PLG Bookshelf: Two Local Authors Get Rave Reviews

Mike Hudson and Seth Mnookin, two journalist/authors in our neighborhood, have recently published must-read books about contemporary crises.

Hudson, a staff writer at the Center for Public Integrity, wrote The Monster, an account of the complicity of Wall Street in morally bankrupt predatory lending and fraud led to the global financial meltdown. The deal that gives the book its name, a complicated fraud perpetrated on the economically unsophisticated, was the basis of a fascinating (albeit depressing) talk that Michael gave at Adult Education in November. You can read an excerpt of the book here. For what other people have said, check out these raves:

"Magnificently and heartbreakingly told. . . . What I appreciated most about this tremendous, well-documented book is that it shows vividly that really filthy, face-to-face fraud and hard-sell bullying are the original ingredients, the required counters, in the increasingly abstract financial instruments that brought the economy down around our ears."--The Boston Globe

"Whereas much of the reporting of the economic meltdown has been focused on Wall Street, Hudson has a talent for describing what was happening on the ground. He takes us on a tour of the financial carnival tent pitched by subprime factories like Ameriquest… Did some people borrow beyond their means? Certainly. But as Hudson demonstrates, the public was no match for an industry that lived off deceit fueled by Wall Street."—Time Magazine

You can read more praise for The Monster here and here.

Seth Mnookin's history of the dangerous anti-vaccination movement, The Panic Virus, came out earlier this week. Mnookin, a contributing editor at Vanity Fair, seeks to analyze not only the history of the anti-vaccine movement but the psychological and sociological reasons behind the persistence by so many people of a link between vaccines and autism despite the lack of any credible scientific proof. The Wall Street Journal calls the book "a brilliant piece of reportage and science writing."

This afternoon, Seth participated in a Q&A with the readers of Gawker, after that site posted an excerpt. You can read the excerpt and the Q&A here.

The praise has been rolling in:

Mnookin presents a thorough and lucid debunking of the claims of a link between vaccines and autism and the charlatanism and profiteering of those who publicize it. The result is a hard-hitting contribution to the debate and a troubling portrait of a public sphere that elevates intuition and emotion above reason and evidence. – Publisher’s Weekly

Mnookin has written a well-documented history of how this scare grew from a fringe phenomenon to a widely accepted part of the public discourse. That he manages to explain some difficult science and also maintain a page-turner narrative is a tribute to his storytelling skills. The result is devastating. To paraphrase Ross Perot, if the story Mnookin documents doesn’t scare you to death, nothing will. – The Herald-Sun, Durham, NC

I have read neither book yet, but hope to do so soon (I'm staring at my copy of The Monster as I type). Congratulations to both authors for taking on such difficult topics with such good results.