the Ichthyologist's Guide to Subprime Meltdown

The financial crisis of 2007-2008 was cataclysmic. Its bitter legacy will be felt for decades. The author, a former newspaper editor, walks the reader through the smoldering wreckage of a crisis that took the global financial system to the edge of the abyss. He delivers a well-crafted, concise almanac to the crisis that includes essays, chronologies, roundups and lists. "The Ichthyologist's Guide to the Subprime Meltdown" is no fusty treatise. Like a modern-day Jacques Cousteau, the author, grasping to explain the collectively suicidal behavior leading up to the debacle, turns his gaze upon so-called "biological markets."