Diary of a Very Bad Year

“Diary of a Very Bad Year is a rarity: a book on modern finance that’s both extraordinarily thoughtful and enormously entertaining.” —James Surowiecki, New York Times–bestselling author

 

A profoundly candid and captivating account of the economic crisis and subprime mortgage collapse, from an anonymous hedge fund manager, as told to the editors of New York literary magazine n+1.

“Diary of a Very Bad Year does something few of the books written about the crisis have accomplished: It delivers an insider perspective on the events in real time, rather than dwelling on conclusions reached after the fact.” —BusinessWeek

“HFM does a good job of teaching the reader how mortgage-backed paper, money-market funds, and credit-default swaps work, while offering up juicier tidbits about the ethics and legalities of his sector.” —Time Out New York

“A highly readable refresher on the financial crisis . . . Amazingly—and largely because of the anonymity he’s granted—the nameless hedgie gives straight answers . . . the book is packed with plenty of humor.” —The Wall Street Journal

“A short, illuminating set of interviews with one savvy, articulate Wall Streeter . . . A penetrating, educational and at times harrowing play-by-play.” —Time magazine



“A great read . . . HFM offers a brilliant financial professional’s view of the economic situation in real time, from September 2007, when problems in financial markets began to surface, until late summer 2009.” —Booklist