Bank Memoir

Explorer, naturalist and president of Britain's Royal Society, Sir Joseph Banks was a larger-than-life character best known for his promotion of science. In 1768 Banks joined Captain James Cook's expedition to the South Pacific. The 30,000 specimens he brought back generated enormous interest, as did the sometimes racy written account of the journey, which chronicled his frequent amorous exploits.

A gripping history of banking and the booms and busts that shaped the world on both sides of the Atlantic, The House of Morgan traces the trajectory of the J. P.Morgan empire from its obscure beginnings in Victorian London to the crash of 1987. Ron Chernow paints a fascinating portrait of the private saga of the Morgans and the rarefied world of the American and British elite in which they moved. Based on extensive interviews and access to the family and business archives, The House of Morgan is an investigative masterpiece.

It is commonly believed that the Great Depression that began in 1929 resulted from a confluence of events beyond any one person's or government's control. In fact, as Liaquat Ahamed reveals, it was the decisions made by a small number of central bankers that were the primary cause of the economic meltdown, the effects of which set the stage for World War II and reverberated for decades.

Thad Carhart never realized there was a gap in his life until he happened upon Desforges Pianos, a demure little shopfront in his Pairs neighborhood that seemed to want to hide rather than advertise its wares. Like Alice in Wonderland, he found his attempts to gain entry rebuffed at every turn...

They promised you'd be sipping mojitos on a beach while the money rolled in. Instead, you're eating cereal at 3 a.m., filming yourself for strangers who don’t care, drowning in debt from courses that teach nothing and coaches who ghost after the invoice clears. Charlotte Banks thought she'd finally escaped corporate hell when she launched her so-called "online business empire." Instead, she stumbled into a new kind of hustle—one dressed up in pastel fonts and productivity hacks, but just as soul-sucking as the job she left. Six failed ventures and nearly $50,000 later, she discovered ...

As one of the world's top salespeople for the Mary Kay Corporation, Gloria Mayfield Banks passionately inspires other independent consultants not just about sales, but also about leadership and how to achieve a balanced life that works for them. But life for Gloria didn't start out with success. Quantum Leaps shares how she overcame both personal and professional obstacles to achieve her dream one day at a time.

"Economic hit men," John Perkins writes, "are highly paid professionals who cheat countries around the globe out of trillions of dollars. Their tools include fraudulent financial reports, rigged elections, payoffs, extortion, sex, and murder."

Jamie Dimon is Wall Street's biggest player. Following the 11h-hour rescue of Bear Stearns by JPMorgan, his profile has reached stratospheric levels. And while the deals and decisions he's made have usually turned out to be the right ones, his journey to the top of the financial world has been anything but easy. Now, in The House of Dimon, business writer Patricia Crisafulli goes behind the scenes to recount the amazing events that have shaped Dimon's career.

Norco '80 tells the story of how five heavily armed young men - led by an apocalyptic born-again Christian - attempted a bank robbery that turned into one of the most violent criminal events in US history, forever changing the face of American law enforcement. Part action thriller and part courtroom drama, Norco '80 transports the listener back to the Southern California of the 1970s, an era of predatory evangelical gurus, doomsday predictions, megachurches, and soaring crime rates, with the threat of nuclear obliteration looming over it all.

At just 21 years of age, friends Todd Wilson and Scott McCarthy were virtually inseparable. The pair reported for duty at United Bank of Denver at 6: 00 a.m. on Father’s Day 1991—McCarthy’s first day on the job. They joined two more experienced guards and began making their rounds. By 9:30 a.m., all four were dead. The killer then descended upon the cash vault where he held six petrified tellers at gunpoint before absconding with nearly $200,000. Eighteen days later, the Denver Police Department arrested one of its own. Not only had retired sergeant James W.

What happens when you throw a combat soldier into one of the most dangerous prisons in Mexico? He either becomes prey—or he becomes a panther. For Gal Shefrau, a former Israeli special-ops commando, Mexico was supposed to be a fresh start. A high-risk job as a bodyguard in Mexico led to an even riskier obsession: high-stakes gambling, underground power struggles, and the kind of self-destruction that comes with constantly living on the edge. But as one bad bet followed another, he could feel his options slimming. And what is a man to do when he’s in the crosshairs of Mexican cartels and...

Dennis Banks, an American Indian of the Ojibwa Tribe and a founder of the American Indian Movement, is one of the most influential Indian leaders of our time. In Ojibwa Warrior, written with acclaimed writer and photographer Richard Erdoes, Banks tells his own story for the first time and also traces the rise of the American Indian Movement (AIM).

Supermodel and super CEO of our time Tyra Banks and her mother Carolyn show readers why when you kick perfection to the curb and showcase your unique beauty ain't nobody gonna stop you! In Perfect Is Boring, Tyra Banks and her mother, Carolyn, get raw, real and cray-in-a-good-way as they...

Adam Bierman wasn’t planning on selling weed—or developing a network of cannabis stores, or safeguarding his money in shoeboxes, or facing off with gangs in dark corners of parking lots, or taking on the public markets and justice system itself. But, of course, not everything goes according to plan.

Discretion, secrecy, and subtle strategy were the weapons of choice at Wall Street investment bank Lazard Frères & Co. For more than a century, the mystique and reputation of the "Great Men" who worked there allowed the firm to garner unimaginable profits, social cachet, and outsized influence in the halls of power. But in the mid-1980s, their titanic egos started getting in the way, and the Great Men of Lazard jeopardized all they had built.

As a private banker working for the largest bank in the world, UBS, Bradley Birkenfeld was an expert in Switzerland's shell-game of offshore companies and secret numbered accounts. He wined and dined ultrawealthy clients whose millions of dollars were hidden away from business partners, spouses, and tax authorities. As his client list grew, Birkenfeld lived a life of money, fast cars, and beautiful women, but when he discovered that UBS was planning to betray him, he blew the whistle to the US government.

Torn from home to home and running from heist to heist, his childhood was marked by violence, betrayal and upheaval. Faced with a heart-wrenching decision at just 12 years old, Peter had to choose between following his father's criminal path or seizing a lifeline. Ultimately, Peter rose from the ruins of his troubled past, embarking on a remarkable journey of self-discovery and growth.

In this fascinating tour of a celebrated city during one of its most trying, significant, and ultimately triumphant eras, Agnes Poirier unspools the stories of the poets, writers, painters, and philosophers whose lives collided to extraordinary effect between 1940 and 1950. She gives us the human drama behind some of the most celebrated works of the 20th century, along with the origin stories of now legendary movements, from Existentialism to the Theatre of the Absurd, New Journalism, bebop, and French feminism.

This account describes how a 28-year-old from Watford, Nick Leeson, plunged Barings Bank into ruin. In 1994, Leeson seemed to be making the company millions of pounds a week, but he explains how the cover-up of a colleague's small error led to the crash of Britain's oldest merchant bank.

Over the past three years, the notorious @GSElevator Twitter feed has offered a hilarious, shamelessly voyeuristic look into the real world of international finance. Hundreds of thousands followed the account, Goldman Sachs launched an internal investigation, and when the true identity of the man behind it all was revealed, it created a national media sensation - but that's only part of the story.