April 27, 2004

American Sucker, by David Denby

In the late 1990s. David Denby the movie reviewer for The New Yorker decided he wanted to make $1 million so he could buy out his soon-to-be-ex-wife's share of the New York apartment they owned. What better way to make that kind of money, he figured, than by investing it in high tech stocks? The market was rising daily, and seemed unstoppable. He started hanging out with the founder of imClone, Sam Waksal, and Merrill Lynch's famous high tech analyst Henry Blodgett. Denby fell hard for their hype and invested nearly everything he had in the tech sector.

As you might guess from the title of this memoir, Denby didn't make a million. In fact, he lost almost that much money. Because he's such an insightful writer, it's thrilling to read how he deals with his long hard tumble towards financial disaster. Buy from Amazon