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OK- I've come up with four options related to "Wall Street" that are currently on the various best-sellers lists:
The Tipping Point by Malcom Gladwell
BOOK EXCERPT
"When we say that a handful of East Village kids started the Hush Puppies epidemic, or that the scattering of the residents of a few housing projects was sufficient to start Baltimore's syphilis epidemic, what we are really saying is that in a given process or system some people matter more than others. This is not, on the face of it, a particularly radical notion. Economists often talk about the 80/20 Principle, which is the idea that in any situation roughly 80 percent of the 'work' will be done by 20 percent of the participants. In most societies, 20 percent of criminals commit 80 percent of crimes. Twenty percent of motorists cause 80 percent of all accidents. Twenty percent of beer drinkers drink 80 percent of all beer. When it comes to epidemics, though, this disproportionality becomes even more extreme: a tiny percentage of people do the majority of the work."
-- from the first chapter of 'The Tipping Point'
HOUSE OF CARDS A Tale of Hubris and Wretched Excess on Wall Street
By William D. Cohan
As William D. Cohan makes clear in his engrossing new book, “House of Cards,” Bear Stearns is also a kind of microcosm of what went wrong on Wall Street — from bad business decisions to a lack of oversight to greedy, arrogant C.E.O.’s — and a parable about how the second Gilded Age came slamming to a fast and furious end.
Mr. Cohan, a former investment banker and the author of “The Last Tycoons,” a 2007 book about Lazard Frères & Company, gives us in these pages a chilling, almost minute-by-minute account of the 10, vertigo-inducing days that one year ago revealed Bear Stearns to be a flimsy house of cards in a perfect storm.
The Ascent of Money by Niall Ferguson
And in his latest book, “The Ascent of Money” — humbly subtitled “A Financial History of the World” — Ferguson takes us on an often enlightening and enjoyable spelunking tour through the underside of great events, a lesson in how the most successful great powers have always been underpinned by smart money. “The ascent of money has been essential to the ascent of man,” he writes, making a conscious reference to the BBC production he loved as a boy, Jacob Bronowski’s “Ascent of Man.” (In fact, like Ferguson’s three previous books, “Colossus,” “Empire” and “The War of the World,” “The Ascent of Money” was written as a companion to a TV documentary series.)
“Behind each great historical phenomenon there lies a financial secret,” Ferguson says. He goes into fascinating detail about how “it was Nathan Roth¬schild as much as the Duke of Wellington who defeated Napoleon at Waterloo” by selling bonds and stockpiling gold for the British Army. The richest bankers on the Continent in the 19th century, the Rothschilds became known as die Finanzbonaparten (the Bonapartes of finance). And, as Ferguson argues, they also played a crucial part in the South’s defeat in the Civil War by declining to invest in Confederate cotton-¬collateralized bonds.
The Return of Depression Economics and the Crisis of 2008 by Paul Krugman
Publishers Weekly
As an economist in good standing, writes MIT economist Krugman, I am quite capable of writing things that nobody can read. Fortunately, Krugman, author of Slates Dismal Science column, is also quite capable of writing things that almost anyone can read. An accomplished translator of economics into English, Krugman (Peddling Prosperity; The Accidental Theorist; etc.) takes a look at the international financial turmoil of the past two years and concludes that, confident assertions of happy globalizers and bullish day traders notwithstanding, a great depression could happen again. Depression economics is back, he argues, meaning that for the first time in two generations, failures on the demand side of the economy... have become the clear and present limitation on prosperity for a large part of the world. Whether discussing the currency collapse in Indonesia, the travails of Brazil and Russia (and how they’re related) or the failure of hedge funds such as Long Term Capital Management, Krugman writes with invigorating lucidity and forceful opinion. Now as in the 1930s, however, one cannot defend globalization merely by repeating free-market mantras, even as economy after economy crashes. If his message is dire, his tone is light, almost jaunty as he calls supply-side economics a crank doctrine and ably articulates a Keynsian willingness to regulate markets in order to stabilize economies and minimize human suffering. Moving from concrete examples (e.g., the struggles of a Japanese baby-sitting coop) to stinging critiques of head-in-the-sand theorists, Krugman proves himself not only comprehensible but also well worth comprehending.
