Roald Dahl was a spy, ace fighter pilot, chocolate historian and medical inventor. He was also the author of Matilda, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, The BFG and many more brilliant stories.

Roald Dahl

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Gary Stevenson

'If you were gonna rob a bank, and you saw the vault door there, left open, what would you do? Would you wait around?' 
 
Ever since he was a kid, kicking broken footballs on the streets of East London in the shadow of Canary Wharf's skyscrapers, Gary wanted something better. Something a whole lot bigger. Then he won a competition run by a bank: 'The Trading Game'. The prize: a golden ticket to a new life, as the youngest trader in the whole city. A place where you could make more money than you'd ever imagined. Where your colleagues are dysfunctional maths geniuses, overfed public schoolboys and borderline psychopaths, yet they start to feel like family. Where soon you're the bank's most profitable trader, dealing in nearly a trillion dollars. A day. Where you dream of numbers in your sleep - and then stop sleeping at all. But what happens when winning starts to feel like losing? When the easiest way to make money is to bet on millions becoming poorer and poorer - and, as the economy starts slipping off a precipice, your own sanity starts slipping with it? You want to stop, but you can't. Because nobody ever leaves. Would you stick, or quit? Even if it meant risking everything? 
 
This is an outrageous, unvarnished, white-knuckle journey to the dark heart of an intoxicating world - from someone who survived the game.

The Trading Game

A Confession

Julian Hoppit

It has always been an important part of British self-image to see the United Kingdom as an ancient, organic and sensibly managed place, in striking contrast to the convulsions of other European countries. Yet, as Julian Hoppit makes clear in this fascinating and surprising book, beneath the complacent surface the United Kingdom has in fact been in a constant, often very tense argument with itself about how it should be run and, most significantly, who should pay for what. 
 
 The book takes its argument from an eighteenth century cartoon which shows the central state as the 'Dreadful Monster', gorging itself at the dinner table on all the taxes it can grab. Meanwhile the 'Poor Relations' - Scotland, Wales and Ireland, both poor because of tax but also poor in the sense of needing special treatment - are viewed in London as an endless 'drain on the state'. With drastically different levels of prosperity, population, industry, agriculture and accessibility between the United Kingdom's different nations, what is a fair basis for paying for the state?

The Dreadful Monster and its Poor Relations

Taxing, Spending and the United Kingdom, 1707-2021

David Kynaston

A World of Its Own tells the story of the City of London's nineteenth century ascent to its position as the world's leading international financial centre. We witness the rise of the merchant banks, the growth of the Stock Exchange, the internationalism of the money market, and the characters behind these developments, like the mercurial Nathan Rothschild or the dour Joshua Bates. 
 
High history is interwoven with high drama: the burning of the Royal Exchange on a snowy night in 1838, the hectic making of fortunes from South American guano; the Baring crisis of 1890, when the city's most respected house was rescued by its keenest rival. A World of Its Own is at once a powerful narrative, peopled with extraordinary characters, and a brilliant work of social and economic history.

The City Of London Volume 1

A World of its Own 1815-1890

Yanis Varoufakis

**THE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER** 
 
Yanis Varoufakis, world renowned economist, writes to his daughter to teach her the hazards of capitalism. 
 
'Why is there so much inequality?' asked Xenia to her father. Answering her questions in a series of accessible and tender letters, Varoufakis educates her to what economics and capitalism is and why it is so dangerous. 
 
Taking from memories of her childhood and a variety of well-known tales - from Oedipus and Faust to Frankenstein and The Matrix - Varoufakis turns Talking To My Daughter into an enjoyable and engaging read, without ever shying from the harder truths. Greece's former finance minister explains everything you need to know to understand why economics is the most important drama of our times. 
 
In answering his daughter's deceptively simple questions, Varoufakis disentangles our troubling world with remarkable clarity and child-like honesty, as well as inspiring us to make it a better one. 
 
