If you thought reading about derivatives trading would be boring, think again. Michael Lewis, who wrote "Liar’s Poker" and "The Blind Side" tells the story of the 2008 financial meltdown through the eyes of a half dozen men, none of who are likely be recognizable names to you, but who made big bets against the subprime mortgage market and were rewarded.

These men, mostly from small boutique—and sometimes barely solvent—investment firms are an idiosyncratic bunch. One is a certified sufferer of Asperger’s disorder. They are thought out of their minds because they had what was lacking on Wall St.: commonsense. They were sometimes ostracized because of their beliefs.

Much of the story is about how these half dozen or so men first did what every investor should do: examine what they are buying. When they did, they found mortgages bonds rated aaa but which contained mostly mortgages to people who could not afford the homes.  Many of the subprime mortgage bonds were full of mortgages that could not possible be repaid. Some mortgages were structured so that the borrower was likely to default when the first payment came due.

If only a small portion of the mortgages failed, the bond itself would implode. Their stories are sometimes hilarious and their methods often unorthodox as they tried to find out what the market saw in these bonds that they didn’t.  Many were filled with self-doubt, unable to believe that they could see disaster coming whereas the titans of Wall St. saw nothing but blue skies ahead. They spent a lot of their time trying to prove themselves wrong.  Fortunately, they made the investment in CDOs against the bonds, despite their self-doubt.

Their story, told with Lewis’s sense of humor, is delightful. They reveal a Wall St. that is insular, aloof and not nearly as smart as it think it is.

What is most frightening about this account is that the 2008 crisis was totally avoidable, if only Wall Street wasn’t so oblivious to the obvious. Anyone who looked behind the mortgage bonds being traded during the early 2000’s would see that they were doomed to fail. The market was simply unsustainable.

But the almighty traders and leading Wall St. firms never looked closely at what they were trading. Those putting the mortgage bonds together—as well as those in the rating agencies who dared not look into them—did so without scrutiny, not just from the SEC or the CFTC, but from the executives of Wall St. firms.

It’s clear that when it comes to evaluating investments in the traditional sense, that is without complex derivatives, most on Wall St. are no more sophisticated than the common investor.

But we, of course, get to pay the price of their incompetence.

They say if you remember the 60s, you weren’t there. Just Kids will jog your memory.

This is touching memoir by the “godmother of punk rock,” Patti Smith, and her relationship with the then equally unknown Robert Mapplethorpe who was to become the iconic photographer.

Smith met Mapplethorpe in New York City, after she had left her loving but insular home in South Jersey, abandoned college, and gave up for adoption the child had by a boy she described as even more callow than herself. Arriving in the city with literally a couple of dollars in her pocket, she embarked on a journey that many of us who in fact remember those times will appreciate: the desire to be an artist, to make a mark on the world under terms our parents could not appreciate.

But this memoir tells of her journey and the loving friendship the two of them enjoyed without self righteousness or sense of entitlement. Mapplethorpe would soon come to grips with his homosexuality but that did not alter the main trajectory of their relationship, which began sexually but evolved into one of where each was the other’s greatest champion.

From the telling of the small vignettes that remind us of how little material possessions meant to many people of this age in the 60s to the larger narrative how each eventually found their way to fame, this book, which won this year’s National Book Award for non-fiction, is a delightful read. Her seminal album “Horses,” which has been recognized as one of the top 100 albums of all time, included a memorable cover photograph by Mapplethorpe, who died of AIDS in 1989. While this album launched her career, which has been as much about her poetry and visual art as music, preceded his fame. He eventually became known as the photographer of images that were as disturbing as they were groundbreaking. Yet in this book, which is obviously sympathetic to him, reveals a sensitive and thoughtful—and yes, somewhat self-absorbed—young man.

They both had a strong religious upbringing, and we see in Just Kids how it shaped their art. We also see how others in New York at that time, Andy Warhol, Sam Shepard, Bob Dylan among them, impacted their art. It is a book about a time that some of us remember, however we try to deny it. Or perhaps of a time as we would like to remember it.

“We program our computers and thereafter they program us.”

Nicolas Carr’s “2001” conclusions can seem over the top, especially in the final chapters of his study of “What the Internet is Doing to Our Brains,” the subtitle to his book The Shallows. But if you’re skeptical of hyperbole, there’s much to recommend this book.

First, his research is impressive, though reading about some of the psychological studies can be tedious. But in the early portions of the book, his documentation of the history of reading and the impact the printed word has had on society is a fascinating read.

His main thesis is that reading on the Internet, with numerous hyperlinks and other links on the page “change the way we use, experience and understand the content.” And it’s not for the better. He believes that reading this way makes it hard to concentrate and ultimately, hard to reason and think creatively.

