Too Big To Fail is a really big book. It contains over 500 pages of material that, as it tells “the inside story of how Wall Street and Washington fought to save the financial system–and themselves” can be quite dense. Written by New York Times reporter Andrew Ross Sorkin as a popular-level, blow-by-blow account of quite a short and defined period of history, the book has been positioned as a kind of financial and political thriller (not words we typically put together).

This book is long and exhaustive and focuses almost entirely on the big banks and insurance companies that were at the center of the maelstrom. It follows Lehman Brothers from success to bankruptcy and shows just how close many of the other companies came to falling apart. It some cases they were days or even hours away from collapse when they received sudden assistance, usually in the form of government bailouts. It is amazing to learn just how close to the edge they came. And it is an interesting exercise to ponder what might have happened had they been allowed to follow Lehman into bankruptcy and disgrace.

What this book does not do in any great detail is look to the underlying causes of the economic crisis. For good or for ill, Too Big to Fail rarely makes any kind of moral judgment about the overwhelming greed that was part of the system, from individuals who bought homes they could never afford to the bankers who raked in profits of tens or hundreds of millions of dollars a year as reward for convincing them that they ought to buy the homes anyway. This crisis was not simply brought about by a slow but steady downturn in the global economy; it was not brought about by extrinsic and uncontrollable factors. More than anything, it was brought about by untempered greed. In this regard, Thomas Sowell’s The Housing Boom and Bust provides very useful background reading. A much shorter book, it deals well with many of the underlying causes and provides important context that is only alluded to here. The Bible tells us that “the love of money is the root of all kinds of evil” and recent events have proven this to be true. It was the love of wealth and the social status it brings that came very close to bringing the nation to its knees. And, as the economy continues to sputter, the ramifications are still being felt.

It will not be long before many books are released, each seeking to provide the definitive account of the economic meltdown. This crisis will be studied by economists for years and will continue to fascinate the rest of us as well. To be the first exhaustive account requires speed. There are a few clues within Too Big To Fail that it was written quickly and with a strict deadline. Primarily, this shows up in a few sloppy editing mistakes–missed punctuation, a period in the middle of a sentence, occasional typos and the like. There are almost always errors like this within a book, especially one of this size. But in the case of Too Big To Fail I do wonder if the sloppy editing may just point to sloppy research. If the book was prepared in a great hurry, is it possible that the research was also completed quickly and without great care and the usual level of fact-checking? I hope this is not the case, but I did wonder on occasion.

Too Big to Fail, while unlikely to remain the definitive account of the crisis, is the first to the store shelves and is worth reading. Though narrowly focused, it provides endless interesting details about the behind-the-scenes wheeling and dealing that led to the massive government bailouts and, prior to that, the dawning realization that the whole economic system was on the verge of collapse. Sorkin’s sources, whom he will not name, were well-positioned to watch all of this unfold and their accounts form the heart of the book.

A dense but readable account of the behind-the-scenes battles, Too Big to Fail makes for interesting reading to anyone with an interest in economics. Those who have little interest in such things may wish to wait for the paperback or to wait for a condensed account. In either case, I’d recommend Sowell’s book as a very good alternative.

Verdict: Wait for the Paperback

Malcolm Gladwell is a phenomenon. He has written four books and, at this moment, all of them are on the New York Times list of bestsellers, two in hardcover and two in softcover. Add them all up and you find that his books have spent 420 combined weeks on the list. That is, frankly, almost unbelievable. His most recent title is What the Dog Saw and it is quite a bit different from the other three. Where The Tipping Point, Blink, and Outliers dealt with a single theme and carried it from cover-to-cover, What the Dog Saw is a round-up of some of the best of the articles he has written for The New Yorker. It is about twice the length of his prior books but very much the same in the style of writing and in what makes Gladwell both so popular and so distinctive–his way of taking two or more topics that seem completely disconnected and then building a bridge between them.

The book has a little bit of internal structure in the way it has been divided into three parts. The first part focuses on minor geniuses, not world-changers like Winston Churchill but figures like Ron Popeil who has made a lesser mark but a mark nonetheless. The second part looks at theories, of ways of organizing experience. Here we are challenged about how to think about homelessness or a disaster like that of the space shuttle Challenger. The final part comments on predictions and our ability to make judgments about people–their intelligence, their talent, their future.

Having finished What the Dog Saw, I’ve now read all of Gladwell’s books. I think I would rate this one at the back of the pack. It’s not that there is anything inherently wrong with it, but more that Gladwell seems to be at his best when writing at greater length, when going into greater detail. Also, 400 pages of his writing, hopping as he does from topic-to-topic, proves to be just a little bit too much, at least to this reader. I enjoyed the book thoroughly, but found it just a little bit too long by the end. I might recommend reading it in smaller portions rather than straight-through as I did.

One thing about Gladwell’s writing came into clear focus as I read chapter after chapter, article after article. It is his reliance on statistics and studies, often ones that are rather insignificant. Very often he relies on rather niche studies or psychological experiments to carry along his arguments. And often I wonder if these studies are significant enough that they should be used in such a way. I do believe there is value to be found in studies and statistics, but the fact is that if we look hard enough we can find something, somewhere that will help prove what we are trying to say. While Gladwell does have a team of fact-checkers following along behind him, I still do wonder at just how valuable all these experiments and studies and statistics really are.

For Gladwell fans, there is really no question: add this to your collection. For those who have never read any of his works, this might be a good introduction. Then again, I would probably be more inclined to hand someone The Tipping Point which is, I’m convinced, a better book.

Verdict: Wait for the paperback