Books I Have Read in 2011

JANUARY - JUNE
CFA Level 3 Curriculum Volumes 1-7
(Quite a thrilling series. I am glad to be finished with that.)


JULY - DECEMBER
The Invasion of Canada: 1812-1813; Pierre Berton
(I picked this up on a whim. Who knew the war of 1812 was so interesting? Given that 2012 is a bicentennial year, you should do yourself a favour and read this book.)

Flames Across the Border: 1813-1814; Pierre Berton
(Part II of my war of 1812 experience. We have come a long way in 200 years. Gruesome naval battles, a lot of tomahawking, and an amusing chapter about the attack on Washington DC)

The Big Short: Inside the Doomsday Machine; Michael Lewis
(A fun and shocking read)

A Colossal Failure of Common Sense: The Inside Story of the Collapse of Lehman Brothers; Lawrence G. McDonald
(I got 2/3 of the way through and got tired of all the ranting and raving from someone who didn't have much of an inside view.)

Crash of the Titans: Greed, Hubris, the Fall of Merrill Lynch, and the Near-Collapse of Bank of America; Greg Farrell
(I have heard there are even better books about the financial crisis, but it's hard to imagine one better researched than this one. The Lehman book I was reading seems pretty silly compared to this one.)

Chasing Goldman Sachs: How the Masters of the Universe Melted Wall Street Down...And Why They'll Take Us to the Brink Again; Suzanne McGee
(My library loan period ran out before I finished and I didn't really mind. It was just OK.)

Liar's Poker - Rising Through the Wreckage of Wall Street; Michael Lewis
(This book is a classic for good reason. What a bizarre world.)

This Time It's Different - Eight Centuries of Financial Folly; Carmen M. Reinhart
(My library loan period ran out before I got to the best part, but I still loved it. Those Europeans have been defaulting for centuries!)

A Thousand Barrels per Second - The Coming Oil Break Point and the Challenges Facing an Energy Dependent World ; Peter Tertzakian
(A few years old but still a great discourse on the history of energy and how it changes.)

The Courage of the Early Morning - A Biography of the Great Ace of World War I; William Arthur Bishop
(World War I fighter pilots were insane, and Billy Bishop was their king. Dogfights in the days before ejection seats and parachutes!)

Boomerang - Travels in the New Third World; Michael Lewis
(The chapter with the Greek monastery rags-to-riches story was hilarious.)

The Hunger Games; Suzanne Collins
(I am a big fan of the dystopian genre, so I liked this one. It has a very engrossing plot, but is more emotional and less political than most -- which is fine. It essentially takes Shirley Jackson to the next level.)