'Utterly accessible, deeply humane and startlingly original - a potent democratic tool at the perfect time' Naomi Klein

Talking to My Daughter

The Sunday Times Bestseller

Robert Harris

'Harris is a master of pace and entertainment' Observer 
 
'Could scarcely be more of the moment' The Times 
 
Nothing spreads like fear . . . 
 
In the secretive inner circle of the ultra-rich, Alex Hoffmann is a legend. 
 
He has developed an algorithm for playing the financial markets that generates billions of pounds - and feeds on panic. 
 
When one day his system is threatened by a terrifying intruder who breaches the elaborate security of his lakeside home, his life becomes a waking nightmare of violence and paranoia. 
 
But who is trying to destroy him? And is it already too late? 
 
'There are moments when this book feels so up to date it could have been written next week . . . spookily exciting' Express

The Fear Index

The City of London. Vol IV: A Club No More is the fourth and final volume of David Kynaston's epic history of the square mile in the modern era. This lively and informative book takes the story from the post-war era, when the City was hemmed in by bombsites and austere Chancellors, through to very recent developments, such as the "Big-Bang" deregulation of 1986. This is as much a social history as a financial study, with interesting discussions of the changing class and complexion of the City, and with fascinating details on the early computerisation of the big companies. As with earlier volumes Kynaston's style is that of an anecdotal storyteller. Colourful characters, dramatic boardroom struggles and heated exchanges between politicians and bankers dominate the pages.

The City Of London Volume 4

Between 1890 and 1914 the City of London was all dominant as Britain's legendary gold standard reigned supreme across the globe. Golden Years anatomises an elite at the height of its powers. Combining brilliant scholarship with high entertainment, and drawing on an unparalleled range of original sources, David Kynaston brings the city triumphant into the mainstream of British and world history.

The City Of London Volume 2

Golden Years 1890-1914

Oliver Shah

DISCOVER THE SHOCKING TRUTH BEHIND THE BUSINESS AND LIFESTYLE OF SIR PHILIP GREEN 
 
In this jaw-dropping expose, Oliver Shah uncovers the truth behind one of Britain's biggest business scandals, following Sir Philip Green's journey to the big time, the wild excesses of his heyday and his dramatic demise. 
 
Stunning praise for the book: 
 
'A detailed and entertaining dismantling of the 'king of the high street'' Guardian 
 
'Superb' Evening Standard 
 
'From the glitzy parties to the threatening phone calls, the larger-than-life characters to the speedy downfall, this real-life tale of hubris has all the elements of a Greek tragedy' City AM 
 
'Entertaining stuff, pacily written. Filled with colourful characters - and expletives' The Times 
 
'Shah has written a hard-hitting, often funny, ultimately sobering tale of how fortunes were made and lost in late 20th and early 21st century Britain' Financial Times 
 
Sunday Times Bestseller, June 2018

Damaged Goods

The Rise and Fall of Sir Philip Green  - The Sunday Times Bestseller

Dana Vachon

Mergers &amp; Acquisitions is the story of Tommy Quinn, a recent Georgetown graduate who has just landed the job of his dreams as an investment banker at J. S. Spenser, and the perfect girl, Frances Sloan, the daughter of one of New York's oldest moneyed families. As he travels from the most exclusive ballrooms of the Racquet and Tennis Club to the stuffiest boardrooms of J. S. Spenser, from the golf links of Piping Rock to the bedrooms of Park Avenue, and from the debaucheries on the yacht of a Mexican billionaire to the Ritalin-strewn prep-school dorm of his younger brother, he finds that the job and the girl are not what they once seemed. 
 
Sharply written, fast-paced and bitingly witty, Mergers &amp; Acquisitions is a compulsively readable story of Manhattan's young, ambitious and wealthy. Set against the backdrop of money, lust, power, corruption, cynicism, energy and excitement that is Wall Street, it is suffused with an authenticity that only an author who lives in that world can provide. A former investment banker at JPMorgan, Vachon offers an insider's point of view on the financial scene, and he knows the moneyed turf of Manhattan inside out.

