Holiday Book recommendations

Gluskin Sheff's favourite books to relax with over the holidays.

Breakdown: The Inside Story of the Rise and Fall of Heenan Blaikie 

by Norman Bacal 

In 2014, the Canadian business community was stunned when one of its most prominent law firms closed its doors. A few years removed from the firm's collapse, Norman Bacal, the former co-managing partner, gives readers an inside look at what actually happened at Heenan Blaikie, weaving in valuable lessons about leadership, teamwork and corporate culture in times of success, and more importantly, in times of failure. It's an emotional rollercoaster wrapped up in a fascinating business story.

Red Notice 

by Bill Browder 

This thrilling book tells the real life story of a hedge fund manager who dared to take on Putin and the criminal apparatchiks who support him, only to find himself deeply ensconced in a world of high stakes espionage and thuggish conspiracy. The book is exceptionally timely and topical, as it tells the story behind the Magnitsky Act (signed in both the US and Canada) to which Putin retaliated by banning the adoption of Russian Children by U.S persons. Sound familiar?

Grant 

by Ron Chernow 

Ron Chernow is the sitting Dean of American Historical Biography. His books on JP Morgan and John D. Rockefeller are fantastically rich studies of early American capitalism. His book on Alexander Hamilton inspired the Tony award-winning musical Hamilton and his biography on Washington won him the Pulitzer Prize. What we have in Grant is a study of a different kind of american character, one whose early heroism and military brilliance forever outshined his many flaws: drinking, poor financial choices, and often weak judgment of people. In many ways, Grant was the first "celebrity president" who never really lived up to the hype (or, in our parlance, disappointed the 'brand'), and so for many reasons this book is wonderfully appropriate for our age.

Adaptive Markets: Financial Evolution at the Speed of Thought 

by Andrew Lo 

Andrew Lo's powerful new book seeks to further our understanding of markets and investor behaviour, and is largely successful in doing so. The 'efficient market hypothesis' has always been a highly problematic theory in finance and Lo does a good job tearing it down, or at least suggesting an alternative view. His 'adaptive markets hypothesis' is outlined - with all the accompanying evidence and implications - in a broad, readable framework that can be enjoyed by professionals and hobbyists alike.

Janesville: An American Story 

by Amy Goldstein 

Shortly after the financial crisis HBO put out a fantastic documentary titled "Dirty Driving: Thunder Cars of Indiana." It told the story of the sub-culture of small-time stock car racers in Anderson, Indiana. But, as with all great documentaries, the premise was just the canvas upon which a larger story was being told. In this case, the story was about the evisceration of rust-belt America: Anderson, like so many mid-western towns, being the victim of a massive car plant closing only a year before. In Janesville, Amy Goldstein picks up on the story, rekindling the theme of the hollowing out of the American middle-class, albeit through a lens that now has the benefit of few more years of reflection. For those seeking to understand the wave of populism that has swept American politics this is as good a place to start as any.

Black Edge: Inside Information, Dirty Money, and the Quest to Bring Down the Most Wanted Man on Wall Street 

by Sheelah Kolhatkar 

This book has all the gossipy-styled portraiture that made the 1980's classics Barbarians at the Gate, Liar's Poker and Predator's Ball best sellers and must-reads for business school students of a certain age. It tells the story of the U.S. government's take-down of Steve Cohen and SAC capital, the world's most infamous (some might say greatest) hedge fund. A highly enjoyable read.

Devil's Bargain: Steve Bannon, Donald Trump and the Storming of the Presidency 

by Joshua Green 

In the years to come, when the world's top universities will have endowed professors of "Bannon Studies" (see Don DeLillo's White Noise), Josh Green's reporting on the rise of Donald Trump as told through his main political and ideological adviser will form the cornerstone of the syllabus. When read in conjunction with Janesville, one gets a fairly good idea of how America's political landscape has been redefined.

