I'm not sure Gross's Pop! ... is a good read, but it's a pretty tasty slurp. If you're looking for some light and generally entertaining economic reading to fill a slow afternoon, you could do worse. Gross, a journalist for Newsweek, Slate, Wired and other popular publications, tells some good stories about bubbles past, present, and future. He doesn't go into scholarly depth, but his flippant style, flamboyant vocabulary, and Lou Dobbsian flag waving make for a raucous read.

Bubbles, Gross concludes, are a necessary and often beneficial part of America's economic life: "The enthusiasm they generate has led successive generations of entrepreneurs to open new territory for settlement, to create valuable new infrastructure, to spur innovation, and to push people to work, invest, and spend at a higher level -- all in the pursuit of promised massive short-term gains." And while in the immediate aftermath of a bubble's bursting, life can be pretty painful for investors, in the long run the excesses bubbles create can be put to general good use: for instance, mortgage rates fell to 4.85% today.