Mergers and Acquisitions

David Edgerton

Out of a liberal, capitalist, genuinely global power of a unique kind, there arose from the 1940s a distinct British nation. This nation was committed to internal change, making it much more like the great continental powers. From the 1970s it became bound up both with the European Union and with foreign capital in new ways. David Edgerton's fascinating perspective produces refreshed understanding of everything from the nature of British politics to the performance of British industry. 
 
Packed with surprising examples and arguments, The Rise and Fall of the British Nation gives us a grown-up, unsentimental history, one which is crucial at a moment of serious reconsideration for the country and its future.

The Rise and Fall of the British Nation

A Twentieth-Century History

Guy Hands

Diagnosed at the age of five as severely dyslexic, Guy Hands managed to overcome the challenges of school to start his own private equity company, and in The Dealmaker he shares the ups and downs of a tumultuous career as a serial entrepreneur. He gives blow-by-blow descriptions of the huge deals that he has done over the years, first at Nomura and then as head of his own company, Terra Firma. He explains how he approaches each opportunity, whether that involves cinema chains, pubs, aircraft leasing or green energy. And he offers a brutally honest appraisal of the deal that almost bankrupted him - the acquisition of multinational music recording and publishing company EMI in 2007, just as a global financial crash loomed on the horizon. Above all, he gives the reader a real sense of what it's like inside the secretive world of private equity, describing in frank detail the pressures and rewards involved. 
 
Insightful and page-turning, The Dealmaker will prove inspirational and essential reading for all those who want to understand how huge business negotiations are done, and what makes one of private equity's biggest players tick.

The Dealmaker

Lessons from a Life in Private Equity

Niall Ferguson

In this groundbreaking biography, based on more than 10,000 hitherto unavailable letters and diary entries, Niall Ferguson returns to his roots as a financial historian to tell the story of the extraordinary Siegmund Warburg. 
 
A refugee from Hitler's Germany, Warburg rose to become the dominant figure in the post-war City of London and one of the architects of European financial integration. Seared by events in the 1930s, when the long-established Warburg bank was first almost destroyed by the Depression and then 'Aryanized' by the Nazis, Warburg was determined that his own bank would learn from the past and contribute to the economic recovery of Britain, the unity of Western Europe and the birth of globalization. 
 
Siegmund Warburg was a complex and ambivalent man, as much a psychologist, politician and actor-manager as a banker. In High Financier Niall Ferguson reveals Warburg's idiosyncracies but above all he recaptures the meticulous business methods and strict ethical code that set Warburg apart from the mere speculators and traders who inhabit today's financial world.

High Financier

The Lives and Time of Siegmund Warburg

Joe Mayes

AS HEARD ON BBC RADIO 4 TODAY 
 
Do you have what it takes to be the Chancellor? Find out in this interactive adventure where YOU are in charge, from award-winning political reporter Joe Mayes. 
 
“This clever, witty book is so much fun to play with. I loved it, right up to the moment that I was stabbed in the back by the Prime Minister.” – TIM HARFORD, bestselling author of The Undercover Economist 
________________________ 
 
Congratulations! 
 
You’ve just become the Chancellor of the Exchequer – one of the most powerful people in Britain. 
 
The Budget is fast approaching. And as you turn each page, you’ll face dilemmas and tough choices of every kind, including bailing out big business, negotiating with trade unions and managing the media fallout from your Budget choices. 
 
Will you overspend and trigger an economic crisis, or tighten the purse strings too much and crater your party’s approval ratings? Or will you play your cards just right enough to lead your party to victory at the next general election? It’s all up to you. 
 
