David J Lynch's Book Recommendations (Updated for 2026)

1

Secrets of the Temple: How the Federal Reserve Runs the Country

William Greider

4.3

William Greider’s groundbreaking bestseller reveals how the mighty and mysterious Federal Reserve operates—and manipulates and the world’s economy.

This ground-breaking best-seller reveals for the first time how the mighty and mysterious Federal Reserve operates—and how it manipulated and transformed both the American economy and the world's during the last eight crucial years. Based on extensive i

Recommended by Chris Hayes, David J Lynch, and Marc Caputo.

David J Lynch

I read this when it came out in the mid-80s and it’s always stuck with me. I’m a big fan of Halberstam’s writing anyway. You love him or hate him, what with his constant digression and everything else. The Reckoning is an account of the problems in the American auto industry and is the story of how America goes from dominating the auto industry and really being synonymous with it to losing a step to the Japanese. There are a lot of things I like about the book, but the nub of it is that he bases it in the wider context of American decline and the loss of American supremacy in the post-war period and the rise of the Japanese challenge. That was what everybody was worried about in the 1980s, that we were losing step to Japan and Japan was going to become the world economic power. That all seems sort of laughable now, but this book came out four years before the Japanese went into a long period of stagnation. [source]

Chris Hayes

Bill was an incredible journalist, reporter, writer, listener and mentor. He was always so so kind to me, and a role model. His book on the Fed is still, I think, the best one ever written https://t.co/SgaBOdbtmR https://t.co/Ib8Mywkxa9 [source]

Marc Caputo

Greider’s “Secrets of the Temple: How the Federal Reserve Runs the Country” is a must read. I never thought a book about the fed could be a page-turner, but he did it https://t.co/PDmGvJDEkd [source]

2

The Big Short: Inside the Doomsday Machine

Michael Lewis

4.4

Preview Summary

The real story of the crash began in bizarre feeder markets where the sun doesn't shine and the SEC doesn't dare, or bother, to tread: the bond and real estate derivative markets where geeks invent impenetrable securities to profit from the misery of lower- and middle-class Americans who can't pay their debts. The smart people who understood what was or might be happening were paralyzed by hope an

Recommended by Sheryl Sandberg, Barry Ritholtz, David Heinemeier Hansson, and 5 others.

David J Lynch

This is a great book. There has been so much written about China over the years and this is a wonderful read. A lightly fictionalised tale of this guy Tim Clissold and his adventures as a businessman and investor back in the early 90s when China was just starting to open up and western businessmen were salivating at the prospect of selling into China and this is a very warts-and-all perspective on the problems that westerners run into. The British textile industry used to say that if each Chinaman would just lengthen his shirt by an inch the mills in Lancashire would be running indefinitely. There’s a billion of them, and people thought: ‘If I could just get every one in ten of them to buy my product, I’ll be rich!’ What people don’t anticipate is that trying to get that one in ten to buy your product is enormously difficult for a lot of the reasons that Clissold sets out – the local politicians have their hands in the till, trying to get paperwork signed, trying to make sure that if you’re buying this factory the person who sells it to you actually owns it in the first place. Trying to get anything done in the early 90s was enormously taxing. [source]

Sheryl Sandberg

COO/Facebook

Michael Lewis's ability to boil down the most complicated subjects is like a magic trick. You can't believe your own eyes. He takes on important issues - from the 2008 Wall Street crash in "The Big Short" to parenting in "Home Game" - and breaks them down to the deepest truths. His combination of an extraordinarily analytical mind and a deep understanding of human nature allows him to weave together data and events to offer a fresh and insightful narrative. Whatever the topic, the result is always compelling and even thrilling. I am in awe of him. [source]

Barry Ritholtz

Michael Lewis, to me, is the preeminent narrator of the financial crisis. He is the guy who constructs the story better than anybody else. [source]

3

Lords of Finance: The Bankers Who Broke the World

Liaquat Ahamed

4.3

Winner of the 2010 Pulitzer Prize

"A magisterial work...You can't help thinking about the economic crisis we're living through now." --The New York Times Book Review

It is commonly believed that the Great Depression that began in 1929 resulted from a confluence of events beyond any one person's or government's control. In fact, as Liaquat Ahamed reveals, it was the decisions made by a small number

Recommended by Barry Ritholtz and David J Lynch.

David J Lynch

Lords of Finance gives you that alternative history, particularly through the inter-war years from the end of World War I into the Great Depression. [source]

Barry Ritholtz

It covers a 50-year period from before World War I and leading up to World War II. Even if you’re not interested in finance, it’s a great read. [source]

4

The Reckoning

David Halberstam

4.5

"In just 25 years we have gone from the American century to the American crisis," Felix Rohatyn, financier & social critic, sets the theme: the fateful challenge to American industrial supremacy. Five years in the making, THE RECKONING reveals a society that got too rich for its own good, racing thru its postwar prosperity, developing wasteful habits. Finally in the mid-70s it fell prey to an unli

Recommended by David J Lynch.

David J Lynch

This one sort of speaks to something I’ve long been interested in. We get this general education in schools that follows the basic themes of presidents and wars and that kind of thing and then there’s this alternative history of finance and economics, and Lords of Finance impressed me because it gives you that alternative history, particularly through the inter-war years from the end of World War I into the Great Depression. A buddy of mine described it as The Guns of August for global finance and I think that sums it up nicely. It’s a great history. [source]

Cover unavailable

5

Mr. China: A Memoir

Tim Clissold

4.2

The idea of China has always exerted a pull on the adventurous type. There is a kind of entrepreneurial Westerner who just can't resist it: red flags, a billion bicycles, and the largest untapped market on earth. What more could they want? After the first few visits, they start to feel more in tune and experience the first stirrings of a fatal ambition: the secret hope of becoming the Mr. China of

Recommended by David J Lynch.

David J Lynch

This is a history of the Federal Reserve. I tried to read it when it first came out and I’ll confess I didn’t get very far. I went back to it a few years ago and found it fascinating. He does a wonderful job. He sees the Fed as the real locus of power in the US democracy. Not the president, not the congress, but the central bank, and he does a great job of making that argument. This book was the first popular look behind the curtain of this very secretive institution. People think of the CIA as the secretive organisation, but the Fed is probably just as secretive or it certainly was at the time, in the 80s, and he shines a light on it. He also tells the story of how Paul Volcker, the chairman of the Federal Reserve at the time, really waged war on inflation, the great problem then in the American economy and probably in the developed world. He shows just how great the costs were of vanquishing inflation. [source]