A few days ago I finished an interesting book related to the financial meltdown in Iceland.
I really enjoyed it for two reasons. First, people likely understand that on the surface, Iceland blew up in the 2000s with dramatic fashion. However in reality, it was more than just bad corporate governance, there was massive outright fraud. Jared takes the reader through all of it in jaw-dropping detail. Second, broadly speaking it is a showcase of high quality work product on the part of the author, both in the description of how he went though his investigative process despite having no real prior experience, and how he built the seemingly boring SEC-equivalent investigations into interesting pieces of drama for the reader.
I would highly recommend this book to finance nerds as it’s very readable despite the high amount of detail mentioned above. The cultural aspects of a country like Iceland are fascinating, right down to the work culture amid mind bending “hours of sunlight” trends in the country.
What is the takeaway? Perhaps that you don’t have to be a genius to solve difficult problems; diligent, detailed work with original thinking goes a long way.