A Good Book on Financial Crises

I am in Florence for a few days, having taken a very convenient Delta flight from JFK to PIsa on Thanksgiving evening. On the plane I intended to watch a movie I had downloaded for rental onto my new iPod Touch, which I finally and reluctantly bought because fighting the urge to not get one was becoming too exhausting and time consuming.I would really like an iPhone but I won't leave Verizon for AT&T.

Before I watched the movie I opened up a book I bought a week ago that someone recommended to me when I said I didn't know much about central banks. It's called "The Origin of Financial Crises" by George Cooper, who appears to be a hedge fund manager with a PhD in what is likely some scientific area, though his bio doesn't say in what.

Anyhow, I started reading it and couldn't stop, so I never got to the movie. It's written about 6 months ago, and explains why stock and bond markets are unlike the more or less efficient consumer goods markets that Adam Smith described, and proceeds from there to money, banks, central banks, booms and busts. It's very well written and I'm going to read it again when I get to the end. I used to think economics was a boring nonsubject, which says more about me than it does about economics, and I'm beginning to change my mind.