Books of The Times - The New York Times
Books About Bernard Madoff
Reviewed by MICHIKO KAKUTANI


Bernard L. Madoff arriving on March 12 at Manhattan federal court, where he pleaded guilty to operating a vast Ponzi scheme.


Bernard L. Madoff was not just the world’s biggest thief, who decimated the savings of thousands and wrecked countless lives, but he also became the hated embodiment of a gilded era that crashed and burned in 2008. He was a liar and a cheat who flourished in a bubble economy where people got used to living beyond their means; where cheap credit fueled pie-in-the-sky, get-rich-quick dreams; and where both the wealthy and not-so-wealthy bought into schemes that defied gravity and logic.

TOO GOOD TO BE TRUE
The Rise and Fall of Bernie Madoff
By Erin Arvedlund
Illustrated. 310 pages. Portfolio. $25.95.


BETRAYAL
The Life and Lies of Bernie Madoff
By Andrew Kirtzman
307 pages. Harper. $25.99.


As the investigative reporter Erin Arvedlund observes in her new book, “Too Good to Be True,” Mr. Madoff “personified all that was false, all that appeared to be upside down in the world” at a time when it was suddenly revealed that “homes weren’t worth what was once thought, stock prices stopped going up, all assets seemed to collapse in value at the same time.”

Or, as the journalist Andrew Kirtzman observes in his new book, “Betrayal”: Mr. Madoff was both “a proxy” for the sins of “financial institutions whose irresponsibility almost brought down the economy,” and a “frightening example of nobody asking questions when the going was good,” of a society in which few “questioned the sanity of subprime mortgage derivatives” or the odds of endlessly rising house prices, and in which government regulators were too hapless or lax to put the brakes on abuses and outright deceit.

The outlines of the Madoff story, of course, will be familiar to most readers, and both these books draw heavily on earlier reporting that has appeared in publications like The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, Vanity Fair, New York magazine and Fortune and in a 2009 PBS “Frontline” broadcast. Both books recount how this swindler used his legal business as a broker-dealer and his reputation as an innovative founder of Nasdaq to attract investors and elude sharp scrutiny from the Securities and Exchange Commission. Both describe how he parlayed the reputations of a few well-respected investors and associates (like Carl Shapiro and J. Ezra Merkin) into large followings in exclusive communities like Palm Beach and the Upper East Side of Manhattan, and how he used feeder funds (which steered clients’ money to him) to extend his global reach.
The full story at NYT.
Footnote:
And watch out for another being published 25 August by St.Martin's Press, MADOFF'S OTHER SECRET:LOVE, MONEY, BERNIE, AND ME, this is accountant Sheryl Weinstein's story in which she balmes Madoff for stealing her family's savings while revealing their extramarital affair.
I reckon there will be more books to come............