Rags to Riches to Rags to Riches

THE great bubbleâ??and the financial market meltdown that followed its bursting in September 2008â??produced a publishing bubble of its own. Dozens of crisis books have hit the shelves, only for most of them to crash into instant oblivion. A few were page-turners, such as Andrew Ross Sorkinâ??s 2009 bestseller, â??Too Big To Failâ?, and Michael Lewisâ??s â??The Big Shortâ?, published the following year. But so many of them were turgid, me-too accounts by self-proclaimed insiders or ignored Cassandras trying to pin the blame on someone, or everyone, else. This was a subprime book market, long on conspiracy theory, short on insight.