Are you ready? 
________________________ 
 
“A political and economic handbook for our age” - MISHAL HUSAIN 
 
“A must-read for armchair Chancellors” - JEREMY HUNT 
 
“A fabulous choose-your-own adventure” - KITTY DONALDSON 
 
“Engaging, and highly readable” - NORMAN LAMONT

Can You Run the Economy?

An interactive adventure inside the Treasury

William D. Cohan

William D. Cohan's The Last Tycoons: The Secret History of Lazard Frères &amp; Co. is the astonishing story of the world's most elite and legendary investment bank - and the men who reigned over it all. 
 
 For over 150 years Lazard Frères had stood apart from other Wall Street firms by offering ultra-wealthy clients the wisdom of its 'Great Men': from Felix Rohatyn, the escapee from Nazi-occupied France turned financial genius, to Michel David-Weill, the inscrutable French billionaire 'Sun King'; from Steve Rattner, the boy wonder from Long Island who clashed violently with the old guard, to larger-than-life CEO Bruce Wasserstein, 'Bid-Em-Up-Bruce', who broke with the bank's traditions and made himself billions in the process. They amassed unimaginable fortunes and would stop at nothing to make a deal, until their titanic egos started to jeopardize everything. 
 
 In The Last Tycoons William Cohan, himself a former high-level Wall Street banker, takes us into their mysterious and secretive world, telling a story of ruthless ambition, whispered advice, explosive feuds, glamorous mistresses, decadent excesses and unimaginable wealth. 
 
 'Spellbinding' &amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;Financial Times 
 
 'A definitive account ... it lives up to the billing' &amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;The Times 
 
 'Has sent a jolt through Lazard and the rest of Wall Street' &amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;Wall Street Journal 
 
 William D. Cohan was an award-winning investigative journalist before embarking on a seventeen-year career as an investment banker on Wall Street. His first book, The Last Tycoons, about Lazard, won the 2007 Financial Times/Goldman Sachs Business Book of the Year Award and was a New York Times bestseller. His second book, House of Cards, also a bestseller, is an account of the last days of Bear Stearns &amp; Co. He is also the author of Money and Power: How Goldman Sachs Came to Rule the World.

The Last Tycoons

The Secret History of Lazard Frères & Co.

VINTAGE MINIS: GREAT MINDS. BIG IDEAS. LITTLE BOOKS. 
 
How do we choose between what is fair and just, and what our debtors demand of us? Yanis Varoufakis was put in such a dilemma in 2015 when he became the finance minister of Greece. In this rousing book, he charts the absurdities that underpin calls for austerity, as well as his own battles with a bureaucracy bent on ignoring the human cost of its every action. Passionately outspoken and tuned to the voices of the oppressed, Varoufakis presents a guide to modern economics, and its threat to democracy, like no other. 
 
Selected from the books And the Weak Suffer What They Must? and Adults in the Room

Austerity

Vintage Minis

Keith Wrightson

This important new book, widely praised in hardcover (Yale UP) redefines the economic history of early modern Britain for a new generation of readers.  Wrightson writes evocatively about the basic institutions and relationships of economic life, tracing the process of change, and examining how these changes affected men, women and children at all social levels.  Novel in its structure, scope, and emphasis on the lived experience of the period, the book vividly demonstrates the gains and costs of economic change.

Earthly Necessities

Economic Lives in Early Modern Britain, 1470-1750

David Enrich

Shortlisted for the Financial Times Business Book of the Year! 
 
 
‘Will snare you in its web of deceit ... A brilliant investigative exposé’ - Harlan Coben, bestselling thriller author 
 
‘Reads like a fast-paced John le Carré thriller, and never lets up’ - New York Times book review 
 
 
The Spider Network is the almost-unbelievable and darkly entertaining inside account of the Libor scandal – one of the biggest, farthest-reaching financial scams since the global financial crisis – written by the only journalist with access to Tom Hayes before he was sentenced to fourteen years in prison. Full of exclusive details, and with ramifications that stretch right across the British establishment, this is a gripping, real-life story of outlandish characters and reckless greed in the City of London. 
 
