Good Minds Suggest: Lionel Shriver's Favorite Books About Money
Posted by Goodreads on June 6, 2016
Money by Martin Amis
"This madcap satire sends up the hedonism, consumerism, and excess that typified the decade in which it was written, and it resonates with controversy over the superrich today—whose scale of spending admittedly dwarfs the comparatively petty indulgences of the 1980s. Eternally drunk, the protagonist John Self gets involved with a film project that's catastrophic from the get-go. Money remains one of Amis's best and funniest novels."
Capital by John Lanchester
"Along a fictional street in London, where property values have all too typically skyrocketed, residents begin receiving anonymous postcard warnings: 'We want what you have.' A declaration bound to send a shiver through any affluent spine. Lanchester began the novel before the Great Recession of 2008, about which his story is eerily prescient. A large cast of characters at varying levels of income provides a panoramic snapshot of what it's like to survive in one of the world's greatest but most expensive cities. Charming and great fun; translated into a fine miniseries as well. Lanchester has also written engagingly about economics in nonfiction: How to Speak Money and I.O.U.: Why Everyone Owes Everyone and No One Can Pay."
The Mark and the Void by Paul Murray
"A French investment banker in Dublin is beguiled by a writer who improbably wants to employ the banker—whose profession used to be considered soporifically dull—as his Everyman protagonist. Murray is especially entertaining in his capitulations of complex, fundamentally corrupt financial practices in the lead-up to Ireland's catastrophic banking collapse, which required a massive state bailout. It's not easy to make this stuff hilarious, but Murray is both witty and perceptive about the casino high jinks of his overcompensated characters."
The Devil I Know by Claire Kilroy
"Also set in Ireland, and darker in texture than The Mark and the Void, Kilroy's novel takes on the property craze that inflated the entire national economy into a bubble. Like the end of a game of Old Maid, its bursting left countless individuals and companies holding suddenly near-worthless houses, half-built high-rises, and tracts of dismal farmland for which they'd paid a king's ransom, in the expectation of flipping the properties for a quick profit. Kilroy sets up a clear thematic parallel between the addictive greed of Celtic-Tiger Ireland and the alcoholism her protagonist is seeking to defeat. Very well written, too."
Carousel Court: A Novel by Joe McGinniss Jr.
"Hot off the presses! This novel, about a couple in over their financial heads once their mortgage exceeds the value of their house in California, is released in August. The husband brings home the bacon by helping turf out other people's possessions in foreclosed properties. McGinniss has a great deadpan style, sending up the absurdities of the collapse of the housing market with a straight face. All very funny-but-not-really."
Vote for your own favorites on Listopia: Best Books About Money
Comments Showing 1-3 of 3 (3 new)
date
newest »
newest »
message 1:
by
AB
(new)
Jun 07, 2016 07:08PM
Margaret Atwood's..... Payback...the shadow side of wealth is excellent
reply
|
flag
This is wonderful option where we are free to know the most of the find internet explorer windows 10. With this portal you can manage various possible things quickly.
Công Ty TNHH THUẬN HIỆP THÀNH là nhà phân phôi máy bơm pentax tại địa chỉ https://vnpump.com/chi-tiet/bang-gia-may-bom-nuoc-pentax-moi-nhat-tai-tphcm-226.htmlvà các dòng máy bơm nhập khẩu chính hãng luôn có các trương trình khuyến mãi hấp dẫn và cung cấp các dịch vụ hỗ trợ bảo dưỡng và chính sách hậu mãi với chế độ bảo hành dài hạn, để được tư vấn và báo giá các dòng máy bơm pentax quý khách vui lòng xem tại đây https://maybomnuocchinhhang.vn/chi-tiet/bang-bao-gia-may-bom-pentax-y-moi-nhat-tai-thuan-hiep-thanh-260.html
