Featured Books Archive at Pardee Library

It was just two years before 2003 that Enron was thought to epitomize a great New Economy company, with its skyrocketing profits and share price. But that was before Fortune published an article by McLean that asked a seemingly innocent question: How exactly does Enron make money? From that point on, Enron's house of cards began to crumble. Now, McLean and Elkind have investigated much deeper, to offer the definitive book about the Enron scandal and the fascinating people behind it.

The story of billionaire trader Steven Cohen, the rise and fall of his hedge fund SAC Capital, and the largest insider trading investigation in history. Black Edge offers a revelatory look at the gray zone in which so much of Wall Street functions. It's a riveting, true-life legal thriller that takes readers inside the government's pursuit of Cohen and his employees, and raises urgent and troubling questions about the power and wealth of those who sit at the pinnacle of modern Wall Street.

#1 New York Times bestseller and arguably the best business narrative ever written, Barbarians at the Gate is the classic account of the fall of RJR Nabisco at the hands of a buyout from investment firm KKR. The fight to control RJR Nabisco during October and November of 1988 was more than just the largest takeover in Wall Street history. Marked by brazen displays of ego not seen in American business for decades, it became the high point of a new gilded age and its repercussions are still being felt.

After college, Kerbeck took an unlikely survival job as a waiter turned corporate spy. The job was supposed to have been temporary, but Kerbeck became one of the world's best practitioners of this deceptive--and illegal--trade. Until the inevitable crash.

New York Times journalist Rob Copeland punctures the carefully-constructed narrative of Ray Dalio the benevolent business titan, exposing his much-promoted "principles" as one of the great feats of hubris in modern memory.

The inside story of Bernie Madoff and his $65 billion Ponzi scheme, with surprising and shocking new details from Madoff himself.

The biggest corporate fraud since Enron is a cautionary tale set amid the bold promises and gold-rush frenzy of Silicon Valley.

In 2009, a mild-mannered business school grad named Jho Low, with the aid of Goldman Sachs and others, siphoned billions of dollars from an investment fund--right under the nose of global financial industry watchdogs.

When WeWork collapsed, nearly $40 billion of value vaporized in one of corporate America's most spectacular meltdowns. The Cult of We is the gripping story of careless and often absurd people--and the financial system they have made.

In this compelling story of lies, greed and tarnished idealism, the authors investigate a man who Bill Gates and Western governments entrusted to make profits and end poverty, but who now stands accused of masterminding one of the biggest, most brazen financial frauds ever.

For a run of magical weeks in the spring and summer of 1920, Charles Ponzi raised the "rob Peter to pay Paul" scam to an art form. At the peak of his success, Ponzi was raking in more than $2 million a week at his office in downtown Boston. Then his house of cards came crashing down.