By turns a rollicking account of the scandal and also a provocative examination of a financial system that was crooked throughout, The Spider Network is a perfect read for fans of The Wolf of Wall Street and The Big Short.

The Spider Network

The Wild Story of a Maths Genius and One of the Greatest Scams in Financial History

The Wild Story of a Maths Genius, a Gang of Backstabbing Bankers, and One of the Greatest Scams in Financial History

Liaquat Ahamed

THIS HAS HAPPENED BEFORE. 
 
The current financial crisis has only one parallel: the Wall Street Crash of 1929 and subsequent Great Depression of the 1930s, which crippled the future of an entire generation and set the stage for the horrors of the Second World War. Yet the economic meltdown could have been avoided, had it not been for the decisions taken by a small number of central bankers. 
 
In Lords of Finance, we meet these men, the four bankers who truly broke the world: the enigmatic Norman Montaguof the bank of England, Benjamin Strong of the NY Federal Reserve, the arrogant yet brilliant Hjalmar Schacht of the Reichsbanlk and the xenophobic Emile Moreau of the Banque de France. Their names were lost to history, their lives and actions forgotten, until now. Liaquat Ahamed tells their story in vivid and gripping detail, in a timely and arresting reminder that individuals - their ambitions, limitations and human nature - lie at the very heart of global catastrophe.

Lords of Finance

1929, The Great Depression, and the Bankers who Broke the World

Tom Harper

From the pen of prizewinning author Tom Harper, this is a high-octane adventure thriller in the bestselling tradition of The Da Vinci Code. With a lingering sense of tension and unease coupled with all-out action and a plethora of twists and turns, it is perfect for fans of Dan Brown, Clive Cussler and Scott Mariani. 
 
'In the tradition of The Da Vinci Code, a page-turner of a novel. Like Dan Brown, Tom Harper knows how to ratchet up the tension.' -- Choice 
'Be warned, you could become so hooked by this big adventure thriller that the tide will be lapping round your deckchair before you notice' - Peterborough Evening Telegraph 
'Brilliant storytelling linking the past to the present! The level of detail and historical and geographical information is amazing.... highly recommended' -- ***** Reader review 
'A story that keeps you guessing and reading. It is hard to put down until the very last page.' -- ***** Reader review 
'A gripping yarn' -- ***** Reader review 
'So far everyone I know who has read this has done so in one sitting, some doing all-nighters to manage it.' -- ***** Reader review 
 
************************************************************************** 
EIGHT CENTURIES OF DECEIT HIDE A DEADLY SECRET 
 
Deep in the heart of London, the Monsalvat Bank is small, secretive and fabulously wealthy. When Ellie Stanton, an impoverished graduate student, is unexpectedly invited to join the firm, the offer looks too good to turn down. 
 
 But the bank is more than it seems. Soon Ellie realises that her life belongs to her employers - and they're watching her every move. For buried in their medieval vaults lies a closely-guarded treasure of immeasurable power - one inextricably bound up with Ellie's own history. 
 
 Now Ellie is in a race against time, hunted by the bank and pursued by her past. Her only hope of escape is to unearth the secret hidden in the vault. But getting in is only the beginning...

The Lazarus Vault

a pacy, heart-thumping, race-against time thriller guaranteed to have you hooked…

Simon Kelly

Simon Kelly's involvement in property development began when, as a computer-mad child in the 1980s, he started making spreadsheets for his father, the developer Paddy Kelly. By 2008, when the Irish property market crashed, Simon and Paddy owed their creditors nearly a billion euro. In 2009, they were the first big developers to admit they were bust - and they encouraged their fellow developers to face reality in the same way. In 2010, in the pages of a national newspaper, Simon Kelly apologized for his part in the long-term damage created by the property bubble. 
 