The Tipping Point by Malcom Gladwell
BOOK EXCERPT
"When we say that a handful of East Village kids started the Hush Puppies epidemic, or that the scattering of the residents of a few housing projects was sufficient to start Baltimore's syphilis epidemic, what we are really saying is that in a given process or system some people matter more than others. This is not, on the face of it, a particularly radical notion. Economists often talk about the 80/20 Principle, which is the idea that in any situation roughly 80 percent of the 'work' will be done by 20 percent of the participants. In most societies, 20 percent of criminals commit 80 percent of crimes. Twenty percent of motorists cause 80 percent of all accidents. Twenty percent of beer drinkers drink 80 percent of all beer. When it comes to epidemics, though, this disproportionality becomes even more extreme: a tiny percentage of people do the majority of the work."
-- from the first chapter of 'The Tipping Point'
HOUSE OF CARDS A Tale of Hubris and Wretched Excess on Wall Street
By William D. Cohan
As William D. Cohan makes clear in his engrossing new book, “House of Cards,” Bear Stearns is also a kind of microcosm of what went wrong on Wall Street — from bad business decisions to a lack of oversight to greedy, arrogant C.E.O.’s — and a parable about how the second Gilded Age came slamming to a fast and furious end.
Mr. Cohan, a former investment banker and the author of “The Last Tycoons,” a 2007 book about Lazard Frères & Company, gives us in these pages a chilling, almost minute-by-minute account of the 10, vertigo-inducing days that one year ago revealed Bear Stearns to be a flimsy house of cards in a perfect storm.
The Ascent of Money by Niall Ferguson
And in his latest book, “The Ascent of Money” — humbly subtitled “A Financial History of the World” — Ferguson takes us on an often enlightening and enjoyable spelunking tour through the underside of great events, a lesson in how the most successful great powers have always been underpinned by smart money. “The ascent of money has been essential to the ascent of man,” he writes, making a conscious reference to the BBC production he loved as a boy, Jacob Bronowski’s “Ascent of Man.” (In fact, like Ferguson’s three previous books, “Colossus,” “Empire” and “The War of the World,” “The Ascent of Money” was written as a companion to a TV documentary series.)
“Behind each great historical phenomenon there lies a financial secret,” Ferguson says. He goes into fascinating detail about how “it was Nathan Roth¬schild as much as the Duke of Wellington who defeated Napoleon at Waterloo” by selling bonds and stockpiling gold for the British Army. The richest bankers on the Continent in the 19th century, the Rothschilds became known as die Finanzbonaparten (the Bonapartes of finance). And, as Ferguson argues, they also played a crucial part in the South’s defeat in the Civil War by declining to invest in Confederate cotton-¬collateralized bonds.
The Return of Depression Economics and the Crisis of 2008 by Paul Krugman
Publishers Weekly
As an economist in good standing, writes MIT economist Krugman, I am quite capable of writing things that nobody can read. Fortunately, Krugman, author of Slates Dismal Science column, is also quite capable of writing things that almost anyone can read. An accomplished translator of economics into English, Krugman (Peddling Prosperity; The Accidental Theorist; etc.) takes a look at the international financial turmoil of the past two years and concludes that, confident assertions of happy globalizers and bullish day traders notwithstanding, a great depression could happen again. Depression economics is back, he argues, meaning that for the first time in two generations, failures on the demand side of the economy... have become the clear and present limitation on prosperity for a large part of the world. Whether discussing the currency collapse in Indonesia, the travails of Brazil and Russia (and how they’re related) or the failure of hedge funds such as Long Term Capital Management, Krugman writes with invigorating lucidity and forceful opinion. Now as in the 1930s, however, one cannot defend globalization merely by repeating free-market mantras, even as economy after economy crashes. If his message is dire, his tone is light, almost jaunty as he calls supply-side economics a crank doctrine and ably articulates a Keynsian willingness to regulate markets in order to stabilize economies and minimize human suffering. Moving from concrete examples (e.g., the struggles of a Japanese baby-sitting coop) to stinging critiques of head-in-the-sand theorists, Krugman proves himself not only comprehensible but also well worth comprehending.
No clear reason otherwise. I've read Tipping Point. It's good as well. 
But I'll read Krugman if that wins too.
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