He also believes social networking sites create self-consciousness, particularly younger folks. My own experience tends to confirm that idea: One person I know, who shall remain nameless, sends and receives more than 3,000 texts a month. That’s 100 per day. Personally, I have a Facebook account but find most of the posts by my friends to be drivel. About the only posts I make are links to my blogs.

But many of Carr’s conclusions seem to mirror my own experience as a slave to the Internet.

What makes this book interesting is that Carr’s conclusions are supported by dozens of experiments and studies that he cites in the book. One for example, which he believes supports the theory that using the ‘Net makes us dumber, is one where two groups similar in cognitive function were asked to solve a simple problem on a computer. The first group used software that provided clues and helpful hints. The second group used a very basic software that simply allowed them to complete the tasks (it required moving blocks into a defined order) with no hints or clues. Although the first group started out better, they quickly fell behind and the second group solved the puzzle more quickly because, Carr argues, they had to think more creatively than the first group, which became lazy and dependent on the hints. Dependent, and Carr argues, constrained by the software. Repeating the study yielded the same results.

The Googling of America is not only making us all less creative but is leading to an homogenization of thought. By looking at citations in scholarly papers from 1945 to 2008, he finds today, with online access to sources, such papers cite fewer sources than older papers—before the Internet. This is caused in part by Google’s algorithms that produce results based on the popularity of the click throughs on those results, thereby making it more difficult to find the less often cited papers that may change our conclusions. Googling also tend to emphasize the most recent papers so that we overvalue what’s happening now.

Finally, Carr contends that all the time we spend absorbing myriad facts and information bits reduces the time we should spend contemplating, i.e., thinking.

After he finished the book, he heard of a new development that he added as an epilogue. A large educational testing firm developed new software that would review students’ essays and grade them. The result is that the student can only achieve high marks if he conforms to the parameters established by the software. Where is the evaluation of creativity and writing that is unusual yet compelling?

Indeed, how compelling and creative can we be if our information is filtered and presented in a way that precludes contemplation?

Why do people hate government?  Intrusive?  Proliferous?  Bureaucratic?  Costly?  I vote for “None of the above.”  Rather I think attorney Philip Howard finds the culprit:  laws.  They’re designed not to work.  That’s not the intentional, of course, but it’s the outcome of laws written in such detail and so process-laden that those charged with implementing them, the much maligned bureaucrats, can’t do anything more than mind the process to see that it’s followed, consequence and commonsense be damned.

Which is why he titles his book “The Death of Common Sense:  How Law is Suffocating America.”   I learned of this book after reading a David Brooks column.  I thought it was a recent book, but it was written in 1995.  Yet it captures, I think, why government is so mistrusted (even though most folks can name a few big programs they love: think Medicare and Social Security).  Laws today are nothing more than byzantine processes that bureaucrats are bound to follow.  If a situation arises that defies commonsense, procedure prevails. 

Howard believes this all started with the Civil Rights Act.  While he agrees with the need for the law, it spurred a raft of legislation that was more concerned that no one was denied something they had a right to than in solving problems.  “Rules replaced thinking.  Process replaced responsibility.”

The book is filled with anecdotes, maybe too many, but they drive home the point.  For example, he cites the case in New York City where officials were offered a chance to try out portable public restrooms.  They would be placed curbside, similar to what you find in Europe.  But once the project was announced, the disabled community threatened a law suit unless every one of the units were wheelchair accessible.  The experiment died before it was started.  The rights of the disabled community trumped the benefit the rest of us would have enjoyed.

Howard points out that laws used to be relatively brief documents.  The one that authorized the Interstate Highway system ran 28 pages.  By now we all know that the Obama health care law consumed about 2,000 pages.  Today laws are laden with detailed process that commands more detailed regulations so as to ensure that no one is treated unfairly.  What’s missing today is personal responsibility, Howard argues.  Rather, he would prefer that laws set out priorities and intentions, and we let the bureaucrats implement them and be responsible for the outcomes.

Therein, lies the rub, of course.  Would those same  (hated) bureaucrats pervert the laws intention to match their own prejudices.  Or would laws change dramatically depending on who were in the appointed positions in the bureaucracy? 

It would be easy to dismiss the book as a thinly veiled attempt by a conservative to do just that.  I’m not sure of Howard’s political persuasion, but the legal reform coalition he chairs has a mix of both left and right on the advisory board.  Whatever his political views may be, progressives, especially, might listen closely to his argument and find that things like tort reform and personal responsibility have their merits.  That is, if you want government to accomplish anything.