Until now, the story of Ireland's property boom and bust has been told only by people on the outside. The bankers and the developers have kept quiet. Now, Simon Kelly breaks the silence with this vivid and unsparing account of how it all worked and why it went sour. He brings us to the muddy fields, humble cafés and grand dining rooms where the deals were made; he explains how it was that debt always begat more debt; and he takes us through the hitherto opaque portals of Anglo Irish Bank, the Kellys' main lender. 
 
In an account packed with telling and indiscreet detail, Simon Kelly makes no excuses for ending up bust. He simply shows how it happened - to him, to other developers, to the banks, and to the country. In doing so, he courageously breaks ranks with the insiders who created this disaster, and who would prefer to blame 'international forces', bad luck, or one another. Breakfast with Anglo is a landmark in our national accounting of the present crisis, an essential read for anyone who wants to know how we got into this mess and how we might begin to think about getting out of it.

Breakfast with Anglo

Walt Bogdanich

Michael Forsythe

**A TIMES AND NEW YORK TIMES BOOK OF THE YEAR 2022** 
 
An explosive exposé of a firm whose work has made your world more unequal, more corrupt and more dangerous. 
 
McKinsey & Company have earned billions consulting almost every major corporation in the world - and countless governments, including our own. Shielded by NDAs, their practices have remained vague - until now. 
 
In this propulsive investigation, prize-winning journalists Walt Bogdanich and Michael Forsythe reveal the jaw-dropping reality. McKinsey's work includes ruthless cost-cutting in the NHS, troubleshooting for Big Oil, executing Trump's immigration policies (the ones that put children in cages) as well as advising some of the world's most unsavoury despots. 
 
'A story of secrecy, delusion and untold harm' OBSERVER 
 
'Makes you so angry...the evidence the authors winkle out is astonishing' SUNDAY TIMES 
 
'Panoramic, meticulously reported and ultimately devastating' PATRICK RADDEN KEEFE 
 
'A harrowing account of decades of dishonourable exploits' ECONOMIST

When McKinsey Comes to Town

The Hidden Influence of the World's Most Powerful Consulting Firm

Bread, cash, dosh, dough, loot. Call it what you like, it matters now more than ever. In The Ascent of Money, Niall Ferguson shows that finance is the foundation of all human progress and the lifeblood of history. From the cash injection that funded the Italian Renaissance to the stock market bubble that sparked the French Revolution, from the bonds that fuelled Britain's war effort to the Wall Street Crash and today's meltdown, this is the story of boom and bust as it's never been told before. Whether you're scraping by or rolling in it, there's no better time to understand the ascent of money.

The Ascent of Money

A Financial History of the World

Philip Coggan

What happens in the City has never affected us more 
 
In this excellent guide, now fully revised and updated, leading financial journalist Philip Coggan cuts through the headlines, the scandals and the jargon to explain the nuts and bolts of the financial system. 
What causes the pound to rise or interest rates to fall? Which are the institutions that really matter? Why is it we need the Money Machine - and what happens when it crashes? Coggan provides clear and concise answers and shows why we should all be more familiar with a system we so intimately depend upon.

The Money Machine

How the City Works

Gordon Brown

Former Prime Minister and the country’s longest-serving Chancellor, Gordon Brown has been a guiding force for Britain and the world over three decades. This is his candid, poignant and deeply relevant story. 
 
In describing his upbringing in Scotland as the son of a minister, the near loss of his eyesight as a student and the death of his daughter within days of her birth, he shares the passionately-held principles that have shaped and driven him, reminding us that politics can and should be a calling to serve. Reflecting on the personal and ideological tensions within Labour and its successes and failures in power, he describes how to meet the challenge of pursuing a radical agenda within a credible party of government. 
 
He explains how as Chancellor he equipped Britain for a globalised economy while swimming against the neoliberal tide and shows what more must be done to halt rising inequality. In his behind-the-scenes account of the financial crisis and his leading role in saving the world economy from collapse, he addresses the question of who was to blame for the crash and why its causes and consequences still beset us. 
 
