Ponzi's Scheme

The True Story of a Financial Legend

By: Mitchell Zuckoff

Narrated by: Grover Gardner

Length: 9 hrs and 57 mins

Publisher's summary

You’ve heard of the scheme. Now comes the man behind it. In Mitchell Zuckoff's exhilarating book, the first nonfiction account of Charles Ponzi, we meet the charismatic rogue who launched the most famous and extraordinary scam in the annals of American finance.

It was a time when anything seemed possible - instant wealth, glittering fame, fabulous luxury - and for a run of magical weeks in the spring and summer of 1920, Charles Ponzi made it all come true. Promising to double investors’ money in three months, the dapper, charming Ponzi raised the “rob Peter to pay Paul” scam to an art form and raked in millions at his office in downtown Boston. Ponzi’s Scheme is the amazing true story of the irresistible scoundrel who launched the most successful scheme of financial alchemy in modern history - and uttered the first roar of the Roaring 20s.

Ponzi may have been a charlatan, but he was also a wonderfully likable man. His intentions were noble, his manners impeccable, his sales pitch enchanting. Born to a genteel Italian family, he immigrated to the United States with big dreams but no money. Only after he became hopelessly enamored of a stenographer named Rose Gnecco and persuaded her to marry him did Ponzi light on the means to make his dreams come true. His true motive was not greed but love.

With rich narrative skill, Mitchell Zuckoff conjures up the feverish atmosphere of Boston during the weeks when Ponzi’s bubble grew bigger and bigger. At the peak of his success, Ponzi was taking in more than $2 million a week. And then his house of cards came crashing down - thanks in large part to the relentless investigative reporting of Richard Grozier’s Boston Post.

In Zuckoff's hands, Ponzi is no mere swindler; instead he is appealing and magnetic, a colorful and poignant figure, someone who struggled his whole life to attain great wealth and who sincerely believed - to the very end - that he could have made good on his investment promises if only he’d had enough time. Ponzi is a classic American tale of immigrant life and the dream of success, and the unexpectedly moving story of a man who - for a fleeting, illusory moment - attained it all.

©2005 Mitchell Zuckoff (P)2005 Books on Tape, Inc.

Critic reviews

"Zuckoff...tells Ponzi's story amicably and briskly, and keeps the complicated financial intricacies understandable." (The New York Times Book Review)

"Zuckoff's biography of Ponzi is meticulously accurate, based on memoirs and newspaper accounts of the day, weaving the story of the rise of this small-time Italian immigrant with that of Richard Grozier, second-generation editor of the Boston Post." (Booklist)

“For Charles Ponzi, a poor Italian immigrant with big dreams and grand schemes, the streets of America truly were paved with gold. In Mitchell Zuckoff’s hands, the get-rich-quick saga of Ponzi is a portrait of America in the Roaring Twenties - a time of innocence and greed, of rogues, rascals, and reformers. It’s hard not to root for Ponzi as he tiptoes along a financial high wire of his own creation, high above his immigrant investors cheering him on and the Boston Brahmins hoping for him to fall. Zuckoff spins a tale rich in intrigue, corruption, betrayal - and love. It is a story that resonates today, in an age of financial scandals ranging from Enron to Martha Stewart.” (Mike Stanton, author of The Prince of Providence)

A great book

I have seldom enjoyed a book more, and Grover Gardner's reading as always is the best! An inciteful look at the 20's and at the shambles that was (and still is?) Boston politics.

Informative and entertaining

This is the type of publication that is perfect as an audiobook. The author tells the facts about Ponzi, in a way that makes it as entertaining and dramatic as good fiction. There?s a lot of material on the subject of Ponzi and Boston in the 20?s, and I?m sure some of it could have been left out without compromising the book. But it is an entertaining insight in the man, Ponzi, and in the mechanisms that lead to the dramatic end of the story.

The reading was good, but the writing wasn't

The reading was good, but the writing wasn't as cohesive as I'd hoped. The story lines were a bit disparate.

How stupid can people be???

What a fun book to listen to! It's hard to believe that people in the 20's were that gullible. But, given all the TARP money that Washington has handed out, maybe we haven't changed that much. I actually liked Charles Ponzi at the end of the book....

A great listen!

I found this book to be VERY interesting and like Ponzi thru out the book. I only wish the story was longer. It was a good way to learn about the man, and frankly I liked him very much.