Saturday, April 08, 2006

Kudo Roundup Time

I hate to admit it -- it pains me to have to say this -- but Wall Street Versus America has received all kinds of great notices, and it has been just two days after pub date!

Apart from the New York Times, Houston Chronicle, Publishers Weekly and New York Post kudos that came in between January and early this week, I've gotten awfully nice reviews from Knight Ridder Newspapers (see this pickup in the Newark Star-Ledger), Corporate Crime Reporter, Joe Mysak in Bloomberg and, last but not least, veteran financial journalist Don Bauder, writing in the SanDiegoReader.com.

Knight Ridder's Cecil Johnson calls WSVA a "provocative and insightful assault on Wall Street," and points out that my solution is not more (usually ineffective) regulation. Said Johnson: "This book is essential reading for anyone who has money to invest but doesn't have any to throw around foolishly. It is the kind of book that might make you angry while you're reading it, if it were not spiced with acerbic wit and skillfully applied satirical understatement."

Corporate Crime Reporter, a leading authority on white-collar crime, said as follows:

It’s not the same old recitation of corporate and Wall Street crimes that have bored generations of business school students taking their required ethics courses.

While it purports to be about Wall Street, it is in fact a biting critique of the elites that populate the Wall Street firms, regulatory agencies, law firms, and newsrooms across America.

Weiss spent 18 years as a reporter at Business Week. But he never wrote with this point of view and intensity.

The praise from Don Bauder was particularly gratifying. Don recently retired after many years with the San Diego Union-Tribune, and is one of the most respected financial journalists in the country.

Don focused on my excoriation of ex-SEC chairman Arthur Levitt (who apparently has gotten a nice gig in San Diego), and concluded: "Weiss's book is relevant to your pocketbook and to San Diego. Read it."

Corporate Crime Reporter's review, written from a different perspective, had the same conclusion: "Read this book."

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Wall Street Versus America will be published by Penguin USA on April 6.
Click here for its Amazon.com listing and here for more information on the book, from my web site.

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