From the invasion of Iraq to the tragedy of Afghanistan, from the coalition negotiations of 2010 to the referendums on Scottish independence and Europe, Gordon Brown draws on his unique experiences to explain Britain’s current fractured condition. And by showing us what progressive politics has achieved in recent decades, he inspires us with a vision of what it might yet achieve today. 
 
Riveting, expert and highly personal, this historic memoir is an invaluable insight into our times.

My Life, Our Times

Philip Augar

A revolution took place in the City in the 80s and 90s.  The cosy club of British merchant banking collapsed in a series of sell-outs, closures and scandals.  This left the City dominated by US and European giants.  Was this the inevitable result ofglobalization or did mismanagement play a part?  This is the first book to look at how and why the British merchant banks and brokers sold out, and where that leaves us. Augar tells this fascinating story with pace and drama, taking us through the Thatcher years, the crash of 1987, Big Bang, and the aggressive invasion of the American banks.  He looks at why the British banks failed to keep pace with the Americans, what this says about the way they were run, and what this means for the future.

The Death of Gentlemanly Capitalism

The Rise And Fall of London's Investment Banks

Bob Burg

John David Mann

The Go-Giver tells the story of an ambitious young man named Joe who yearns for success. Joe is a true go-getter, though sometimes he feels as if the harder and faster he works, the further away his goals seem to be. 
 
One day, desparate to land a key sale at the end of a bad quarter, he seeks advice from the enigmatic Pindar, a legendary consultant referred to by many devotees sinply as the Chairman. Over the next week, Pindar introduces Joe to a series of successful 'go-givers' who teach him how to open himself up to the power of giving.

The Go-Giver

A Little Story About a Powerful Business Idea

John Gapper

Penguin Specials are designed to fill a gap. Written to be read over a long commute or a short journey, they are original and exclusively in digital form. This is John Gapper's foray into the world of rogue traders. 
 
Unlike most bankers, they are household names: Nick Leeson of Barings, Jerome Kerviel of Societe Generale, John Rusnak of Allied Irish Bank. And now the 31 year-old Kweku Adoboli, who allegedly ran up $2.3bn in losses at UBS. These are the men who have bought banks to their knees and global financial systems to a halt. Each time the banks declare themselves to be innocent victims of a fraud. 
 
But why do traders keep on committing apparently senseless crimes, with little benefit apart from higher bonuses and a risk of ending up in prison? And why do banks, which should have learned the tricks of the traders, keep being deceived? 
 
In this Penguin Special, the Financial Times' associate editor John Gapper unlocks the mystery by delving into the evolutionary risk-taking instincts of both humans and animals - from yellow-eyed junco sparrows in Arizona to honey-bees. He reveals how banks encourage their traders to evade risk limits, and shows how the rogue traders merely mimic the strategies used by their firms to seem more profitable than they really are. 
 
A rogue trader is often an outsider who starts in a lowly role and gambles with a bank's money in a bid to become a star. Gapper traces patterns of behaviour and personality that could be used to catch them before disaster strikes. But do the banks really want to? And are the rogue traders just the symptoms of a financial system gone rogue?

How to be a Rogue Trader

Piers Brendon

Piers Brendon's magisterial overview of the 1930s is the story of the dark, dishonest decade - child of one world war and parent of the next - that determined the course of the twentieth century. 
 
Dealing individually with each of the period's great powers - the USA, Germany, Italy, France, Britain, Japan, Spain and Russia - Brendon takes us through the ten years dominated by the Great Depression and political turmoil. When Broadway, Piccadilly Circus, the Kurfurstendamm and the Ginza - neon metaphors of hope after four years of carnage - grew dim as the giants of unemployment, hardship, strife and fear took their hold. From the concentration camps of Dachau and Kolyma, the Ukraine famine and the American Dust Bowl, to the Moscow metro, the Empire State Building and the Paris Exposition, The Dark Valley brings the 1930's back to life through meticulous scholarship. 
 
