THORN: Financial titles rise and fall with news

By Patti Thorn, Rocky Mountain News (Contact)

Published October 9, 2008 at 7 p.m.

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Photo by Nati Harnik / Associated Press

A new biography of billionaire investor Warren Buffett is likely to be one of the winners among a new crop of finance-related titles.

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To use a metaphor everyone can understand these days: Books are like stocks. The appeal of certain titles can rise or fall quickly, depending on what's happening around the globe.

So it's no surprise that titles about the financial world that seemed like good bets months ago have suddenly become about as desirable as a Lehman Brothers portfolio. Others, well, their value is on the upswing.

Which are the winners and losers among the recent crop of titles?

Hey, I'm no financial genius - see my 401(k) - but since when did that ever stop me from putting in my two cents? And when I say "two cents," I mean that literally: Again, see my 401(k).

These are my predictions for a few titles that have just been released or are coming out in the next few months:

Winners

* The Snowball: Warren Buffet and the Business of Life, by Alice Shroeder (released Sept. 29): With Buffet's personal profile rising higher than ever after news that he pumped $5 billion into ailing Goldman Sachs, this biography, written with Buffet's cooperation, has more than a snowball's chance in hell. In fact, it could become downright hot.

* The World Is Curved: Hidden Dangers to the Global Economy, The Mortgage Crisis Was Only the Beginning . . . by David Smick (Sept. 8): Smick, editor of The International Economy, posits that this crisis was a long time coming - and he wrote his book before the $700 billion bailout. Readers will give him credit for prescience and hope he can tell us what's coming next. Er, strike that word credit. It tends to make people awfully twitchy these days.

Losers

* The First Billion Is the Hardest: Reflections on a Life of Comebacks and America's Energy Future, by T. Boone Pickens (Sept. 2): The first billion may be the hardest, but that last billion lost in his hedge funds last month was pretty tough, too. Pickens is by no means down and out, but his stock has temporarily fallen. My bet is that readers will buy low when this book hits the sale bins.

* The Partnership: The Making of Goldman Sachs, by Charles D. Ellis (Oct. 7): Right subject, wrong subtitle. Had it been named the Unmaking of Goldman Sachs, Ellis would have hit the big time. (And may I add that the cover flap boasting that Goldman Sachs is "one of the most successful business organizations in the world" doesn't exactly help, either.)

Uncertain

* Panic!: The Story of Modern Financial Insanity, edited by Michael Lewis (December). This book compiles articles written about past financial crises around the globe. Will readers enjoy pondering long- gone markets as their 401(k)s crater? Hard to say. Misery loves company, but $27.95 is a high price to pay for the newly destitute.

* The Great Inflation and Its Aftermath, by Robert J. Samuelson (November): Samuelson looks at the inflationary period of 1960 to 1979 and its effects on later years. I'm not sure how relevant Samuelson's argument is to today's disaster, because, in case you missed it the first time, I'm no financial genius. Not to sound hysterical, but HAVE YOU SEEN MY 401(k)?. In other words, sorry, I can't rule on this one.

I can say, though, that among the books coming in, the one that appears to best address our current state of affairs is an anthology of essays by George Orwell titled Facing Unpleasant Facts.

OK, so it's not about the economy. Booksellers might as well slip it in with their financial titles anyway. As this crisis stemming from banks selling mortgages for no money down clearly shows, it's not hard to fool some of the people all of the time.

But then, what do I know?

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