The Underground Railroad 

by Colson Whitehead 

Great fiction leaves you scratching your head wondering how the author managed to create such realistic characters and experiences, and Colson Whitehead has done this to great effect with The Underground Railroad. It tells the story of a slave named Cora and her struggles to escape the bonds of slavery in pre-civil war Georgia. Fantastically written with a well-paced narrative, it has hints of Faulkner and could be a distant (sturdier) cousin to Charles Frazier's Cold Mountain.

Capitalism Without Capital: The Rise of the Intangible Economy 

by Johnathan Haskel 

David Rosenberg writes and talks about this theme a good deal and this book offers us a "lucid and rigourous" analysis of the ways the advanced economies of the world have become increasingly invested in the 'non-physical' world. It's not just about developing the service economy but rather about the ways these economies are increasingly invested in 'intangibles' - design, artificial intelligence, R&D - and the ways in which that is posing serious threats to how we measure economies and respond via public policy.

Wars of the Roses 

by Desmond Seward 

Long before the Republicans and Democrats fought bitterly over every inch of advantage in the American political arena, two parties dominated the violent and often bloody landscape of early modern England. The nearly forty year conflict between the House of York and the House of Lancaster represents the most challenging epoch in English history. Allegiances were often murky. Murder and betrayal were commonplace. Nobody was safe. What emerged from the conflict was an England very different from the one that preceded it. To the modern observer there are lessons to be gleaned from the ways in which this all-out political conflict was waged. What is the cost of victory in a winner-takes-all political struggle? Desmond Seward does a masterful job of unpacking the turbulent narrative of the War of the Roses through the eyes of five characters of vastly different backgrounds and social strata. The approach works, as the impact of the struggle is understood not just in political or economic terms, but in human terms as well.

Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow 

by Yuval Noah Harari 

This is Harari's follow up to his highly lauded book Sapiens. Here Harari, a professor at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, looks to the future where data usurps language and humanism as the ultimate force in the human universe. Harari seeks to tackle fundamental questions about our relationship with technology and its tendency to dehumanize us. An extremely worthwhile follow up to his previous best-seller.

The End of Theory 

by Richard Bookstaber 

This book does three things. First, it is a clear and concise articulation of the components that make up a complex system, and illustrates how those components manifest themselves in the economic and financial world - thus rendering neoclassical economic analysis moot. Second, it dissects the financial crisis as seen through the lens of complexity theory to explain what happened, why it happened and why regulators were at such a loss to stop it. Lastly, it lays the groundwork for a new type of analysis, called agent based modeling, that is a much better fit for complex systems. 

Raising Men 

by Eric Davis 

This book is an instruction manual for how to raise a boy, written by a Navy SEAL and his teammates. Using experiences from his selection, training and active missions, the author distills out key lessons and presents them in actionable steps of how to teach these lessons to sons in the context of the normal world. This book is not about teaching your son to be able to live off the land; it is about developing the character, discipline and honour for him to be able to succeed in any team environment. While the lessons and teachings are equally applicable to daughters, the book acknowledges something that often gets lost in modern day parenting. Boys are different, they respond to different incentive structures, and have different needs. This book will help any man become a better father to their son.

Moonwalking with Einstein 

by Joshua Foer 

Have you ever opened the fridge and forgot why you did so only to discover hours later that you left your glasses and wallet next to the milk? If so, then this book might be for you. Moonwalking with Einstein is an interesting and detailed analysis of the human mind and how, just like any muscle in the body, you can train to enhance your memory. The book recounts Joshua Foer's quest to improve his memory under the coaching of top "mental athletes" (did you know there was such thing as the United States Memory Championship?). In it, Foer draws on research and personal reflection in this highly readable best-seller.

Dark Matter 

by Blake Crouch 

A mind bending, relentlessly surprising thriller from the author of the bestselling Wayward Pines trilogy. Dark Matter is a brilliantly plotted tale that is at once sweeping and intimate, mind-bendingly strange and profoundly human - a relentlessly surprising science-fiction thriller about choices, paths not taken, and how far we'll go to claim the lives we dream of.