Tetsuya Ishikawa
How I Caused The Credit Crunch

A vivid and personal account of banking excess. Tetsuya Ishikawa's story reveals how a young Oxford graduate found himself in command of vast sums of other people's money; how a novice to the mysteries of hedge funds and subprime mortgages fixed complex deals for billions of dollars in the exclusive bars, brothels and trading floors of London, New York, Frankfurt and Tokyo, and reaped the benefits in a colossal annual bonus and a luxury lifestyle.

Frank Partnoy
The Match King

The Match King recasts the meteoric rise of a remarkable yet forgotten genius. At the height of the roaring twenties, Swedish emigre Ivar Kreuger made a fortune loaning American money to Europe in exchange for monopolies on the production and sale of matches. It was a rare success story of a financial empire that continued to grow throughout the Great Depression. However, in 1932, when the true nature of his enterprise emerged, the 'Kreuger crash' bankrupted millions around the world.

• Frank Partnoy is a graduate of Yale Law School and is the author of F.I.A.S.C.O.: Blood in the Water on Wall Street and Infectious Greed: How Deceit and Greed Corrupted the Financial Markets.

Is the Greek alphabet all Greek to you? Is geometry your Achilles heel and does your knowledge of Homer have more to do with The Simpsons than the Sirens? From engineering and architecture to drama and democracy, the world around us is founded on the principles and discoveries of the Ancient World, yet our understanding of it is episodic at best. So if you've ever struggled with Socrates, wished you could formulate a logical argument or wondered whether the Romans really dined at vomitoria, then carpe diem and listen to this audiobook - it's never too late to learn.