50 Best Business Books

Compiled by James Pressley

May 28 (Bloomberg) -- With so many business books spilling from the shelves, we’re often asked for a comprehensive list of recommendations. Here are 50 of our favorite titles published since Jan. 1, 2009.

“Animal Spirits” by George A. Akerlof and Robert J. Shiller (Princeton). The two economists explore how psychology drove us from boom to bust.

“Bailout Nation” by Barry Ritholtz (Wiley). A financial blogger chronicles why the U.S. came to embrace bailouts.

“The Big Questions” by Steven E. Landsburg (Free Press). The Armchair Economist dips into physics, mathematics and economics to answer the eternal questions of philosophy.

“The Big Rich” by Bryan Burrough (Penguin Press). A galloping history of the wildcatters whose drive, ranches and gaudy mansions inspired the Beverly Hillbillies and J.R. Ewing.

“The Big Short” by Michael Lewis (Norton/Allen Lane). The author of “Liar’s Poker” tells the story of a loner with a glass eye and other outliers who shorted the subprime market.

“A Colossal Failure of Common Sense” by Lawrence G. McDonald with Patrick Robinson (Crown Business). McDonald, a former trader at Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc., offers a scathing inside look at how the firm became a house divided.

“Crash Course” by Paul Ingrassia (Random House). A poised account of Detroit’s slide “from glory to disaster.”

“Crisis Economics” by Nouriel Roubini and Stephen Mihm (Penguin Press/Allen Lane). The prescient New York University professor explains why booms and busts occur.

“The Devil’s Casino” by Vicky Ward (Wiley). A look at the destructive rivalry among Richard S. Fuld Jr. and four other men who rose to power at Lehman in the 1980s.

“Don’t Blame the Shorts” by Robert Sloan (McGraw-Hill). A history of America’s (misplaced) distrust of short sellers.

“The Education of an American Dreamer” by Peter G. Peterson (Twelve). The co-founder of Blackstone Group LP has led an improbably diverse life, as this disarming memoir shows.

“The End of Wall Street” by Roger Lowenstein (Penguin Press). A decade after capturing the hubris of Long-Term Capital Management LP in “When Genius Failed,” Lowenstein reports on what he calls “the mother of all bubbles.”

“In Fed We Trust” by David Wessel (Crown Business). The Wall Street Journal columnist shows how Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke and other policy makers dug into an emergency tool kit to keep the financial system afloat.

“The First Tycoon” by T.J. Stiles (Knopf). Fistfights, shipwrecks and market manipulation enliven this monumental biography of Cornelius Vanderbilt.

“Fool’s Gold” by Gillian Tett (Free Press/Little, Brown). Tett introduces a band of JPMorgan Chase & Co. bankers who pioneered some of the credit instruments that plunged the world into chaos.

“Freefall” by Joseph E. Stiglitz (Norton/Allen Lane). The Nobel Prize-winning economist describes the flawed theories and misguided policies that wrought the meltdown.

“A Gift to My Children” by Jim Rogers (Random House/ Wiley). The “adventure capitalist” distills the lessons of his investing life into an open letter to his daughters.

“Good Value” by Stephen Green (Atlantic/Allen Lane). The chairman of HSBC Holdings Plc reflects on how to rebuild trust in global capitalism.

“Googled” by Ken Auletta (Penguin Press). Is Google Inc. a force for good -- or for ill? Auletta explores this vital topic in exhaustive detail.

“The Greatest Trade Ever” by Gregory Zuckerman (Broadway/ Viking). A reconstruction of John Paulson’s trade against the housing bubble.

“The Great Reset” by Richard Florida (Harper). The crisis could allow Schumpeterian “creative destruction” to sweep away obsolete systems and make room for innovation, Florida says.

“House of Cards” by William D. Cohan (Doubleday/Allen Lane). The formerLazard Freres & Co. banker recounts the cocky rise and meteoric fall of Bear Stearns Cos.

“How Markets Fail” by John Cassidy (Farrar, Straus and Giroux/Allen Lane). Cassidy traces the dangerous emergence of what he calls “utopian economics.”

“How the Mighty Fall” by Jim Collins (HarperCollins/ Random House). The author of “Good to Great” and “Built to Last” turns to what he calls the dark side.