Brendon examines the great leaders - Hitler, Stalin, Mussolini, Mao Tse-Tung, Haile Selassie and countless others - not with hindsight but in the context of their age; but also, through a vivid chronicling of contemporary experience, he gives us a sense of what it was to be living then.

The Dark Valley

Anna Minton

The inside story of London's housing crisis, by the award-winning author of Ground Control 
 
London is facing the worst housing crisis in modern times, with knock-on effects for the rest of the UK. Despite the desperate shortage of housing, tens, perhaps hundreds of thousands of affordable homes are being pulled down, replaced by luxury apartments aimed at foreign investors. In this ideological war, housing is no longer considered a public good. Instead, only market solutions are considered - and these respond to the needs of global capital, rather than the needs of ordinary people. In politically uncertain times, the housing crisis has become a key driver creating and fuelling the inequalities of a divided nation. Anna Minton cuts through the complexities, jargon and spin to give a clear-sighted account of how we got into this mess and how we can get out of it.

Big Capital

Who Is London For?

Joseph Sassoon

The Sassoons were one of the great business dynasties of the nineteenth century, as eminent as traders as the Rothschilds were bankers. This book reveals the secrets behind the family's phenomenal success: how a handful of Jewish exiles from Ottoman Baghdad forged a mercantile juggernaut from their new home in colonial Bombay, the vast network of agents, informants and politicians they built, and the way they came to bridge East and West, culturally as well as commercially. 
 
Through the lives these ambitious figures built for themselves, the reader is drawn into a captivating world of politics and power, innovation and intrigue, high society and empire. The Global Merchants is thus at once a portrait of a single family and a panorama of the hundred and thirty years of their prominence: from the Opium Wars to the American Civil War, the establishment of the British Raj to India's independence. Together these give a fresh perspective on one of the defining forces of their age and the present: globalization. The Sassoons were variously its agents, advocates and casualties, and watching them moving through the world, we perceive the making of our own.

The Global Merchants

The Enterprise and Extravagance of the Sassoon Dynasty

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The BFG by Roald Dahl

The Kumback II by Roald Dahl

Children's reading lists

Where to start with Roald Dahl’s books

Children's quizzes

Which Roald Dahl hero are you?

A photo of a young girl laying on the floor with a pair of headphones on, looking at her phone whilst she plays an audiobook

10 audiobooks for a listen-aloud adventure

How to be a great storyteller | The Roald Dahl Museum

How to be a great storyteller

Christmas gifts for 2025: Books for 6 to 9-year-olds

6 of the most gloriumptious Roald Dahl heroes

Are you Roald Dahl's biggest fan?

Ten hopscotchy moments in Roald Dahl books

10 hopscotchy moments in Roald Dahl books

A picture of a few sheets from the Roald Dahl activity pack on a light purple background

Crafts &amp; activities

Download the Roald Dahl Story Day 2021 activity pack

11 inspirational quotes that celebrate books and the joy of reading

A photo of a young boy holding a copy of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and a 'golden ticket' from the book. He is standing against a bright purple background

Make your own Charlie and the Chocolate Factory costumes

Things you didn't know classic Puffin children's books

4 things you didn’t know about these classic Puffin children’s books

How to write a laugh-out-loud story by Steven Butler

How to write a laugh-out-loud funny story

An illustration by Quentin Blake of The BFG holding Sophie in his hand

13 inspiring Roald Dahl quotes

A photo of the DIY Enormous Crocodile word game. You can see a child's hands holding the cardboard crocodile and in the background is the book Roald Dahl: Words

Make an Enormous Crocodile word game

An image of three classic children's books on a light blue background with a shape that has a star pattern

Showing results for: ‘roald dahl’

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