Gellar and Jamie Shipley,...

The wildest story in the world these days is not fiction; it's what's really happening all around us as the world's global economy has gone into freefall. How did we get here? What does it all mean? How could so many smart people be so dumb and believe their own hype?Accessibly, cleverly, and with mordant humor, journalist John Lanchester trots the globe in search of the answers to these questions-to Iceland, the scene of catastrophic bank collapse;...

Winner of the 2016 Susan Smith Blackburn Prize. "From first moments to last, this compassionate but clear-eyed play throbs with heartfelt life, with characters as complicated as any you'll encounter at the theater today, and with a nifty ticking time bomb of a plot. That the people onstage are middle-class or lower-middle-class folks - too rarely given ample time on American stages - makes the play all the more vital a contribution to contemporary...

Many fine books on the financial crisis were first drafts of history--books written quickly to fill the need for immediate understanding. Alan S. Blinder, former vice chairman of the Federal Reserve Board, held off, taking the time to understand the crisis and create a truly comprehensive and coherent narrative of how the worst economic crisis in postwar American history happened, what the government did to fight it, and what we must do from here--mired...

"Inspired by a true story, Hustlers follows Destiny, a young stripper struggling to make ends meet. That is, until she meets Ramona, the club's savvy top earner, who shows her the way toward making big bucks. But when the 2008 economic collapse hits their Wall Street clientèle hard, Destiny and Ramona concoct a plan with their fellow strippers to turn the tables on these greedy power players in this wild, modern-day Robin Hood." --