Too Big to Fail

The Inside Story of How Wall Street and Washington Fought to Save the Financial System--and Themselves

By: Andrew Ross Sorkin

Narrated by: William Hughes

Length: 21 hrs and 4 mins

Publisher's summary

The Inside Story of How Wall Street and Washington Fought to Save the Financial System - and Themselves

A real-life thriller about the most tumultuous period in America's financial history by an acclaimed New York Times reporter. Andrew Ross Sorkin delivers the first true, behind-the-scenes, moment-by-moment account of how the greatest financial crisis since the Great Depression developed into a global tsunami.

From inside the corner office at Lehman Brothers to secret meetings in South Korea and the corridors of Washington, Too Big to Fail is the definitive story of the most powerful men and women in finance and politics grappling with success and failure, ego and greed, and, ultimately, the fate of the world's economy.

"We've got to get some foam down on the runway!" a sleepless Timothy Geithner, the then-president of the Federal Reserve of New York, would tell Henry M. Paulson, the Treasury secretary, about the catastrophic crash the world's financial system would experience. Through unprecedented access to the players involved, Too Big to Fail re-creates all the drama and turmoil, revealing neverdisclosed details and elucidating how decisions made on Wall Street over the past decade sowed the seeds of the debacle.

This true story is not just a look at banks that were "too big to fail"; it is a real-life thriller with a cast of bold-faced names who themselves thought they were too big to fail.

©2009 Andrew Ross Sorkin (P)2009 Penguin Audiobooks

Critic reviews

"Andrew Ross Sorkin pens what may be the definitive history of the banking crisis." ( The Atlantic Monthly)
"Andrew Ross Sorkin has written a fascinating, scene-by-scene saga of the eyeless trying to march the clueless through Great Depression II." (Tom Wolfe)

Detailed and gripping

Included more details than I have found in the other books and the story is overall fascinating to hear.

Thorough story, great listen, needed a chart to follow along

Story was good, details were most insightful but sometimes overwhelming. Narrator was excellent. If you don’t mind playing back some of the chapters, I recommend it.

Tremendous book!

Excellent book! It is an informative as one could hope, but as exciting as a great movie. Well done!

informative and a little scary

it was hard to listen of this book. Almost every page infuriates you because it seems like huge decisions that affect you and your money are made on gut feeling and the whims of the large investment bankers. what's perhaps more frightening is the government officials who actually make policy and decisions in this matter are good friends with all of the investment bankers. The story is mostly about the human aspect of the financial crisis and doesn't really go into theory realm -which is a nice change from most of the books trying to explain what happened.

Incredible, Incredible,Incredible...

The story is inconceivable but unfortunately true. You feel like the story is happening with you in the room. The writing is great and the narration is perfect. All I can say is wow and if you are on the fence about listening to behind the scenes of the financial mess, get this book. I thought I already heard it before but this book makes your hands sweat with the stress of hearing the downfall of America's old established financial giants. Wow!

Great story plagued by CONSTANT mispronunciations

Audible should be embarrassed by the sheer volume of mispronunciations--names, people, common words. I believe he pronounced maybe 2 of the law firm names correctly? If you can overlook a botched word every couple of minutes, the story is worth it.

amazing! this book is a must read!

loved this book. it really brings the 2008 financial crisis into context and it lets you live that period of time as if you were part of Henry Paulson's staff. Amazing book

Fast Paced Storytelling

I loved this book. I was not sure what to expect and this book completely exceeded expectations I had. I have a much better understanding of what went into the financial crisis in 2008 and the players that were directly involved. This book is not a technical review of finance but a narrative, story telling style novel that would make for great fiction....if it wasn't real. Can't wait for the movie being produced by HBO.

The Sorkins are Talented Writers

Andrew Ross is much like his father when it comes to capturing the humanity in a moment and imparting dialogue amongst characters. The book was vivid, richly detailed and the prose had me whiling away the hours, clear pictures in my head as the men of the financial industry dealt with their individual moments of realization of the looming crash.

Paulson’s constituency

Andrew Sorkin does a great job writing, the narrator performs effortlessly, and the tone-deaf bankers let themselves be quoted saying what tone-deaf rich bankers say:

“Paulson’s (US Treasury) constituency are the taxpayer, ours is Merrill stockholders.”

And at times there are moments of clarity:

“They think we are overpaid assholes.” Jamie Dimon

Yes, Jamie, nothing about you is worth millions/year. It doesn’t take a genius to take people’s savings, give them a fraction of 1% for lending you their money, so you can make 100% profit spreading it around…. AND if they’re poor, charge them overdraft fees for even $.01 worth overdraft.