How Enron went down, charisma and all that stuff. A very good book, a little less exciting than the amazing ADM thriller The Informant, written by Eichenwald. Both books about people, mostly men getting so wrapped up in their worlds they lose touch with reality, and thus forget the 'real world' outside their corporate doors. Palace madness.

This large (nearly 700 pages) book is not the sort of thing I usually read. It is the true story of the Enron collapse nearly 10 years ago now. But Kurt Eichenwald, a New York Times reported who covered the financial beat and reported on the unfolding story has written a real page turner of a story that had me reading late into the night, enthralled. Let's just say it is no surprise to me now why our economy is in the shape it is in. Greed and politics are no strangers.

The only weakness in the book is that it ends too soon, before you know what happened to the main players in the story, although a quick search of Google or Wikipedia will bring you up to speed. Suffice it to say, if you ever find yourself in this situation, make sure you are the first one running to the police offering to rat your fellows out. It will save you about 25 years behind bars. ( )

An incredible feat of writing and reporting. A totally compelling read! However, it made me so angry with corporate America- they never learn. The same companies and the same motives- "money for nothing, get your kicks for free" has propelled this country into decades of financial crisis, including the doozy of a crisis we are emeshed in now. How Eichenwald and his staff were able to understand what the hell Enron was even doing on a daily basis is beyond me. All it seemed like they engaged in was cooking up more ways to steal and scheme- like 5 times a day, every day. It makes you sick. ( )

Excellent book. First look at mark to market accounting that has gotten the US economy into the mess it is in today.

Conspiracy of Fools is the story of Enron, from beginning to collapse, researched and presented in excruciating detail. It's a horror story of greed, incompetence, arrogance, and willful ignorance. And it's a cautionary tale depicting the importance of accounting. (dusting off my accounting degree here) It's also thought-provoking, particularly with regard to the contradictory nature of American business--what's good for the actual business isn't necessarily what's good for the stockholders, and vice versa.

The first quarter or so of the book, I spent a lot of time flipping back to the the cast of characters in the front of the book, and being frustrated by the way it jumped between characters and POVs. After I became familiar with the major players, it read much more smoothly.

The other thing that drove me nuts for quite a while was that so many scenes were described with precise dates, sometimes even down to the minute. I kept expecting those times to be significant in some way, but they never were. I eventually realized that it was supposed to be proof of how accurate the research was, but I just found it distracting.

There's more detail than I expected, but in this kind of book, I appreciated that--it felt like I got a clearer picture of not only what happened, but why, and how it was allowed to happen.

Other than that, it was fascinating, and horrifying. Reading it was like watching a series of train wrecks, or a horror movie where you're screaming at the bimbo not to go up the stairs, but she does anyway. I'm glad I read it. ( )