Freefall

Starred review from March 29, 2010
Dick Hill gives just the everyman kind of reading to make Nobel Prize–winning economist Stiglitz's analysis of the financial collapse plainly comprehensible and a ripping good—if enraging—yarn. With harsh words for the right and the left, Reagan-era deregulations that set the stage for the catastrophe, the Fed's bungling, the high costs of the Iraq War, and President Obama's refusal to take stronger measures, Stiglitz is passionate and iconoclastic. Hill handles the financial intricacies with clarity and delivers the material with warmth, urgency, and erudition. A Norton hardcover.

The financial crisis has spawned a raft of audiobooks, but few are as lucid, constructive, and fair-minded as this one. A Nobel laureate and former chief economist at the World Bank, Stiglitz is a remarkably clear thinker and writer. While his liberal views won't be shared by every listener, he's equally critical of both the Obama and Bush administrations' handling of the debacle. Dick Hill's narration is spot- on: perfectly paced, warm, and comfortable with the material. (Unlike many people, he pronounces "Keynes" correctly.) Hill mirrors the author's conversational style, his exasperation and humor, and even his moralizing tone as Stiglitz lays out his suggestions for how America must respond to the sins of the financial industry. D.B. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award (c) AudioFile 2010, Portland, Maine