“Identity Economics” by George A. Akerlof and Rachel E. Kranton (Princeton). Decisions that shape our lives often hinge on our perceived place in society, not solely on a calculation of financial costs and benefits.

“The Invisible Hands” by Steven Drobny (Wiley). The co- founder of Drobny Global Advisors frets that taxpayers may end up bailing out pension plans. He blames Harvard’s class of ‘69.

“I.O.U.” by John Lanchester (Simon & Schuster; published as “Whoops!” by Allen Lane). Warren Buffett mingles with a Mafia don and zombies in this mischievous primer on the crisis.

“Keynes” by Peter Clarke (Bloomsbury). A succinct account of the life and work of the English economist.

“The King of Oil” by Daniel Ammann (St. Martin’s). The story of billionaire commodity trader Marc Rich.

“Jimmy Stewart Is Dead” by Laurence J. Kotlikoff (Wiley). The Boston University economist makes his case for “limited- purpose” banking.

“Last Man Standing” by Duff McDonald (Simon & Schuster). A biography ofJamie Dimon, one of the few Wall Street executives to emerge from the crisis with his reputation intact.

“Lords of Finance” by Liaquat Ahamed (Penguin Press/ Heinemann). A vivid history of how four central bankers brought on the Great Depression.

“The Match King” by Frank Partnoy (PublicAffairs/Profile Business). All about Ivar Kreuger, the enigmatic financier who cornered the match market in the 1920s.

“Meltdown Iceland” by Roger Boyes (Bloomsbury). A reconstruction of how Icelandic oligarchs frolicked as the island sank under debt.

“The Myth of the Rational Market” by Justin Fox (HarperBusiness/Harriman). A crowd of brainy theorists come to life in this history of the efficient-markets theory.

“No One Would Listen” by Harry Markopolos (Wiley). A first-person account of the struggle to convince the Securities and Exchange Commission thatBernard Madoff’s returns were mathematically impossible.

“On the Brink” by Henry M. Paulson Jr. (Business Plus). The former U.S. Treasury secretary describes his fight to prop up the financial system.

“Past Due” by Peter S. Goodman (Times Books). A richly reported look at how Americans became profligate borrowers partly because the U.S. economy isn’t creating enough good jobs.

“Priceless” by William Poundstone (Hill and Wang). Companies, restaurants and even artists exploit psychology to extract more cash from the rest of us, as Poundstone shows.

“The Quants” by Scott Patterson (Crown Business). A behind-the-scenes look at the turbulent lives of four quants, including Ken Griffin.

“The Road From Ruin” by Matthew Bishop and Michael Green (Crown Business). We need to stop the finger pointing and move beyond old ways of thinking about markets, the authors argue.

“Selling America Short” by Richard C. Sauer (Wiley). A former SEC attorney takes us on a lively tour of his fraud investigations.

“Soccernomics” by Simon Kuper and Stefan Szymanski (Nation; published by HarperSport as “Why England Lose”). A brainteaser of a book for any beach-bound soccer fan.

“SuperFreakonomics” by Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner (Morrow/Allen Lane). Why suicide bombers should buy life insurance and hookers work overtime around the Fourth of July.

“13 Bankers” by Simon Johnson and James Kwak (Pantheon). Unless too-big-to-fail banks are broken up, they will trigger another meltdown, the authors say.

“This Time Is Different” by Carmen M. Reinhart and Kenneth S. Rogoff (Princeton). Wherever you open this landmark study, you’ll find proof that debt-fueled expansions have ended in financial ruin for 800 years.

“Too Big to Fail” by Andrew Ross Sorkin (Viking/Allen Lane). A cinematic reconstruction of how the top dogs of Wall Street and Washington struggled to save the system (and their own skins).

“War at the Wall Street Journal” by Sarah Ellison (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt). An inside look at Rupert Murdoch’s takeover.

“What the Dog Saw” by Malcolm Gladwell (Little, Brown/ Allen Lane). The author of “The Tipping Point” is back with a new collection on topics includingNassim Taleb and Enron Corp.

“You Are Not a Gadget” by Jaron Lanier (Knopf/Allen Lane). The virtual-reality pioneer dismantles the tropes of the “Web 2.0” online culture and calls for a more humanistic digital future.

(James Pressley writes for Muse, the arts and leisure section of Bloomberg News. The opinions expressed are his own.)